#18 on Map

Joreen Skrondal Echert, daughter of Cliff and Marie Skrondal, owners of Skrondal Grocery on Marine View Drive S., and herself a long-time resident of Des Moines, made the quilt square depicting her parents’ store where the family lived for years.

Skrondal Grocery

Cliff and Marie Skrondal and their two daughters, Joreen and Margery, moved to Des Moines in 1924 from Conway, Washington, where they had a grocery store. They rented the building, called “The Gables,” at the northwest corner of Des Moines Way and Crocker Street (now Marine View Drive S. and S. 227th Street) from Mr. Barnes for their grocery store, and the family lived on the second floor. In 1932, because Mr. Barnes would not reduce the rent during the Depression, the Skrondals built a new grocery store across the street where the Marine View Veterinary Hospital now stands. In 1942 they bought “The Gables” and moved their store back into it. They retired in 1950, and in 1952 “The Gables” burned down.

—paraphrased from One Hundred Years of the “Waterland” Community: A History of Des Moines, Washington