Lummi Island is located where Rosario Strait merges with the Strait of Georgia.  It has an area of 8.8 square miles and is 9 miles long with a maximum width of nearly two miles and 20.5 miles of shoreline.  The northern portion of the island is relatively low-lying and gently rolling, with elevations to 362 feet above sea level.  The southern portion is mountainous with elevations to 1,665 feet.  Today primary access is by Whatcom County Ferry from Gooseberry Point.

Marguerite “Peggy” Aiston and her husband Homer purchased 144 acres on Lummi Island in 1942.  The purchase included all of Smuggler’s Cove, and they built a small cabin there, near the beach.  As there was no road to that part of the Island, they traveled from Bellingham to their property in a double-ender boat, the Doxie.

In 1958 they sold most of their property and soon built a cabin on Beach Avenue, facing Bellingham Bay.  They sold their remaining property in 1975 and moved to Bellingham.

Peggy continued her association with Lummi Island for over fifty years.  In the early 1970s she began researching Island history with the intention of writing a factual account of its earliest days through 1940.  She continued her project after moving to Bellingham, concluding her research after 23 years of work.

Peggy contributed a column of historical vignettes to every issue of the Lummi Island Newsletter for fifteen years from 1978 to 1993.  She also typed the first ten years of the Newsletter for the original editor and was also instrumental in producing “Potluck Recipes,” a Lummi Island cookbook.  A talented writer, she was the author of several published articles.

Peggy Aiston passed away on April 29, 1998.