First House: 26004 SE 158th St
The Mirrormont property was a wild and wooly area, no roads, just logging trails. J.J. Welcome Co of Redmond brought in bulldozers and roughed out a road to the first house, which we sold in 1962 to a Washington State Patrolman, Joe Sackman. His was the first house and the first sale. That was the beginning of everything. He lived in Mirrormont for a long time. [Sackman had moved to Wenatchee by 1984 and retired from the State Patrol after 32 years in 2006.]
One day I was driving through Issaquah where the State Patrol had set up a speed trap. I got stopped for speeding – and it was Joe Sackman. He said, “You’re not supposed to be going that fast.” I told him my mind was on other things and I didn’t realize I was speeding. He didn’t give me a ticket. – Rod Loveless, developer of Mirrormont
It seems like it’s been a transient house, with new owners every couple of years. It wasn’t really loved. But we liked the privacy of the lot. We’ve been remodeling for the past seven years — a real labor of love. – Sharon Farrar, current owner as of 2012
I’ve loved living in Mirrormont since 1988, and I care a great deal about our unique community, and am honored to have served as MCA President since 2014. I first became actively involved with the MCA when I volunteered to deliver a few Welcome Bags to new homeowners in 2008. Suddenly I found myself leading the Welcome Committee. In 2009, I submitted a proposal to the Board to build Mirrormont Pea Patch, wrote a grant to fund it, and have been actively involved on the Board since then. I became a Master Gardener in 2013 so I could better coordinate our Pea Patch and offer Growing Groceries Clinics to everyone in Mirrormont. For Mirrormont’s 50th Anniversary Celebration in 2012, I took on the role of historian. In 2013, I initiated a project, along with Janet Horton, Meg Wade, and Maryfrances Lignana, to create signage and a guidebook for forty native plants in Mirrormont Park.
In 2014, I began our Speaker Program. Wanting to find a way to reach all residents in Mirrormont, I revived Mirrormont News as an annual print newsletter, with Griffin Cole doing layout, and Maryfrances Lignana obtaining advertising to defray the cost of postage. When wildfires became an issue in Western Washington in 2015, I initiated a Firewise program in Mirrormont and we became a Firewise Community/USA, which made us eligible for grant funding for events such as Chipper Days.
Professionally, I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry, worked for two biotech companies, and taught for an online doctoral program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Department of Transformative Studies. I’m the author of Lifting the Veil: The Feminine Face of Science, which won a Washington State Governor’s Award, and a co-author of Walk on the Wild Side: Native Plants of Mirrormont Park. My passion for plants led me to study herbs and ethnobotany, and I relish eating nettle soup in the spring, and summer vegetables from the Mirrormont Pea Patch.
