Salim's store La Vouge at 210 1st St

My great grandfather Salim Khalil Shoucair came to the Seattle area around 1890 and he settled in Raymond around 1906. His first dry goods/clothes store in Raymond was at 210 1st Street called "La Vouge" and the next was at 412 1st Street and they lived a block away at 517 1st Street. From the old picture shown here Salim had the La Vouge store around 1914, this is determined by the age of my grandmother's brother George in the picture. George was born in 1910 and can't be past 3/4 yrs old there. On Salim's 1917 WW1 Draft Registration he listed his business address at 412 1st Street so we know he had moved his store by then. On December 27 1914, Salim joined the "Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of The United States" lodge # 1292 in Raymond, the Exalted Ruler was J.D. Henry and the Secretary was W.F. Burnett. Some of Salim’s relatives came to Raymond and worked and lived with him, Elias Fred Dracobly (1893-1982) and Charles Bardawil (1893-1967) both came around March 1914 via Mexico where they had been peddling and got wiped out by Poncho Villa. They left Lebanon together and went to Egypt then Jamaica then into Mexico. Both Elias and Charles were Salim’s nephews, Elias’s mother was Shalalla Shoucair a sister of Salim, and Charles mother was another sister Zelpha Shoucair. Zelpha came to Raymond in 1912 to help raise the kids as Salim and his wife Jamileh had just divorced. More Dracobly siblings came soon after Marie, Naseeb Ferris, Matilda, and Olga who married Ed Khoury. Naseeb Ferris Dracobly settled in Pe Ell, Lewis WA and started a dry goods store there.

Salim Antonious Bitar (1883-1953) came to Raymond right before 1920 and they lived on Duryea St. He had been living around Lancaster in Cowlitz County then in Aberdeen running a dry goods store called Bitar Bros. Two of his brothers were Constantine Antonious Bitar (1877/1968) who ran the La Vogue Store in Grays Harbor, and Abdo Antonious Bitar (1885/1967). The story I've heard is that Salim Shoucair sold his dry goods store to S A Bitar and that started the Bitar store in Raymond around 1919. Since Constantine also ran a store called La Vouge I don't know if Salim's La Vouge store was sold to Constantine or if they were partners. We know Salim had the store name by 1914 and I don't know how early Constantine was using that store name. After Salim sold his store to SA Bitar he had another store called "Golden Rule" before moving to California. Salim Shoucair didn’t move to California until the early 1920’s and they are there in Raymond on Ellis St in the 1920 census with Elias and Charles living with and working for Salim, the draft registrations and naturalization papers all confirm when they state their employer as Salim Shoucair and Salim also signed for many of them as witness on their naturalization papers. Elias Fred Dracobly went on to establish his department stores and the Dracobly Building in Raymond. Charles Bardawil worked for a bit with Elias in Raymond then moved to Redlands California with his wife Olive Saba around 1923.

The story I’ve heard is that the Bitar family came from Tripoli Lebanon during the Alaska Gold Rush and worked their way down to Washington and Oregon selling to miners and loggers like many other Lebanese immigrants. One of S A Bitar’s daughters Josephine married Elias Fred Dracobly and another son of his George Bitar married Saloma Shoucair who was a relative of Salim Shoucair, Emil S Bitar was also his son. The Bitar family also was a quite prominent Lebanese family in Portland Oregon and there is the Bitar Mansion there that at one time was owned by Robert Bitar the honorary counsel of Lebanon for Oregon.

In those days all the relatives would live on one block so the census in Raymond shows them all basically living together. Two nephews of Salim were also in Washington, Fouade “Fred” Michael Shoucair born in Choueifat, who came to Raymond in 1919 via Canada with his wife Matilda (Haddad) they brought a daughter Evelyn who was born in Vancouver Canada in 1913 and had another daughter Marie who was born in Seattle in 1922. Fred and Matilda lived next door to Salim around 1920 and records show that Fred was a barber; they lived in Seattle and Tacoma after Raymond. Matilda’s parents were Shaheen Haddad and Julia Saba, which hints that Matilda’s family is possibly connected to Charles Bardawil’s wife Olive Saba, Olive’s parents are unknown. Evelyn married Sam Dracobly around 1940 who was a cousin of Elias. Also there was Fred’s brother Aziz Shoucair b1899 in Choueifat, his 1920 travel document states he’s en route to Raymond Washington to see his uncle Salim Shoucair. Aziz was a shoemaker and he married Milakee and they had 3 children Minerva, Victor, and Dolly, they lived in Seattle.  Aziz’s death certificate lists his parents as Machael (Michael) Shoucair and Frieda. So Michael should be a brother to Salim.  Fred & Aziz also had a sister Maria in Lebanon, whose name shows up on a 1925 travel document for Fred stating a sister Maria Shoucair in Choueifat.

More Shoucairs were in Seattle: Faheen S Shoucair 1878/1938, Rasheed S Shoucair 1884/1956, and Affie Shoucair 1888/1968 all came to the Seattle area around 1906 and the parents listed for them on their death certificates is Shoucair S Shoucair as father and Hesin as mother. Other siblings from their obituaries are: Matilda, Rose, Alexander 1891, and Cecelia 1895/1952. Alexander settled in Alaska and had a dry goods/clothing store in Juneau, Cecelia married Michael George and they settled in Los Angeles and had 6 children, Rose married Mr Carrim and Matilda married Mr Zorick and both remained in Lebanon. Faheen and Rasheed had a clothes and dry goods store for a while in Seattle. Then there also was Khalil H Shoucair 1880/1943 that arrived in 1911 and settled also in Seattle whose parents were Habib Shoucair and Hesin Nabhen, all of these Shoucair’s are believed to be cousins or nephews/nieces of Salim Shoucair. Khalil Shoucair is the father of Milakee, Elias Khalil, Nicholas Khalil, Saloma, and Margaret Shoucair. Elias & Nicholas had the longest running clothing store in Seattle that finally closed in 1984.

---

Raymond WA, 1st St 1907 - Photo found at: pacificcohistory.org

photo from the early 1920's, Shoucair, Dracobly, Bardawil family