![]() ![]() In 1932, the family rebuilt the ballroom after a fire, and in 1946, Walter Sholund, Irving’s father passed away. Photo courtesy: Washington State Library, Manuscripts Collection ![]() The Evergreen Ballroom dance floor, shown here in 1933, provided plenty of space for people from miles around to dance. At some point after high school, attending the University of Washington and registering for a draft in the United States Army, Irving started his own orchestra. The Sholund sons would likely have known about the big bands in Seattle, the end of prohibition and perhaps heard those musicians live on KOMO radio. His brother Ronald, in the same graduating class, was also involved in the high school band. He started in the school orchestra in his 1931 freshman year. His Olympia High School band was broadcast on KGY radio. And Walter’s youngest son Vernon, played the drums. Ronald, the next youngest, played clarinet and saxophone. Irving, his oldest son, played the trumpet. Walter and his three sons formed the in-house band, the first to begin somewhat of a trend of tandem ballroom and band ownership. Music was intertwined with family from the very start. There, Walter picked up his violin and began a new career, dancehall proprietor. Transitioning from a shipyard career to the music world, he took his skills of both and built the ballroom in 1931 on Route 2, along what would be the Olympia to Tacoma highway. He worked in the shipyard, bought Liberty Bonds, was vice president of the Olympia Trade Council and a carpenter. Walter eventually left and moved his family to Olympia. A postcard titled “Dancing in the Stump,” boasted one that was 18 feet across. It was not uncommon for pioneers to rally up their own entertainment with fiddles and mandolins, playing music for others, some of whom danced on the flats of giant cedar stumps. Growing up in the same area, Walter later became employed as a logging camp engineer in the Quilcene vicinity, but was also a violin player. From left: Mary Sholund, Ronald and Vernon stand outside the living quarters of the Evergreen Ballroom in September 1933. Whether fortuitous or providential, the family, along with Walter still a small child, immigrated to the United States, eventually setting up a homestead in Quilcene. Mikael’s son Walter was born in Sweden on the same day that Washington established statehood, November 11, 1889. ![]() The Sholund family history can be traced back to Mikael Sjolund emigrating from Sweden to set up a new life. Ronald, in the same graduating class as Irving, was also involved in the high school band. Irving embraced the music role and started in the school orchestra in his 1931 freshman year. Mary Sholund (left), mother of Irving Ronald (middle) and Vernon (right) helped build and run the Evergreen Ballroom with her husband Walter. For a long stretch of time, Walter’s son Irving led the in-house band, a 10-piece orchestra, and the venue placed newspaper ads in the later years inviting everyone around to dance all night. With them was a long line of dancers ready to tap their shoes across the dance floor. Its presence drew a long stream of visiting musicians to its bandstand and across its stage. Laub entered a career in the military in his adopted country, proud to serve and provide for his new daughter and family.Walter Sholund, logger, shipbuilder and violin player, built the barn-styled Evergreen Ballroom. He was adopted when he was 12 years old with his then 14-year-old sister to a family in Oklahoma. Moise Laub, who is in his first semester as an undergraduate international relations student in the Maxwell School and the College of Arts and Sciences, was born in Haiti and put in an orphanage shortly after birth. “This is something I have always wanted to do and Syracuse’s veteran initiatives are second to none so my choice was easy.” “Syracuse University has an incredible school for international relations,” Laub says. Navy right out of high school in 2006. “I needed a way to make sure my family was financially stable and also secure a means to pursue future education,” Laub says.Įleven years later, Laub was equally determined to get a degree at Syracuse University that would take him even further. Motivated by the birth of his daughter, Moise Laub ’20 joined the U.S. ![]()
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