In the days after she received the gift, Caroline Williams had trouble keeping her eyes off of it.

So many memories rushed over her when she looked at the painting that her youngest son gave her for her 90th birthday that she’d find herself sitting in her favorite chair in the living room and gazing up at it.

The scene captures a heartwarming snapshot from Williams’ past, a landscape portrait that shows her, her sister and parents standing in front of the old family barn on North Whidbey in 1943, waiting to greet a young Marine who had arrived and was concealing flowers behind his back.

Although liberties were taken in some of the details, the image symbolizes the first time Williams met the man she would later marry. He came to the farm as a guest of another serviceman on her 17th birthday.

Joe Williams asked an artist friend if she could paint the scene in time for his mother’s birthday. When it was unveiled in front of a large gathering at Oak Harbor’s First United Methodist Church in her honor earlier this month, tears started welling in her eyes. She knew she would cherish it for the rest of her life.

“It’s just perfect,” Caroline Williams said. “I can just sit here and meditate and remember.”

OF COURSE, even at 90, Caroline Williams rarely sits still for very long.

She’s been particularly busy since last summer when she realized her 90th birthday would fall on a Saturday.

She set in motion a plan to bring family and friends together at her church. She wanted to cater the event as her gift to everyone.

It was also her chance to unveil another gift, a book she wrote and self-published about her life on North Whidbey.

“Farm Girl, My Life on North Whidbey” was a project she started 10 years ago when she joined a writing group at her church, but accelerated as her milestone birthday approached.

She wanted to give it as a gift to her four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as a source to trace back to their roots and share with them and others what life was like on Whidbey Island in the days before modern conveniences, the Deception Pass bridge and the Navy’s arrival in Oak Harbor.

“This was going to be my legacy for my family,” Williams said.

IT IS a personal story of a Dutch family’s life on a large North Whidbey farm during the time of the Great Depression, but also provides depictions and imagery of Oak Harbor history during a vastly changing landscape.

Williams, who grew up as Caroline DeVries, was a sophomore at Oak Harbor High School when the Seaplane Base of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island opened in the spring of 1942.

She was acquainted with many friends who lived on North Whidbey farms who were forced to move after the Navy purchased their farmland to make room for the navy base. Many left for Mount Vernon, she said.

Williams remembers one classmate she often visited whose parents owned Beers Trailer Park, where the commissary now rests at the Seaplane Base.

“That’s all part of my life,” Williams said. “That’s why the book is important to a lot of people.”

It’s easy for Williams to hold memories close to her.

Since 1974, she has lived on a 10-acre parcel of the family’s original 80-acre farm on DeVries Road.

Her parents, Robert and Mary DeVries, moved into a rental house on a small adjoining farm in 1928 when Caroline was 2.

Two years later, they bought the 80-acre property and started the process of clearing the land using horses, stump pullers and dynamite.

Caroline Williams explains this while standing on her back porch that overlooks where a forest of trees once stood yet now reveals vast open space and the country farmscape she’s enjoyed most of her life.

The two-story farmhouse where Williams grew up was raised and moved twice as part of a skill her father would master with large structures.

The first time, it was brought to the property from a nearby farm to accommodate their growing family. It was moved again in the mid-1930s, settling into its present location just down the road from where Williams resides.

The barn and other original outbuildings also still exist there.

THE REASON for the second move across the property was simple, Williams said, though the process was anything but.

“We didn’t have electricity in those days,” Williams said. “We found out that we could get electricity by being within a half a mile of Silver Lake Road. Dad said, ‘We’ll just move it all to that corner of the farm and it’ll be a half a mile.”

Williams grew up with her younger sister on the farm and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.

She learned how to milk cows at a young age and remembers being able to drive her dad’s Model-A truck by the time she was tall enough to see over the steering wheel.

“I could run the farm by the time I was 12 or 13,” said Williams, who still drives today. “Dad would take a load of live turkeys to Seattle to sell himself for someone to butcher.”

Robert DeVries’ connections around Oak Harbor led him to acquiring young, strong farmhands to help with haying and other laborious tasks. One serviceman brought a friend who was from Arkansas.

THAT FRIEND, Bruce Williams, wound end up marrying Caroline. They were married for 61 years until Bruce’s death in 2005.

Williams said her faith has carried her through the difficult times in life and that her relationship with God helps keep her from feeling like she’s alone.

Her daughter, Bobbie Johnson, and her husband also live next door.

“I miss my husband still a lot,” Williams said. “I’m so busy. I’m just that kind of person. I’m always with somebody or doing something. I use the phone a lot. I’m not into a computer.”

She said she used a computer like a typewriter, which helped her produce her book. She said her Methodist church family offered great encouragement, particularly Anita Dragoo, who started the writing group at the church. She said she was constantly encouraged by her eldest child Bobbie, whom she calls her best friend.

While researching the book, Williams came across information that shocked her. One document she found showed that her parents paid $800 for the 80-acre farm. Yet, she said they struggled to make the $25 twice-a-year payments, plus interest.

WILLIAMS IS GIVING her book to those who’d like to make a donation to Oak Harbor Christian School. About 100 of the 250 books that were published were gone by the end of her party.

“To have support like this is just a blessing,” said Sherry Fakkema, principal of Oak Harbor Christian School.

Williams wanted to help support the school. In the fall of 1962, she said she was the first teachers’ aide hired by the Oak Harbor School District when it started a special education department.

Students from Oak Harbor Christian School created a large banner in honor of Williams.

About 150 people attended the celebration of both her birthday and book.

Her children sang a more personalized, rewritten version of the song “Sweet Caroline” to their mother.

“I just wept through it,” Williams said.

A BOOK SIGNING is being planned at a future date at Oak Harbor Christian School, giving others a chance to obtain a copy through a donation.

Williams won’t soon forget about all the fuss over her birthday and book. She never expected such a standing-room only turnout.

“I was just overwhelmed,” Williams said.

“It’s a blessing to me. I’m very blessed. I know it’s all God. Through your spirit, God leads you to a lot of things. (It’s important) to listen at the right times and to try to shut up sometimes.”

Williams laughs.

“I always say when I’m meeting somebody that if I talk too much, just tell me to stop. But I’m so excited about life because I’m happy and I have good memories. And I’m an optimistic person to start with. That’s part of my nature. Not that we don’t have hard times. We all do. It’s part of being here.”