Thanks to you for all the anniversary wishes. The weekend, on Orcas Island WA, was perfect. We stayed at a resort that was originally the Rosario estate built in 1909 by Robert Moran. Mr. Moran left school at age 14 in NY to help in the family business of making belts for Singer Sewing Machines. He followed Horace Greeley’s advice to "Go west, young man." Literally penniless, he landed in Seattle in 1875 when the population was 1500. He had to borrow to pay for his first meal. Working this concept of credit he founded a very successful ship building company.
I wonder if he knew how beautiful the Pacific Northwest was:
At age 47 he was diagnosed with organic heart disease and given two years to live. Leaving the business in the care of his brothers, he moved to Orcas Island to build a retreat to live out his dying days. The mansion was completed in 1910. In the end Robert Moran survived his eight siblings and his wife, dying at the age of 86! He chalked up his symptoms to stress of doing business.
During his life he planned on rewarding two of his brothers for taking care of the business, by building them houses on his estate. The brother’s wives made great plans, attempting to outdo each other, house and view-wise. They became quite competitive but Robert showed them. He scrapped their plans and built them twin houses side by side, one neither better than the other.That’ll learn ’em.
I’ll continue in a later post. Meanwhile it’s back to reality for me. While we got used to the routine of hotel life, it stayed the same back home with a 17 year old sans housekeeping staff. I’ll leave you with the sunrise view from my weekend knitting spot, not unlike the view of the of the Moran DIL’s. I wonder if they were knitters. I managed only three rows of Jared’s Hemlock Blanket. It doesn’t sound like much, but you have to consider that each row, at this point, has more than 500 stitches.
Life's a Stitch 
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