Carol Clark
Carol Clark
2007 was a landmark year for 87-year-old Carol Clark: she got electricity to her house. The message on her Christmas card said: “From now on may winters be warmed by the flip of a switch.”
When Carol built her current house in 1980, she wired it (teaching herself from a Sunset how-to book) for electricity, but the nearest connections were too far away and involved too many easement negotiations and creek crossings to make it feasible for her to hook up. Carol spent 27 years chop¬ping wood and keeping a woodstove going for heat and cooking. A generator pumped water and let her play her phonograph when she wanted to. Two solar panels and an inverter provide enough power for some lights and a small pump to raise the pressure for an on-demand propane water heater.
Why get power now? Carol did it for the heat: “Winters are a little bit difficult—I was ready for heat without the work.”
Ironically, Carol’s daughter Jerry Leone had a career in the power industry—first with BPA and later as the Manager of the Public Power Council, a trade association of 114 consumer-owned utilities in the Northwest. “My peers ribbed me about Mom’s house lacking electricity,” said Leone. “While I’m very proud of her for pioneering all those years, I’m delighted that life is now easier, thanks to Willie Wiredhand.”
Carol and her late husband Walt moved to Orcas in 1945 and started farming. She still runs cattle, keeps a horse and mule and drives a motorcycle around the place to keep tabs on things. Her home is full of paintings (many are her own) and photographs that tell the story of a good life—rich in experience and family. She is still chopping wood for the woodstove —“a thirty-year habit is hard to get over”—but now enjoys the perks of power: most notably the heat and toast made in a toaster.