A descendant of a pioneering family, a local historian with a wealth of facts and fiction, a prankster of local renown, a military veteran and writer and organizer and more.
It is admittedly hard to encapsulate a life like the one Doug McInnes led.
One of Sequim’s iconic figures died of age-related causes on June 21, three days after turning 87.
“He was a real gift to this planet, with the humor he had and the joy that he lived with,” said Joan Trindle, a neighbor of Doug’s in the Jamestown area. “We were so fortunate to have him as a neighbor.”
In addition to his wife Bonnie and children Steven, Barbara and David, McInnes is survived by grandsons Nick and Tom Edmondson, plus nieces, nephews and cousins. He also is survived by many people who though not related by blood had a familial nickname for him: “Uncle Doug.”
A historian who had plenty of Sequim-Dungeness settler blood in his veins, McInnes’ roots are deep. He was the grandson of Donald McInnes, who came to Sequim in 1874, and great-grandson of the Rev. Albert A. Atwood, a Methodist-Episcopal minister in Seattle whose circuit-riding territory in the late 1800s included Sequim and Dungeness.
Born Douglas Bruce McInnes in Sequim on June 18, 1929, he was raised at Jamestown Beach prior to moving to Gardiner in 1943. He graduated from Sequim High School in 1948.
Classmate Mayme Messenger Faulk recalled the rivalry that developed between their freshman class and SHS seniors of 1945.
“Each class put on a pep assembly (and), Doug would write these stories,” Faulk said, remembering a hillbilly-themed skit that drew plenty of attention and laughs. “He wrote these stories — he was good at that — (and he) always had sort of a dry wit. Some people didn’t get his jokes.”
Bob Clark, who graduated a year ahead of McInnes at Sequim High, said his fellow Wolf was a good athlete as well as a top humorist.
Post high school
After high school, McInnes attended and graduated from the University of Washington. In 1952, Doug married Bonnie Robb, daughter of another Sequim pioneer family, and they had three children.
McInnes served in the U.S. Army from 1953-1954 and after a stay in Honolulu, Doug and Bonnie moved back to the Pacific Northwest. McInnes worked in personnel management for Boeing in Seattle from 1957-1971. When the family moved to Sequim in 1971, he worked for ITT Rayonier’s Peninsula Plywood division as personnel manager until the sale of the mill to K-Ply in 1989.
He may have stopped officially working after that but he kept busy with writing, writing and more writing. He penned books — “Sequim Yesterday: Local History Through the Eyes of Sequim Old-Timers,” self-published in May 2005, and “My Uncles and Other Related Tall Tales,” a variety of short, humorous stories — and a local history column for the Sequim Gazette from 2000-2004, mainly describing Sequim in the 1930s-1950s.
McInnes’ heart never strayed far from his hometown and, in particular, his years in school. McInnes was a founding member of the Sequim Alumni Association and was a driving force behind the All-Class reunions held in 2008, 2011 and 2015. During these reunions, his “Walk through Sequim” was a crowd favorite.
In 1998, he created and edited The Ditchwalker, a quarterly newsletter for Sequim old-timers and alumni featuring history, stories and letters from locals — and not a little of his own humor.
“He would just sit there and write things; everything he’d pop into his mind, he’d write down,” said Faulk, who managed a database for The Ditchwalker mailing addresses.
That included a recurring set of oddball stories from the fictional “Nutt” family.
“That was him,” Faulk said. “We got a call one time (from someone who) thought there really was a Nutt family.”
The publication was a labor of love and family; The Ditchwalker was a collaboration with daughter Barbara, who designed it.
After nearly 20 years of monthly publications, McInnes retired as its editor in 2015.
The community honored McInnes and family with Irrigation Festival Grand Pioneer status in 2007 and friends and family say he was known for his hilarious “roasts” of the pioneers at each year’s Pioneer Dinner.
“He always had excellent programs that he put on at the dinner,” Clark said. “He’d come up with outlandish claims of what they (the pioneers) they did. That was a fun event; people always looked forward to that.”
On May 14, the day of the 2016 Irrigation Festival Parade, Faulk got a visit during an open house she hosted from Doug and Bonnie McInnes — a special treat, she said, in that he got to say hello to numerous Class of 1948 classmates.
In recent years, McInnes spoke about local history for many local organizations including Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Sequim Museum and Arts Center and Clallam County Historical Society.
“(Doug) was well-versed in history of this area,” Clark said. “He and I had a lot of entertaining moments of (talking) history.”
He also kept up the pranks. Trindle, the neighbor on Jamestown Beach, said McInnes made an impression on her when he took to her overgrown lawn with a riding mower — and put his initials in her lawn.
Another time, she recalled, McInnes “hijacked” her riding mower and hid it, and Trindle responded by putting a “wanted” poster on one of his trees.
“We kind of started exchanging little tokens of neighborly love,” Trindle said. “He would stick them in our scarecrows and roosters, the hedge in front of our house.
“I’ll still have these tokens.”
Reach Sequim Gazette editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.
