It is not clear why 28-year-old sportswriter Clarence Dirks and his 19-year-old fiancée Cleo Coons chose the Indian Beach fish camp resort at on Camano Island for their July 1931 honeymoon. Perhaps one or both had already vacationed there, possibly one of Clarence’s colleagues at the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper had recommended it, maybe even his boss Royal Brougham. Or the suggestion might have come from one of Cleo’s Phi Mu sorority sisters at the University of Washington. It was certainly an easy 60 mile drive from Seattle’s University District and although Camano was an island, its connection to the mainland by bridge meant no ferry ride was required. And, of course, it was the Great Depression and, in spite of Dirks’ regular paycheck, cost was probably an important consideration.

One thing is certain: once the newlyweds discovered the charm of the pristine location and modest cabins, they wanted to return as often as possible. The birth of their first son, Marty, three years later only strengthened the pull that Camano had for them. Marty loved playing on the sand and accompanying his dad on one of the resort’s boats to fish for salmon.

Clarence and Cleo Dirks set their sights on a week-end home on Camano Island, preferably at Indian Beach. What follows is my mom’s account of how that home became a reality through my dad’s success as a magazine writer. The account was published by Writer’s Digest as “The House The Post Built” in the July 1941 issue. It her second sale as an author; the first was a one-act play, “The Rescue of Roscoe,” sold to a national publisher ten years earlier while she was still a college sophomore.

Mike Dirks
2025

One of my dad’s sales mentioned in the article above was “Varsity Log” which appeared as the lead feature in the September 1938 issue of College Humor.

Included with the article was this biographical sketch of the author:

FIRST APPEARANCE: Clarence Dirks, author of Varsity Log, swung a pick three summers to pay his way through Palo Alto High School in California. Entering the University of Washington in Seattle, he captained the frosh football team (1924), later, the varsity (1928); flunked Spanish, devoured journalism. Since college days he’s been writing sports for a Seattle newspaper. He boxed one round with Freddie Steele to find how it feels to be hit by a champion (he found out), also a round with ex-champion Babe Risco. Rowed on his own under Al Ulbrickson, Washington coach, to get the “feel” of crew. He is married and has a four-year old son – crew or football captain in 1954, he hopes. Spends his weekends in a cabin on Camano Island. Likes to write. Loves to fish for salmon. Varsity Log is his first smooth-paper fiction story, but a dozen articles by him have appeared in national magazines.

The Steele-Risco fight occurred during the 1936 Seattle PI strike mentioned in my mom’s Writer’s Digest article. It was covered as part of dad’s radio program and his stunt of fighting both the middleweight world champion Steele and his opponent brought in more mail than any of his other broadcasts on Seattle’s KOMO. Sixteen years later he returned to KOMO as the City-Bred Farmer on an early morning farm program. This time his on-air tenure was years rather than weeks.

America’s entry into WW2 foreshadowed major changes for the Dirks family. In May of 1942 Clarence decided to go to work on the Seattle waterfront as a ship caulker working a full shift in addition to his job as a sportswriter for the Seattle PI newspaper. He had learned the family trade as a 14-year-old, interrupting his schooling, when the US entered WW1. After six months, he could no longer continue the grueling pace of two jobs and resigned his newspaper position of over 13 years. But less than two years after his return to shipyard work, Clarence Dirks suffered a leg injury and was forced to quit that job as well. At this point Clarence and Cleo Dirks decided to rent out their Seattle home and move to their Indian Beach cabin. Dirks hoped to expand his fiction writing to a novel length book. Although success eluded him, there was one great benefit to the move: the health of son Marty improved greatly as wife Cleo described in this 1945 article.

Some 60 or 70 years after this article appeared, I asked my brother Marty to reflect on his life growing up on Camano Island. His account includes some details that did not appear in our dad’s City-Bred Farmer columns including Marty’s first romance at age 14.

One of the biggest ongoing stories in the City-Bred Farmer columns was the evolution of the Camano Chapel – from a vague dream, to a fundraising project, to a building venture, and, finally, to a brick-and-mortar reality. The Chapel was dedicated in August 1951 with over 700 people attending. That was an important event for the Puget Sound readership of the City-Bred Farmer. However, when Billy Graham spoke at the site a few days later with 3000 in attendance the story became national. A short article in Time Magazine followed less than a month later.

In March 1952 a longer article about Clarence Dirks and the Camano Chapel appeared in Pageant, a monthly periodical that tried to compete with Readers Digest. That particular issue has become a collector’s item, perhaps more for a photo shoot spread of Marilyn Monroe than the piece about my dad.

While Clarence Dirks covered his trip with the Carnation Farm’s Al Hay riding to San Francisco in a boxcar full of cattle in a detailed column, he barely mentioned the traumatic event described in the Pageant article. My dad was never one to dwell on his problems. He was, by nature, optimistic, thinking more of the future than the past.

Seven months after the Pageant article appeared the University of Washington decided to honor their alum and former football captain with a feature article in the October 4, 1952 program for the UCLA vs. Washington football game.

While the preceding article is mostly factual, the claim that my dad was, at this point in his life, a truly happy man is at best an exaggeration. Only one month prior he and Cleo, after 21 years of marriage, had finalized their divorce. Tensions had been simmering since the move to the larger, second Camano farm several years earlier. The isolated location, far from the water and friends, coupled with the busy schedules of both husband Clarence and son Marty had left Cleo Dirks feeling abandoned at times. The fact that she had never learned to drive, in spite of Marty’s best efforts to teach her, didn’t help matters. Her parents who had never been more than a mile or two away her entire life had moved 300 miles away. And finances were a persistent problem. The “City-Bred Farmer” column was certainly popular and had been since it began six years earlier but the pay was low and the farm itself rarely turned a profit.

But within a year Clarence Dirks was perhaps that truly happy man. He had remarried and his new wife, Ruth, would remain his partner for 32 years until his death. Cleo eventually remarried as well and enjoyed 35 years with her new husband, R. Dee Merrill, until his death.

The Dirks sons both followed their parents to the UW although neither turned out for a sport and neither majored in journalism. Marty graduated in civil engineering (1960) and Mike in mathematics (1968).