Close encounters: Stories that got away | The Journal of the San Juan Islands

Close encounters: Stories that got away | The Journal of the San Juan Islands

A short walk in the woods from my home sits The Mausoleum at Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. Not one visit do I make to the memorial that I don’t mourn my grandfather. It isn’t grandpa who is buried there; it’s the McMillin family, but like John S. McMillin, the paternal head of the family, my grandfather was a businessman and a Mason. I tend to linger at the Mausoleum as if the stone edifice could answer some of my questions.