Lewis Orchard was born in Port Orchard, attending local schools sporadically when his farming family could spare him. He grew up like so many of his peers, uneducated in “the finer things” but able to fix what was broken, improvise what was needed and able and ready to defend family, friends and country. As an adult he worked steadily in the local mill as well as the pottery and two full time jobs a day was considered a stroke of good luck rather than hard times.  Lewis worked for a time at the Pottery and Brick Factory in town.

 Emelia Orchard, formerly of Troy, New York, loves the tiny log cabin overlooking a deep, often fog-filled ravine on one side and a steep, gravel-covered road on the other. She admits to sometimes yearning for the fancy dresses, ribbon-covered hats and tea parties she knew as a young girl but only has to watch the deer walk up to her kitchen window, the tiny violets blooming in the woods and her children playing on the beach at the bottom of the hill to realize she now lives in paradise.

The children, Charles, Emily, Teddy and the baby Celia, are normal, small town children without  “store-bought” toys but surrounded with trees to climb, beaches to explore, camps to build in the woods and a family that is filled with love.

Grandmother Lydia Orchard lives with her son Lewis, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren and “runs a tight ship.” She is responsible for keeping the family on the straight and narrow and has watched with pride as her son's wife, a former “city girl” has embraced the gardening, cooking, cleaning and nurturing that it takes to raise four mannerly, if sometimes rambunctious young ones.

Cousin Sadie Garrison-Austin is Emelia's cousin and staying with the family.  She is seeing William Austin, a local boy.