I read The Egg And I by Betty MacDonald years ago and liked it, and also like the movie of the same name. A couple of years ago, I learned that the farm that was described in the book was somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula, but thought it was way, way off in the boonies somewhere.
Two weeks ago we were on vacation on the Peninsula, and were driving south from Chimacum, which itself is south of Port Angeles. The road is through a broad, pretty valley dotted with barns, cows, and pine trees. I saw a road branching off the main road, and its name was “Egg And I Road”! We turned on it and examined every farm on the road, but didn’t see a sign.
When I got back to our room, I Googled up as many facts as I could and saw that the book’s farm was indeed on that road, and saw the approximate location. All the farms we saw there were lovely and bucolic, but not out in the butt-end of nowhere. The current owners of this farm are hobby farmers from Seattle, and they sell organic produce and meats at a specialty market in Chimacum. They had never heard of the book or movie when they bought the farm, but have now given it the name “Egg And I Farm”.
I read that after Betty MacDonald divorced the chicken farm husband, she remarried and moved to Vashon Island. I’ve been there, too! It’s another rustic place, but has more population and things to do. In her book, she hinted that it was the isolation and boredom that got to her at the original farm.
I’m gonna say that I know where that farm is, and to my mind, if that’s not the boonies anymore it’s still real close. That said, the book details the late twenties, and I have to think that was way the hell out there back then.
Thanks for this little tidbit. I read the “Egg and I” because it was recommended to me here on the Dope (because I posted for recommendations for my rather niche preferred reading category of “memoirs by women who were mothers from the 1950s or earlier”) and I LOVED it, and it’s sequel “The Plague and I” about getting and recovering from tuberculosis.
When I was reading up on this subject, I saw an interesting factoid. MacDonald’s neighbors were a family by the name of Bishop. After the book and movie were such a huge success, the Bishops sued the publisher, saying that the characters Ma and Pa Kettle were based on them and that they suffered from defamation of character. They got a substantial sum, too.
I have thought of starting a thread in Cafe Society entitled Memoirs That Left Out Vitally Important Details, exactly with this book in mind* due to the divorce issue, which I only learned about during some casual research a couple years ago. I mean, how could she divorce him? They were so happy living on that chicken farm out in the middle of nowhere! <rereads book and realizes for the first time just how deeply depressed the author was>
*other example I could come up with: Caroline Sullivan’s Bye Bye Baby, in which the author recounts her years as a groupie (for The Bay City Rollers!) and somehow fails to mention that she was apparently married at one point to one of the main (non Bay City Roller) individuals in the book.
I think I mentioned The Egg and I Road in one of those “Odd Street Names” threads that come up here from time to time. We used to pass by it every time we went camping at Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island. We knew why it was named that, but, from some reason, we never tried to look for the farm. I think maybe because Pops didn’t want to get off the beaten path at one time or another so we just didn’t ask after that.
I was just thinking about Betty MacDonald on Thursday, when we watched something that had to do with tuberculosis. I had read all her books in the '70s, including The Plague and I and Onions in My Stew, which had to do with her experiences on Vashon Island. I used to take a bus that passed by the old Firlands Sanitorium where she went to recover from TB. And I have been to Vashon Island numerous times to visit family there.
I agree with the OP that the valley that the road runs through is beautiful. One of my favorite memories is when there were small scraps of fog lying across the road. We’d burst through one in no time and be on to next one down the way. I thought it just added a little magic to an already pretty scene.
I’m so glad you started this thread, teela brown. It’s been so long since I’ve been up to that area. If I could drive, I’d be there a lot. Thanks for stirring up some nice memories for me.
One tiny nitpick, though. Chimicum is south of Port Townsend, not Port Angeles. It’s easy to get the two Ports mixed up.
Sattua, I envy you for being there right now (or at least, yesterday.) If you live in that area, I’m going to turn green.
Two ports? We visited Port Orchard, Port Ludlow, Port Townsend, Port Angeles, and Port Gamble on this trip. All were lovely, and I’m still mentally up there.
I haven’t read any other of Betty MacDonald’s books, but now I’m going to go to a used bookstore and see if I can’t find them.
(hugs self) I do. We moved out here just this summer, from downstate Illinois of all godforsaken places. We’re loving it. It’s gorgeous, and yes, the mist! I like to say the dementors are multiplying. Some days it’s down when the sun comes up, and never goes away. Other days are clear, then at sunset it starts to rollllll over our back pasture and toward the house. More than once I’ve asked my husband if the neighbor is burning something, but no. It’s just the mist.
Yeeahhh … neither of us are Illinois natives, which has something to do with it. It was largely the weather that drove us out. We couldn’t handle another broiling, arid summer or another icy, record-cold winter. The tornadoes in between didn’t help, either.
Don’t forget Port Madison, Port Hadlock, Portage (where Vashon and Maury Islands join) and Portage Island way up near Bellingham. You know, we might just be a little Port happy around here. I, for one, always get Port Orchard and Port Gamble mixed up for some reason and I’ve lived in the Puget Sound area since I was a tyke.
Sattua, observe my greeness. You’ve settled in some lovely country.
I didn’t see this earlier but how cool is that? When I first saw this thread, I was surprised that anyone else remembered The Egg and I, much less knew about the road. Now it turns out a Doper has a relative who actually lives on it. Is this an amazing site or what?
To add to Dendarii Dame’s slight hijack, I recommend Minding Our Own Business by Charlotte Paul and Tatoosh by Martha Hardy.
This thread has for me, an interesting “takes me back” aspect. My British parents were, in the 1950s, quite keen fans of the USA, and our house contained books by a variety of American authors. These included The Egg and I, which as a kid I read with interest.
TE & I was my first exposure in any detail, to the US’s Pacific Northwest: a strong impression which I had was, “very beautiful part of the world – shame about the inhabitants”. I did “get”, even as a child, that MacDonald’s experience of poultry-farming in the back of beyond, was a much-less-than idyllic one, although recounted in a basically humorous way; and a big part of the humour, was her depicting the local people as very much not lovely salt-of-the-earth countryfolk – recounting instead, said locals’ assorted goofy and distasteful antics. I rather regretted, though, that the author chose to go this way: this was my first experience of a written work which is an “anti-Arcadia”.
