Mittge: Ten Years Later, a Musical Journey Into the 2007 Flood, and Beyond

The wettest December

Now we remember 

Tempest tossed, but we fought on 

Christmas, not forgotten

It’s been 10 years since the pounding rains that ushered in the Flood of 2007. In the Willapa Hills that rain unleashed a flood of water, mud and trees that ravaged hundreds of families and dozens of communities. I wasn’t a flood victim, but as assistant editor at that time for The Chronicle, I waded through the water in pursuit of the stories of my friends and neighbors who were hit hard. 

Instead of merriment and glee 

Those rains brought us misery 

Homes ruined, washed away 

Nowhere to go, but how could we stay?

Among the countless stories from those difficult days was the dairy farm where a small manger scene in the crossroads community of Curtis brought hope to the flood-ravaged people of the Boistfort Valley.

Pete and Cindy Dykstra’s Maple Water Dairy was slammed by the flood. The deluge covered the first floor of their home higher than head level, and the ravaging waters killed every one of the dairy cattle in the herd they had built up over decades. 

Their livelihood was gone and their home was a wreck, but amid so much loss, the Dykstras were thinking of others. 

Around the corner at the dairy 

Folks were anything but merry 

But they’d had it with despair 

So they climbed up the attic stair

The floods hit that year before they had fulfilled their longtime December tradition of putting up an illuminated manger scene on their front porch. 

Cindy tells me that they knew right away that their manger scene had to go up, despite the fact that their house and dairy were all-but destroyed. 

“It was really important to me and it was important to the community,” she said. “My whole family agreed that it had to happen. It was important, the effect it had on the community.”

That simple Christmas creche, glowing peacefully atop clean hay bales in a landscape of mud, delivered an immeasurably powerful message of hope, clearly visible to everyone driving into and out of the flood-ravaged valley.

“We’ve lived here all our lives and I can remember seeing it when I was little,” Curtis resident Denise Latimer said in 2007. “I did not expect to see it when we drove by. I just bawled. I was absolutely speechless. It is an absolute disaster and to think that they went through all this and then took some time to bring it all together, I was just beside myself. It almost gave everyone else permission to celebrate Christmas.”

The Chronicle’s photo editor at the time, the talented Mike Salsbury, took a beautiful photo of the manger, alight with color that shone brightly into a desolate brown landscape. 

Salsbury suggested an equally powerful headline, and then-editor Michael Wagar ran it as big as it would go as our Christmas Eve front page: “Christmas, Not Forgotten.”

They brought down a painted manger 

That proclaimed to friend and stranger 

Triumph from destruction 

Rebirth from devastation

Pete and Cindy Dykstra are still at their dairy farm in the heart of Curtis. 

During a flood remembrance event in Boistfort on Saturday, Steve Mansfield, who was Lewis County sheriff during the flood, recounted talking with Pete Dykstra and asking him what he needed the most in those first hours after the waters receded.

The dairyman said his most urgent need was to have help removing the dead cows from his dairy. They were causing distress and discouragement to those passing by along the well-traveled stretch of Curtis Hill Road just a few feet away.

“Dead cows were everywhere, hanging out windows. ‘Everyone is seeing that. If you could help, it would really have a positive impact on our community.’” Mansfield recounted Dykstra as saying. 

By the end of the day, donated TransAlta equipment had been put to work and the cows were buried elsewhere on the property, with lime for sanitation. Volunteers who flocked to the flood zones from around Lewis County and the nation were quick to help with this and other dirty but crucial tasks.

Beside a road out in Curtis 

A sign stood to alert us 

“Good Things Happen Here,” it said 

Drowned in mud — down, but not dead

How are the Dykstras doing now, 10 years later?

“We’re plugging along,” Pete told me. He has a grandson who works with him. They’re milking 28 cows, with a total of about 60 head on the farm, including newborn calves.

They rebuilt the herd thanks to donations of dozens of cattle from other dairy farmers from around the Northwest. In one of the most touching parts of the story, about 10 cows were donated from a farm up north that had depended on similar donations after it lost its own herd in a long-ago flood — and some of those cows came from the Dykstras. 

That’s right. The cows he donated to those in need came back to him after his own loss. He’s still milking one of those cows, years later. 

That dairy lost every cow 

But they’re back to milking now 

From a bloodline that they thought gone, 

But from gifts they gave, it lives on 

I asked Cindy how things were going.

“We’re doing OK,” she said. “Things have not ever been the same since the flood. When you lose your whole livelihood, it’s hard to pick up the pieces.”

She still works at Boistfort School, a job she’s had for decades. 

The couple will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month. Most of their grandkids live close by. One of those grandkids came by last weekend and helped them set up the manger scene again this year. It’s visible to all on the 700 block of Curtis Hill Road.

Theirs is one of countless stories from the 2007 flood. It’s a universal story, and yet this Christmas tale is also unique to our lives here along this river. 

Inspired by the importance of this story, five years ago I wrote a Christmas song about the Chehalis River flood survivors of 2007, with the Dykstra’s scene of Jesus in the manger as the central visual image. You’ve been reading some of the lyrics.

I recorded the song for the first time last week, and overlaid the video with images from the flood and the Dykstra’s Christmas manger.  The video is available on chronline.com with this column. You can get there directly by typing www.bit.ly/ChristmasInTheFlood into your web browser.  The song is a Christmas homage to the survivors of the Chehalis River flood of 2007, folks who lost nearly everything, but showed us what it means to live, and even among so much loss and heartbreak, to give.

What is lost, what is found 

What is heard in a quiet sound 

What we gave when all was gone 

How we rose together like a song 

The wettest December

Now we remember

Of the Father’s love begotten

Christmas, not forgotten. 

•••

Brian Mittge can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com. Merry Christmas to all.