In 50 years of being, the City of Mercer Island has seen tremendous change. Transitioning from a small-town, mostly rural community of 12,000 in 1960 to the desirable Seattle suburb of close to 23,000 today has often sparked heated debate, fierce elections, community activism and plenty of good old-fashioned hard work. One thing that hasn’t changed is the tradition of service and volunteerism in the community. It just seems to be simply woven into the fabric of Mercer Island. At the Mercerversary Party on July 18 at Mercerdale Park, Mercer Island’s longtime community members will be honored — residents, past City Council members and city employees. Check out the growing list at www.mi50.org. The Web site also features stories of our wonderful community. Here is another of those stories.
It’s all in the family
The house her father, O.W. Fisher, built on the waterfront in 1942 still stands on the northeast end of Mercer Island today, looking virtually the same. Jean McTavish moved to Mercer Island with her parents, a young lady of 18, as she attended the University of Washington. Her name was Jean Fisher then, the same Fisher as the 100-year-old company that brought the first radio and television to the Pacific Northwest, where her father was president. The Island, her studies and the company of her family kept her busy during her long-distance and extended courtship with Peter McTavish.
Peter was from Vancouver, British Columbia, and they had met at a university sorority dance there — he was her blind date. She had waited for him while he was in active service with the Canadian Navy during World War II, despite only seeing him 17 days over the course of four years. They finally married in 1945, while he was still in active duty, built a home in the new Barnaby Lane community in 1955, and simply stayed.
Jean reflects, “Peter and I owned just two homes during our 56 years of marriage. I guess we just liked to stay put.” Today at 87, in her Covenant Shores residence, she ticks off the names of her longtime neighbors — a few are still on Mercer Island — Jack and Lucille Sholfeld, Joanne Eggertsen, Marilyn and Gordon Mathis. The McTavishes were active in their community — Jean led the Girl Scouts for many years, and Peter participated in local government and the Seattle Yacht Club.
The late Honorable Peter McTavish served on the City Council from 1966 to 1972 and was the second mayor for the city. He served as mayor when the two 1960-incorporated entities on the Island — the city of Mercer Island and the town of Mercer Island — finally came together as one city. It was a period of tremendous growth on Mercer Island, and the local government required a careful balance between the status quo and new opportunities.
“We are trying to supervise an orderly growth without losing our way of life,” he said at the time. He led many critical projects for the city and was also a tremendous visionary. He served as chairman of the Greenbelt Committee, and bringing rapid transit to the area in the late 1960s.
The vote just missed the 60 percent requirement for passing. Peter died in 2001.
The McTavishes had three children in four years (Marilyn, Doug and Bob), and as Jean says, “then came Bruce, six years later.” He grew up in the idyllic Island times of the 1960s and 70s, and met his future wife, Annie Pfieffer, in 1971 as a sophomore at Mercer Island High School.
“For junior high, he went to North. I went to South, so we really hadn’t run into each other,” laughs Annie. “Our class had a lot of firsts — we were the first class that longtime teacher Ruthie Newman taught, and the first class to use the Tarrywood property for a humanities block class. Those days bring really fond memories, and many from our class have moved back to the Island.”
Annie has her own history on the Island. She moved from Washington, D.C. with her parents, Bill and Marcia Pfieffer, in 1961, when her father became the regional director of the U.S. Department of Labor. She remembers believing her dad when he told her that they would be living “with cowboys and Indians in the West,” and they almost were.
They lived on 58th Street, across from Island Crest Park, when it was still a dirt road. With six children (Bill, Marci, Jack, Barbie, Annie and Joan) all graduating between 1962 and 1977, almost everyone who grew up on the Island knew a Pfieffer.
After some off-Island stints (one with Annie as the first woman forester in the state of Montana), they returned to the Island to finish raising their two daughters, Lindsay and Tara.
They live in a classic Mercer Island house built by Ray Brandt and longtime resident and architect, Jerry Gropp, in a neighborhood platted in the 1960s as “The Garden of Eden.”
