He photographed generations of trick-or-treaters and shared his love of Fairhaven history
Gordon Tweit, the longtime, gentlemanly owner of Fairhaven Pharmacy who left a legacy of community service and a love of local history died Dec. 22. He was 92.
A lifelong bachelor, Tweit grew up in Fairhaven and Happy Valley. His willingness to help others – from delivering prescriptions to people’s homes, to posting store-window photographs of costumed children at Halloween, to sharing his knowledge of Whatcom County history and his museum-like collection of artifacts in the pharmacy’s basement – created a deep wellspring of regard for Tweit throughout the community.
His passion for the pharmacy and of the community made him a remarkable source of information for generations of residents, said Brian Griffin, who has written books about the area, including “Fairhaven, a History.”
“I never saw him but friendly with everyone he met,” Griffin said in an interview on Monday.
A funeral service for Tweit is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 4, at the Our Saviour’s Lutheran Chruch at 1720 Harris Ave. in Bellingham.
Tweit’s neice, Cindy Rall, said he was a family man and a huge influence on her life. Rall’s father died when she was an infant, so Tweit became a father figure to her, helping with school work and throughout her life. Asked what she thought people would remember him for, Rall said it was his generosity and his ability to connect with people.
“He loved people... he was the guy that asked about the latest news and knew the names of everyone,” Rall said in an interview on Monday. “His memory was phenomenal.”
Tweit was grand marshal of the Ski to Sea Parade in 2005. At that time, a Herald report described him this way: “Tweit is tall and slender, and leans to sweaters and slacks. Think of Mr. Rogers with white hair and glasses. Like Mr. Rogers, Tweit has a pleasant, direct way of talking to people. You don’t have to talk to him long to feel like you’ve known him a good while, or wish you had.”
Generations of pharmacy owners
Fairhaven Pharmacy was Tweit’s base of operations in south Bellingham, at a time when independent pharmacies were common and customer service was paramount.
The business was established in 1889 as D.P. Mason Drug and soon evolved into Fairhaven Pharmacy. It was in a couple of south Bellingham locations before settling in 1929 at its last location at 12th Street and Harris Avenue.
Tweit began work there as a delivery boy in 1941. He graduated from the University of Washington School of Pharmacy and owned the business from 1962 until 1991, when he sold it to Robin Johansen, who also got his start as a delivery boy.
During his years overseeing the pharmacy, widows came to Tweit for help and advice, and his refrigerator was stocked with fresh seafood that fishermen brought him, free of charge, when they came into port.
Tweit retired in April 2008, but still did odd jobs, such as taking out the trash, sweeping the sidewalk, and creating themed displays for the pharmacy’s front windows.
Johansen closed the business in October 2015.
A former customer recalled a time in the late ’60s when she had a terrible cough and her husband woke Tweit up at 2 a.m. to see if he would open the pharmacy and provide medicine for his wife. Tweit has happy to oblige.
“He didn’t even think twice about it, “ Katee Wowk told a Herald reporter in 2015.
For some four decades, starting in the mid-’60s, Tweit was widely known for snapping photographs of children in their Halloween costumes and taping the photos to the pharmacy’s window. The kids could come by later and take the photos home for free.
Tweit took and posted photos from other Fairhaven events, including Ski to Sea’s “It All Ends in Fairhaven” and the newer Dirty Dan Days festival.
In 2013, painter Lanny Little added Tweit and several other real people to the outdoor mural that Little had painted 13 years earlier at Fairhaven Village Green. Little later turned to videography and produced a 20-minute documentary about Tweit, called “Gordie’s World.”
Shared his love of history
Tweit’s museum-quality collection of early pharmaceuticals, Fairhaven memorabilia, doctors’ tools, and other odds and ends filled the pharmacy’s basement, attracting tour groups and community members alike.
Other items in his vast collection included salmon cans with old labels from long-ago canneries, plus cameras, sheet music, cosmetics and razors, items that pharmacies sold years ago, along with medicine and first aid supplies.
As a child, Tweit’s mother wouldn’t let him collect things, so he made up for it by setting aside unwanted pharmacy items in the basement. Over the years, he developed into a community history pack rat, with people feeding his habit by dropping off stuff they didn’t want anymore but thought might be worth keeping.
Until limited by poor health, Tweit opened the collection to the general public on Friday afternoons, helping students, researchers and friends find nuggets of local history in photos, yearbooks, city directories, photo binders, and memories from his long, active life in Bellingham.
Rall said the museum is gone now, with Tweit donating items to places like Whatcom Museum. He also tried to match up some of his treasures to people he thought would appreciate them the most, Rall said.
This story was originally published December 24, 2018 at 1:01 PM.