In 1907, "Daddy" and "Mother" Draper founded the Des Moines Children's Home and Industrial Training School which they devoted themselves to for twenty years. They adopted hundreds of abandoned, orphaned and homeless children, taught them trades and how to play musical instruments and sing. The "Jolly Entertainers" performed in a small "opera house" theater converted from a barn and once toured 38 states and parts of Canada. They all played a part in helping make Des Moines Children's Home one of the only self-supporting children's homes in history.

Rilda Martin came to Washington State from Wisconsin with her parents in 1904 and served as president of her 1911 graduating class in Des Moines. After attending and graduating from Bellingham Normal School (now Western Washington University), she taught school in Neah Bay. In 1918, she married Otto Moses and soon after, moved back to Des Moines where she became Des Moines' first kindergarten teacher. She taught classes in the basement of the Des Moines United Methodist Church until 1966, instructing over 1,200 children in her years as teacher. Rilda was a very active citizen who made her home, raised her family, worked, socialized and prayed in Des Moines, until her death in 1988, at the age of 95. She was one of our true pioneers.

Reverend Fritz Hjelm (pronounced "yelm") served as pastor of the Covenant Church Camp from about 1931 to 1939. The Covenant Beach Church Camp, was located at what is now known as Des Moines Beach Park. Reverend Hjelm was in charge of the Young People's evening fireside services in front of the fireplace in the Auxiliary Hall in 1934 and was one of the speakers at the new Covenant Bible Camp's first Annual Conference in 1932 - giving both lectures and sermons. In 1937, he was President of the North Pacific Missionary Conference, and presided as the platform chairman at the annual conference. Pastor Hjelm was also an editor for the Tabernacel Klockan, a noteworthy and widely read church newspaper, initially published in Swedish.

Civil War veteran, Nathan E. Munger was an early resident of the Zenith neighborhood in Des Moines. The Munger family grew flowers to sell on the 5 acre property they owned. Captain Commons, another civil war veteran, lived across the street from Nathan and it was said that the two men continued to fight the war for as long as they lived, by moving the boundary road marker continuously. Each man insisted the other had his fence too far out in the road. Nathan and his wife Clara were members of the Des Moines Grange No. 471.