By Tom Quigg

A small group of Trisha Brown’s family members arrived in Aberdeen on Thursday morning. With them were the cremated remains of one of the world’s most celebrated choreographers of modern dance. They were bringing Trisha Brown home to the Harbor.

Trisha was highly revered as a world-class choreographer of modern dance. So much so that in 1994 she received a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award.” Tthrough 1994-1997 she served as a member of the National Council of Arts at the request of President Clinton and in 2002 was awarded a National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush.

Her dances were performed worldwide and would often refer to some of her favorite local places such as Wishkah, Quinault, Quileute River or Oyehut. One dance titled “Skunk Cabbage, Salt Grass and Waders” was about duck hunting on the Harbor with her father.

Trisha’s passing received international attention, with an obituary as a feature story in the New York Times. There was a well attended celebration of life in Manhattan, with many accolades. Several traveled from Europe to pay their respects. But all the accolades aside, it was Trisha’s wish that her final remains be scattered in one of Grays Harbor’s rivers, where she loved to fish with her father, Martell Brown.

As she would have wanted, the final trip home was a very casual day. The group met up in the parking lot of the old Ice Palace at the corner of Simpson Avenue and Park Street in Aberdeen to form a caravan. The meeting place was chosen because for many years the family owned and operated the Ice Palace.

The caravan traveled to a gravel bar on the Humptulips River for scattering of the ashes, then to the Humptulips post office so everyone could send home postcards purchased at the neighborhood grocery, and then hand posted by the Humptulips postmaster. Even the postmaster commented how it “was just the neatest thing.” The family then continued on to Ocean Shores for fish and chips, and to drive by the old family cabin they once owned in Oyehut.

All the while, as in many of her dances, Trisha’s last remains were flowing in nature’s slow swirling drift down the Humptulips River, to finally settle out in what Trisha referred to as “My beloved Grays Harbor.”