A Blended Family Legacy Foto-Essay of kids in Dragonfly Community,
Greater Seattle, circa 1995 – 2010
***Graphic heavy with 107 fotos & 12 avi.avi videos. Yes, 107 pictures and 12 videos! Plus a long read. Please allow TIME for individual fotos to download. You may possibly need to download a free AVI (Audio Video Interleave) movie converter. Or not. Some of the videos require two clicks to access the video, and once finished, 1 or 2 clicks back to return to the main article. Other videos require only one click away and one click back. Only takes a few seconds at the most. Hey, it’s worth it! There’s a bit of family history here below. Enjoy!***
1. Dragonfly Community
Pop Stars! The Three Dragonfly Sisters performing at the Yellow Dragonfly House, in the Seattle neighborhoods of upper-upper Fremont south of the Woodland Park Zoo. Left to right are Kate, age 6, Morgan, age 10, & Talia, age 2. Foto taken with Kristina’s Canon PowerShot A40 on Saturday 7 August 2004.
Jolie, aka JoJo JoDog, was often bewildered by these crazy kids and often joined in wanting to play. Here’s Jo at what was then the Kat-Bark Zeb-Elf Barn, an intentional community in Bellevue that became Dragonfly East, eventually merging with Dragonfly West, an offshoot of Orca Landing Cooperative Household, in Seattle, to become Dragonfly. This foto was taken in early 2002.
2. In the beginning…at Orca Landing Community in the mid-to-late 1990s
In the beginning Dylan, known as Morgan back then, would often dress up and perform as a child. She would watch movies on VCRs over and over, films such as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Wizard of Oz, and, eventually, other Disney films and the Harry Potter series. To our collective astonishment, she, a wee preschooler, figured out how to program the VCR so she could record her favorite shows. None of us adults including those who considered themselves fairly tech savvy were able to figure out how to navigate all of those commands. Inspired by those classic films, Morgan would dress up in a wild tangle of colorful sheets of fabric and Mardi Gras beads, many given to her and her cousins by their adoring paternal grandmother Dorothy Ussery Bass. They’d whirl and twirl around dancing and pretending to be in the movies. She would put on her own solo shows for whoever would watch. And she would call us all in to watch her, too.
Once, at Orca Landing, an urban cooperative household as intentional community (UCH-IC) in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle, when she was three or four years old, around 1997-98, she climbed up atop the coffee table in the den and called out for us to clap for her. When we adults stared back in surprise, she stood up and in her confident, little kid voice commanded all of us in the room, “Clap for me!” We clapped, laughed, and shouted, “Bravo!” In response, Morgan bent over while atop the coffee table and curtsied.
Little Morgan, who nowadays goes by Dylan, loved to dress up & curtsey as a child. She liked to clap a lot, too! Here she is at Orca Landing Urban Cooperative Household in Seattle, circa 1995-1996, aged 1-2. She was the first of the Dragonfly kids, and often danced, sang, and created performances alone although she loved to pull in her parents and housemates.
Sometimes she would take her little solo shows outside into the back yards of Orca Landing.
Grandma’s influence. Morgan in the middle between Bass cousins Lydia & Jessie playing with Grandma’s beads in my parents’ kitchen on Riverview Farm in Virginia, July 1998. Kate would be born the following November with Talia following about 3 & a half years later.
It was only natural her little sisters would follow suit one by one. First, Kate, and then Talia. The dancing evolved, and all three of them took a variety of dance classes, sang in choirs, played instruments, and engaged in school plays. Talia went on to dance and teach dance as a young adult. Morgan, as Dylan, did stand-up comedy in the Greater Seattle area after college before moving to New York City. In the beginning, however, most of the dancing, however, was us adults with our babies and tots, LOL! Often with their pets, especially JoJo Jolie. My then-wives/exes from those years, Gwen (now Vie) and Kristina were deeply involved in helping them get dressed up for both fancy costume parties as well as impromptu in-home performances.
Goofing around together with Gwen & Dudley’s new Logitech Camera attached to their Compaq Computer at Orca Landing Community. L2R: Me, Dudley (now William), daughters Kate (Kathryn) & Morgan (now Dylan), Baby Dylan (our housemates’ son), and my then-wife Gwen (now Vie). We had other intentional community mates at the time, and around little over 20 different people lived at Orca Landing in Seattle over the years. Foto taken on Tuesday 9 May 2000.
3. At Dragonfly East (formerly the Kat-Bark Zeb-Elf Barn), 2002 – 2004
Kate loved what we called “Rumble Tumble.” Here’s she’s doing the flip with Kiki at Dragonfly East, early 2002. That’s Kiki’s then-husband Edan sitting back there in the chair.
Whee! LOL! Kate’s such a dynamo we later called her our “Little Tornado,’ and eventually, “Hurricane Kate.” Twas the way she would gleefully tear thru the house…
Whoa! Edan! Kate’s head’s SO CLOSE to the ceiling! Scared me there for a sec, but Kate’s loving it. Lookit her eyes!
Kathryn the Great (her other nickname) in her very own Circus Soleil. Early 2002 in Bellevue. Kate had just turned 3 years old the previous end of November.
Our turn! That’s me swing dancing rumble tumble style with Katie.
Father & Daughter, early 2002.
Morgan did try to dance with little Dragonfly friend Atreyu, but he just wiggles. JoJo keeps them grounded. But is that a giant yellow stuffed baby chick all squished up in the back? Or a big little fuzzy Yellow Duckie?
Gotta relax between all that dancin’!
Little Trey-Trey (oh, don’t call him that now, Lol) dancing solo. Morgan & JoDog with the rest of us just beyond picture’s edge. Dragonfly East, early 2002.
Having fun at Dragonfly East, formerly the Barn, in Bellevue. L2R: Kiki, Gwen, Kate, Jean (Kristina’s mom, holding Li’l Katie), & Kristina, pregnant with Talia. Jo sits at their feet. Tuesday 16 April 2002. Considered cropping out the furniture stuff in picture right, but check out the now-obsolete technology in use at the time.
Gwen on the floor, picture left, about to take Atreyu as he staggers over from William. Edan & Kiki on the right, who were married then and are Atreyu’s parents. Kate sits in Kiki’s lap. Again at Dragonfly East in April 2002.
Blended families at Dragonfly West, formerly the Maple Leaf Cottage, an offshoot of Orca Landing. L2R: Morgan holding her baby doll, William, Kristina holding Talia, Kate holding her doll baby, & Gwen holding Atreyu. Kiki took the foto. Saturday 29 June 2002.
No history or large canvas narrative of Dragonfly would be complete without a shout out to Syd. She’s been intimately engaged with Dragonfly over decades, especially as she helped the rest of us found and create Dragonfly as a new intentional community. Syd has lived in ICs most of her adult life, including Twin Oaks in rural Virginia, and in Seattle Orca Landing, Meridian House, the Cabin, and numerous others. She served on the board of NICA and other IC groups for many years. Not only was she especially close with some of the Dragonfly founders, but she was also Godmother to Kate and, later, Morgan. Syd also loved dancing and music, and was an influence upon Morgan & Kate. Here’s Syd sitting in the yard with Kate & Morgan at Dragonfly West in Maple Leaf, Seattle. It’s Sunday 11 August 2002.
It’s the Sabbat of Samhain & Halloween! Eight year old Morgan on picture left has already been dressing up as a pop star. Her buddy Jessica as Harry Potter. Morgan is doing it more and more, and then Kate gets into it, and eventually, Talia. Tuesday 29 October 2002 at the Maple Leaf Cottage aka Dragonfly West.
A rare shot of all of the primary Dragonfly Community people together. Halloween Corn Maze trip somewhere north of Everett, WA, late October 2002. L2R: Bottom Row: Jean, Atreyu (in stroller); Middle Row: Talia (in baby sling wrap), Morgan, Kate; Top Row: Kristina, William, Kiki, Gwen, Edan. While no one is dressed up and dancing, this foto does provide a snapshot of the greater familial web of relationships the kids thrived within.
Video 1:
dancer 11-03.AVI
^^^ Talia dances as Atreyu laughs, howls, & giggles. Supposedly taken in November 2003 at the old Kat-Bark Zeb-Elf Barn, but we were all moved into Yellow Dragonfly by then. Click on the link above to watch and hear the video.
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4. At the Yellow Dragonfly House, 2004
In late summer and early fall of 2002 Kristina purchased the roughly 100 year old and newly remodeled yellow house and yard up in the north end of Fremont, sometimes called Upper Fremont, in the area just south of Woodland Park Zoo. A few folks in the neighborhood referred to their area as “SouZoo,” but SouZoo isn’t commonly used. We usually just told people “top o’ Fremont” or “next to the Zoo,” for we could hear howler monkeys and roaring lions on clear days. At least the hearing folks could. In an incredibly busy and complex series of simultaneous moves, we all moved into what came to be called the Yellow House across mid October into early November of 2002. Katayamas, Basses, Hugheses, Zebooloons, Elfendahls…we all moved from what we came to call East Dragonfly and West Dragonfly to into the Yellow House.
We had been many miles apart on opposite sides of Lake Washington. East Dragonfly, originally the Kat-Bark Zeb-Elf Barn, or the Barn for short, was in the upper, northern section of Newport in the southwest corner of City of Bellevue. West Dragonfly, an offshoot of Orca Landing, was in the Maple Leaf neighborhoods of northern Seattle. Hence, as an offshoot of Orca Landing, we often referred to it as the Maple Leaf Cottage. By mid November 2002 we were happy under one roof, and the kids now all had more room to play. Our old Yellow House was officially, finally, one geographically unified intentional community as an urban cooperative household. We simply called it, formally, Dragonfly.
Atreyu was quite the gymnast, too, the little guy. Here he trains at Seattle’s Little Gym where he learns more mastery over his body. Look at his hand placements. He would cavort all over Dragonfly House with Morgan, Kate, & Talia and perform with them. Eventually, however, the Zeb-Elfs would move away into their own home, although we all stayed in touch over the decades. From Wednesday 28 January 2004 when he still lived in the Yellow Dragonfly House with his parents.
Kate, Morgan, & Talia rockin’ it as they perform for the rest of us Dragonflies at the Yellow House, Upper Fremont, on Saturday the 7th of August 2004. They performed together, solo, and with other friends off & on during their early years. Most of those fotos & videos were lost in the 2010 Fire. Here’s a few that made it! Enjoy! Lookit ’em getting it on & doin’ their thang!
They rehearsed over and over, and yet each performance was each one kinda doing their own thing their way but together to the music and somehow it all blended together perfectly.
Kate. Also known as Katie, Kathryn the Great, Kato, Hurricane Kate, & Kato the Tornado. Must say I prefer the red eye camera effects than the tan eyes seen here or the black-eyed kids look.
Classic red eye fotos from the old daze. Left the “red eye” in, too, LOL, and watch ’em go! Don’t remember why Kathryn the Great left the stage.
Morgan cuts loose while Talia maintains a steady focus.
Talia rocks in the stillness of spacetime with gravity as Morgan sings with pop star levity. Rather have a foto of red-eye kids than those of the black-eyed kids haunting the fringes of the paranormal.
The oldest of the Dragonfly Kids is 10 years old here. She loved to sing and dance around and choreograph friends and siblings into impromptu performances.
Every picture tells a story, and every person who looks at it has a different interpretation.
Morgan Hannah, Pop Star!
In her element
Morgan was good at memorizing the songs she wanted to sing. If she forgot, no problem; she easily ad libbed and improvised to make up sounds and tunes to express her creativity. She also studied music videos and movies.
Cuttin’ loose
5. More fun at the Yellow Dragonfly House, 2005
Kate dances even on a trampoline full of snow. Here she is 6 years old gleefully tumbling & prancing about after a Seattle snowstorm at Dragonfly, Wednesday 9 January 2005.
Talia is as focused as ever and more precise. Pink is her favorite color and her Mom, Chi Chi Mommastina’s, least favorite, LOL
Talia performing at Yellow Dragonfly. She’s nearly a month away from turning 3 years old. Saturday 16 April 2005.
In comes Morgan! Goofin’ & laughing’! Sadly in a way, being 11 years old, she’s outgrown “I wanna be a pop star” homegrown performances. Starting to run more with her preteen and young teen friends. Saturday 16 April 2005.
Videos from more performances by the kids at Yellow Dragonfly the very next day, Sunday 17 April 2005. “M” was a new housemate who lived there for a time with her Dad. Click on each link to watch these short, fun avi.avi videos.
Video 2:
MVI_2362.AVI
^^^ Talia shakes, wiggles, & dances!
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Video 3:
MVI_2363.AVI
^^^ Talia shakes it out again!
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Video 4:
MVI_2364.AVI
^^^ Katie swishes and dances with Morgan in the background, and then a new friend, “M,” dashes out in front…
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Video 5:
MVI_2366.AVI
^^^ Little M puts on quite a little show!
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Video 6:
MVI_2367.AVI
^^^ Talia, M, & Kate dance while Morgan changes costumes in the distance.
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Video 7:
MVI_2368.AVI
^^^ Kate, Talia, & M twirl, swirl, & dance!
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Jo Jo Jolie is so mellow, and she’s also curious & puzzled by all the twirling & swirling.
6. Trampoline Dance Performance at Yellow Dragonfly House, 2008
These AVI.avi videos are among the next to last recorded performances by the Dragonfly kids that survived the 2010 Fire. These occurred outdoors on their trampoline Kristina bought for them a few short years back. Both Kate & Talia also took gymnastics as well as dance. They along with Morgan took many classes in dance, team sports, music, and other activities over their respective childhoods. The following five .avi videos were recorded on Monday 14 July 2008.
Video 8:
Talia & Kate tramp show 001
^^^ Kate warms up to perform as Talia preps.
[3:18]
Video 9:
Talia & Kate tramp show 002
^^^ Talia bounce-sings on the trampoline!
[4:19]
Video 10:
Talia & Kate tramp show 003
^^^ uh-oh?
[0:07}
Video 11:
Talia & Kate tramp show 004
^^^ Speeches & Prep, LOL
[0:56]
Video 12:
Talia & Kate tramp show 005
^^^ Yay! Kate & Talia perform the Grand Finale! With music!
[0:56]
7) Last Recorded Dance Performances by the Kids at Dragonfly, 2009
The following images were from the kids goofing and dancing at home on Tuesday the 13th of October 2009. Well, Kate and Talia as Morgan had moved on into more teenagey activities. Such is part of growing up as we Earth Humans move thru different phases. All three were also active outside the home in both school and outside of school in everything from violin to figure skating to soccer to different dance classes to choral groups to gymnastics to art to theater and hanging out with their many childhood friends.
Kato Katrino warming up her face for her performance.
Jo still loves to get in on the action, too!
Kate & Talia began their show.
Usually their performances are a blend of impromptu, spontaneous play that start out as practice and preparation before transitioning into the actual performance. It’s all fun for the show!
Swirling into a blur!
Talia & Kate with Kristina on the sofa. Am shooting with my handheld Nikon D40 DSLR.
The Whirly Blur!
Mutual trust on a psychosocial level embodied in living, moving flesh, bone, and blood. It’s energetic, self-aware, unspoken.
Focused.
Eye to Eye.
Stillness in Movement.
Arms, legs, hands, shoulders, interlocked fingers, hips, feet, twirling whirling pivoting with flexible, tight abs and strong spines and fluids in brains and inner ears…we don’t even think about the effects of gravity, atmospheric pressure, the feel of the floor above the ground, the shading between lights and shadow, the subtle influences of culture, geography, and biochemistry…and soul.
Transitions between rotations and revolutions.
A new round begins…
Whoa!
Woo HOO!
Kate’s Flying Kick!
Hey, Lookit! The Zombie Spider Crawling Flip Leap!
Talia doesn’t mess around!
Focused. And calmly keeps on moving.
Taking turns resting while studying each other’s moves. By the way, all the stuff piled up in the back is our stuff from the River House we had to move out per the woes of the Great Recession. So it’s even more amazing for the kids to get creative with the cluttered, cramp space available among two houses of possessions crammed into one.
Practice, creativity, experimentation, and practice practice practice.
Down or up in the Upsidedown…
8) Moving on in the Lives we live and share…
We often slow down as we grow up and older. That’s life. Imagine being 43 years old and racing around like a hyped-up toddler going going going until you crash asleep? Instead we learn to channel our energy into more disciplined pursuits. On top of those things we deal with both the rewards and consequences of sports, injuries, accidents, illnesses, genetics, academics, outdoor adventure and travel. We deal with relationships, with love and heartbreak and yet more love. We move thru jobs into careers and experiences the ups and downs and backup-agains of the economy and the stormy changes of politics. People close to us die. New ones come along. Close friends move away. Social media ebbs and flows. And life goes on for the living, woo HOO! We’ll remember those wonderful times of when the kids felt free to dress up in colorful beads and wild fabrics and twirl, leap, bounce, and dance! When performance was a much a part of living as anything else, when performing to perform for the sheet joy of self-expression and sharing it with others was part of daily life back in those Yellow Dragonfly days.
Kate relaxing outside on the trampoline in the spring sunshine reading one of the Twilight novels. She used to tear thru the house with such style we called her Hurricane Kate. Friday 17 April 2009.
Morgan on the front porch of the Yellow Dragonfly House. It’s a sunny day in early 2009, and she’s either in the latter part of being 14 or had recently turned 15. Years later they switched to being named Dylan. Still a love heart kinda person, too!
Talia, age 8, balances on the beam in a Seattle gymnastics competition. She went on to win First Place! Saturday 2 October 2010. After a few injuries, she switched completely to dance, which she still does.
The three Dragonfly Sisters many years later a quarter of the way thru the 21st Century. L2R: Talia, Dylan, & Kathryn get together in a neighborhood of la Ciudad de Los Ángeles, California, on Saturday the 16th of August 2025. Foto by Vie Hughes, who is Kate & Dylan’s Mom and one of Talia’s Co-Moms.
NOTE on old and lost Pictures:
There are other fotos of Dylan as Morgan playing dress up and performing and also pictures of Kate and some of Talia, either lost in the fire or have yet to be rediscovered as I continue the process of cleaning, sorting, organizing, and scanning surviving fotos and slides. Many of the oldest pictures were lost, especially if they were print fotos and slide transparencies. Some of these lost images, from what I remember, included Gwen (Vie) and other parents and friends, too. If any of these lost pictures and videos are found and restored, they’ll be added in. In the meantime, enjoy the bounty of what’s left to peruse. So many wonderful memories from back when the kids dressed up, danced, and performed!
NOTE on Videos:
As the videos posted here are AVI movies, some of you may have to download and install a free AVI software app to play AVI video files such as the free, open source, cross-platform VLC Media Player from VideoLAN, which calls itself “a project and a non-profit organisation.” Go here if necessary: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/. Thank you, VideoLAN!
Note on who took what:
Most of the above fotos were shot by Kristina and I using a Nikon D40 DSLR Camera and a Canon PowerShot A40 Digital Camera. Kristina also shot most of the videos, usually with her little silvery Canon. A few pictures were taken by Vie with some by other friends and relatives. The kids themselves often took pictures, too. Fotos were cleaned up on iMac in the Apple Photos program.
The Big Picture:
One can think of these images in several different ways. For some people, hey, it’s just kids playing, getting creative, and having fun. For others, they’re intimate and evoke nostalgic memories of years long gone but not really all that long ago. For a small few, however, those fotos and videos represent a unique slice of history. They’re of blended family life in a small, urban intentional community in a progressive part of a large, troubled country. These kids grew up in a big tho provincial city out along the far edges of the United States of America not far from the Canadian border. Seattle and its satellite city network is closer to Alaska and even northern Mexico than it is to New York City and Washington, DC. The time period runs from the tail end of the 20th Century to the end of the first decade of the 21st. While, sure, there were some tough times in there, challenging times, we enjoyed many more great times together during those Orca Landing and Dragonfly years.
William Dudley Bass
Monday 16 June 2025
Sunday 17 August 2025
Revised Tuesday 19 August 2025
Shoreline/Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Earth
Sol
Copyright © 2025 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.