05/15/2026
Fifty Years, Three Continents, One Mason.
During our recent inventory efforts, a small and unassuming briefcase tucked away on a bookshelf revealed a wonderful treasure trove of documents and ephemera connected to one Mason's life. Edward C. F. Jorgensen was made a Mason in British Oak Lodge No. 1133 in Stratford, England in 1862. Ten years later, he moved to Greymouth, New Zealand, where he joined the newly chartered Greymouth Lodge No. 1233 and became its Chaplain. Four years after that, he was back in Europe, this time in Germany where he joined a Lodge in Hamburg. By 1909, he had moved to Washington and was welcomed into Tacoma Lodge No. 22.
The most recent items found in the briefcase was correspondence in 1914 between Jorgensen and our Grand Lodge about the possibility of him and his wife moving into the new Masonic Home in Puyallup. These included pieces our Library & Museum had never seen before including a lovely postcard of proposed plans for the new home to be built on the Puyallup property, and newspaper clippings documenting the process of the build.
What a gift it is for us at the Library & Museum that he kept such a detailed account of his Masonic journey, and that these materials were found and later donated to us on behalf of his descendants. Going through the cache of documents and putting them in order allowed us to piece together the Masonic journey of a man whose travels never stopped him from promptly recommitting himself to the Craft, wherever in the world he was.
