Tom Washburn of Delmont loved the beauty of the outdoors. He traveled to Wyoming, Alaska and other points west, not just to indulge in his passion for fly fishing but also to take in the sights and sounds of the natural world.
He captured much of that on his camera — much more than his daughter expected.
“When he passed away unexpectedly in September, we started going through his computer,” said Amanda Jane List of Delmont.
“I knew he had taken photos, because he posted them on Facebook, but we found more than 6,800 of them.”
The laptop now sits in List’s kitchen, running the photos on a permanent loop, and a some of them are part of a calendar whose sales will benefit the Delmont Public Library.
“In lieu of flowers at his funeral, we had asked that donations in my dad’s memory be made to the library,” List said.
Washburn was a former elementary school counselor at the North Star School District in Somerset County, and was an English literature major in college.
“Whenever donations started coming, Denni Grassel from the library reached out to me and said, ‘What about a calendar?’ ” List said.
“We were trying to find a good way to honor his memory, and I thought that would be such a great way to share these pictures with everyone,” Grassel said.
“The Washburn family have really been leaders and so generous.”
And while the funeral donations were going toward general library support, Grassel suggested that the calendar sales could benefit something specific: a youth fishing program in the spring.
“That sounded amazing, because fishing was his favorite thing,” List said.
Some of Washburn’s friends also got involved, she said, with one helping to fund the printing costs so that 100% of the calendar sales could benefit library programming, and another volunteered to help organize the fishing program.
From butterflies and flowers to birds in flight, the calendar is composed mostly of images Washburn shot during walks along the Westmoreland Nature Trail.
“On our last trip, we went to Elk County and he shot photos of the elk,” said his widow, Glenda. “He was just always trying to capture something on the camera.”
List said her favorite photo is the very first, in January, a shot of small ovals of ice forming around stream vegetation.
She said the process of creating the calendar has been a healing experience.
“I think it’s probably a helpful way of processing the grief,” she said.
The 2023 calendar is available for purchase for $10. Copies can be found at the Delmont Public Library at 75 School St.
Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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