The photos show a family that’s full of vigor—bright laughing and smiling faces, squirming kids, hearty elders—enjoying the good Island life they’ve been given. Roy Ellingsen has lived on the island almost all of his 55 years and recalls his blissful childhood on the Mercer Island. “I remember thinking, even as a kid, that life here was pretty cool.”

It was his mother, Betty Ekrem, who bought the four lots on the Southend for $1,500 in 1940. It was also his mother that located the cabin of the light tender Manzanita on the property a few years later. So Roy and his brother and sister grew up owning the famous Mercer Island “boat house” still located near King’s Cove today. “I definitely get my ’eccentric side’ from my mother,” he reflects. Many remember his mother working at the Library—she was a staple there for many, many years. Their house was right on the beach, with parking above and a rail trolley to get things up and down the hill. The boat “cabin” stood separately, providing extra room for the family.

It was a childhood of swimming in the lake, exploring the Island’s tremendous open space, sketching and drawing. “We were always outside, which was probably just as well since we only got channels 4 and 5 on the TV.” All that peaceful time growing up also allowed Roy to become an accomplished artist—producing remarkable and clever sketches and cartoons with ease. He attended each and every school on the Island during the growing and changing times in the 60’s and 70’s, graduating in one of the largest classes the Island has seen in 1973.

Although he was trained as a airplane mechanic, when the industry slowed in the early 80’s he fell into driving a school bus on Mercer Island and has been a fixture at the MISD Bus Barn ever since. With 25 years of loyal service, Roy has now driven some of the kids of the kids he drove in past years. “I’m still waiting to get tired of it,” he jokes. Interestingly, Roy’s not the only long-time Mercer Island resident in the Bus Barn. Two other drivers, Bob Bersos and Steve Ward have lived on the Island over 50 years and more than a dozen others have lived here 25 years or more.

As the son of two photographers, Betty and Erling Ellingsen, Roy holds some of the rare pictures of the Island in the late 50’s and early 60’s. In them you see the dramatic growth the town center has gone through—from it’s carefree rural setting to what it is today.