Wallie Funk Jr. and camera.
Wallie Valentine Funk Jr., born April 29, 1922; died Aug. 12, 2017
Wallie Funk was a founder of the Anacortes Museum, communicator extraordinaire and tireless patron of history and the arts.
A true Anacortes original, Wallie was drawn to history at a precocious age. Gregarious and personable from the start, he visited the pioneers in his Old Town neighborhood and soaked up wild and wonderful stories of days gone by. He never lost his fascination with his hometown. When he became co-publisher of the Anacortes American in 1950, his first editorial called for preservation of the city’s photographic history. People brought him old photos to copy, and the Wallie Funk Collection – the nucleus of the Anacortes Museum – was born. The number of images swelled into the tens of thousands when he rescued the work of photographer Ferd Brady, and he squirreled away more than a decade of the work of American staff photographers – much of it taken himself.
Most incredibly, he knew the “who, what, where, when and why” of almost every image – and much more.
“Wallie was an amazing individual. His home office was stacked waist-deep in 8x10 black and white prints. He could tell you where the photo was taken, who was in the picture, and what year it was taken. Even more amazing was his ability to locate just about any shot you might ask about,” said Rick Castellano, Executive Director of the Island County Museum – one of several museums with collections of Funk photos.
Anacortes Museum Director Steve Oakley said that when he was hired in 2007, Wallie was one of the first to welcome him and his family to the community, and one of the most supportive.
“I was impressed that first day, and for as long as I knew him, by the passion and exuberance of this unique man,” Oakley said. “His depth of knowledge and memory was legendary. Wallie was the first one called when the museum needed to identify people in an old photo. Not only would he instantly provide the names, but often a a few nicknames as well… and a wonderful story was sure to follow. Wallie was devoted to all things Anacortes to the end of his remarkable life.”
Theresa L. Trebon, now Records Manager-Tribal Archivist for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, was tasked with bringing permanent order to Wallie’s mountain of materials.
“Wallie Funk looms large in my life. I worked with the dear man from 2001-2004 cataloguing his massive collection of photos, ephemera, and countless newspapers,” Trebon said. “Prior to taking on the job for the Anacortes Museum Foundation I asked, ‘How many images are we talking about?’ The estimate was ‘around 14,000.’ It ended up being almost 100,000 images, the number representative of Wallie’s many ties to people, places, and events of the twentieth century. At the end of our work together, Wallie’s office, located just down the street from the Anacortes Museum, was emptied out, the contents being transferred to six different repositories...His impact will live on for generations.”
The Anacortes Museum received his images of Fidalgo and Guemes islands – many of them iconic. Judy Hakins, former Curator of Collections, said the Wallie Funk Collection makes up about two-thirds of the museum’s photo holdings. She treasured the years they worked together.
Elizabeth Joffrion, Director of Heritage Resources and Associate Professor, Western Washington University Libraries, credited Wallie with recognizing the importance of preserving his vast archive for future generations. She said she had not anticipated the caliber of the material.
“I was absolutely astonished by both the volume and quality of his work,” Joffrion said. "Driven by a desire to provide an accurate record of history on film, his extraordinary collection of photographs offers a glimpse into the lives of both the famous and the ordinary, including six U.S. presidents, the Beatles’ and the Rolling Stones’ visits to Seattle, the famous capture of orca whales in Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove, as well as more commonplace topics such as emotional military homecomings and community parades. Because of his vision, future researchers are guaranteed ongoing access to his prolific body of work through collections held by Western Washington University, the Anacortes Museum and Island County Museum in Coupeville.”
“His photojournalism provides a time tunnel to our local past – as does his fantastic collection of historical images,” Castellano said. “So many of his photographs are important in that they’ve captured moments in history – from backstage with the Beatles in 1966 to the pastoral shot of two cows in a pasture – they were, and are, all important to our history.”
Although Wallie was a masterful photographer, he employed a unique and powerful tool – engagement: He did not passively observe his subjects, he actively interacted with them. Yes, even that pair of cows.
“A casual observer might look at a photo of two cows in a pasture, and think ‘It’s two cows in a pasture.’ However, if you take the time to really look at the photo, you will appreciate their reflections in the puddle they are standing in, the perfect lighting, the composition, and Wallie’s ability to get both cows to look at the camera at the right time,” Castellano said.
Bret Lunsford, Anacortes Museum’s Education and Maritime Curator, said this engagement allowed Wallie to capture the spirit of his subjects both photographically and journalistically.
“Wallie was a great interpreter of the personality of Anacortes, both the big picture and its individual manifestations. Wallie himself was certainly a prime example. His perspective on Anacortes fisherman, from Pictures of the Past, can be extended to our unique community spirit,” Lunsford said. He quotes from an article written by Wallie after he travelled on a fishing vessel with the crew to Alaska:
“What is most memorable … is the camaraderie that existed not only among crews of each vessel, but among those who were traveling the route together on other vessels. It was as if they all were their brothers’ keepers as the challenges en route to the fishing grounds required reliance on one another as well as respect for individuality.”
Lunsford and Anacortes Museum Curator of Collections Elaine Walker (the author of the tribute you are reading), as well as other museum staff, worked with Wallie to publish Pictures of the Past two years ago. A bound volume of Wallie’s Anacortes American history columns of the same name, the book is lavishly illustrated with photos he either took himself or preserved. Also preserved in that volume, along with the great stories he told, is Wallie’s own voice – another of the many gifts he has left to us.
“I will miss his uniqueness, his warm sense of humor, and his famously loud and encouraging exclamation of “YES!”, when we agreed on the topic of discussion at any particular moment,” Castellano said. “I’m grateful we were friends. He still makes me smile.”
And now, he is history. And what a great story it is.
— Anacortes Museum's tribute to Wallie Funk in the Autumn Museum News, 2017
