The Fieldhouse Flea Market Celebrates 50 Years!

TACOMA, Wash. – This year is the 50th anniversary of the giant Parisian-style flea market at the University of Puget Sound’s field house, and the college’s Women’s League is making their Saturday, March 17 event a special one.           

The Fieldhouse Flea Market, offering everything from 100-year-old antiques to freshly baked bread, regularly attracts some 4,000 visitors. This year there will be 70 local vendors, artists, and craftsmasters selling furniture and household décor, books, jewelry, gourmet food, artisan crafts, and up-cycled treasures for your home and garden.

 

There also will be advance prizes, a raffle, and—in memory of the original flea market in 1968—a booth with homemade lemon tarts, baked by two daughters of the Tarte au citron’s first Women’s League creator.

 

The Fieldhouse Flea Market will take place Saturday, March 17, at the University of Puget Sound’s Memorial Fieldhouse, on N. 11th Street, near Union Ave., in Tacoma. Early entry, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., is $10. General entry thereafter runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is $5. Children aged 2 and under enter free. Parking is free. All of the proceeds from admission fees go toward scholarships to help students attend the University of Puget Sound.

 

A Golden Ticket contest on social media gives market-goers the chance to win free, front-of-the-line entry to the market, as well as raffle tickets and swag bags of goodies. Visitors to the Women’s League Instagram, Facebook, and Facebook event pages can enter the drawings in the weeks leading up to the event.

 

 

Susan Strobel ’70 (left), who attended the first Women’s League flea market in 1968 while a student at Puget Sound, says her mother, Elsie Strobel ’33, regularly prepared batches of fresh lemon tarts for the event.

 

“The one thing that really motivated me to come to the flea market, and that I had to have when I was there, was the lemon tarts,” she said. This Valentines Day, she and her sister, Carol Colleran ’64, were busy fluting pastry cups and squeezing lemon juice as they made test batches of tarts, aiming to equal their mothers.

 

Amy VanZandt ’06 remembers walking in the rain to attend her first Fieldhouse Flea Market on St. Patrick’s Day. “We had such a good time! I was in grad school and was writing my thesis, so stress was high. I bought a peppermint candle and burned it over the next several weeks of writing. I loved that candle—and aced my thesis.”

 

 

Susan Resneck Pierce, president emerita of Puget Sound, writes, “I first encountered the Women’s League in 1992 and was blown away by the passion of its members.” She said the generosity of donors, such as Bethel Schneebeck and the flea market's popular appeal, had greatly impressed her.

 

Proceeds from the Fieldhouse Flea Market go toward need-based scholarships for the University of Puget Sound students. Last year Women’s League endowed scholarships provided $65,000 in financial aid to 17 Puget Sound students, while over the years, more than 350 students have received scholarships.

 

The market is the largest fundraising event organized each year by volunteers from the University of Puget Sound Women’s League. It has been held since 1968, after a league member traveled to Paris, France, and was inspired by a visit to a flea market there. Since that time, the league was founded in 1900 and has supported the university and its community—doing everything from making curtains for the dormitories to feeding students during the 1918 flu epidemic. In recent decades the group has focused on raising funds for scholarships.

 

For more information visit: pugetsound.edu/FleaMarket 
For updates, visit: facebook.com/PugetSoundWomensLeague

 

For directions and a map of the University of Puget Sound campus: pugetsound.edu/directions
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3931, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

 

Photos on page: From the top right: Poster by Chandler O'Leary; Women's League volunteers at the 2017 flea market; Flea market wares in 2017; Susan Strobel '70 (left) and Carol Colleran '64 making trial lemon tarts; Artist at 2017 flea market. Market photos by Ross Mulhausen.

 

Tweet this: 50 yrs of the Fieldhouse Flea Market & now the best one yet! Thanks, @PugetSoundWomensLeague! @univpugetsound 8 am – 4 pm Sat. Mar 17 #Tacoma http://bit.ly/2DxBzpB

 

Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/univpugetsound