060309 transcribed

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1959

June 5^th, 1959

Dear Mother,

My how time is flying.

“Oh, What a Beautiful Morning – oh what a beautiful day!” & oh, how blessed I feel this morning to be here on our gorgeous homestead instead of in the crowded, stifled Govt. Hill Apts. I passed yesterday. Oh, Mom, I do love it here. I just wish you were here with us!!!

Please do plan to come in Aug if at all possible – or better still July – while it’s still warm!

Poor Bill before yesterday he came home the nite before last so happy because he had been able to drive the tractor all the way up from the trailer without stopping! It only took ½ hour!! That seems so short to us now but just think, on L.A. freeways it took ½ hr from LA to Pas ONLY – never mind – it’s worth it & Bill’s face shone with happiness. Then the next nite he came home so miserable & pulled out his pay voucher & for sure I thought he’d been fired – he’s been out so much & late so much – my heart fell! But to him it was almost as bad – his pay, Oh Mom, now of all times, was 250 short!! A catastrophe for sure.

We had one rainy day this week & I couldn’t let the children out all day – nothing seemed nice then – but oh, today – how I wish you were here to share it with me.

I’m writing this letter to you while sitting on the cot outside in the sun. There’s a very slight wind & the leaves & trees are rustling & the sound of it & the creek & the river sounds the waves of an ocean!

Oh Mom, I hardly dare to love this place so & love it I do. I am in love with it – just as Bill was. It’s Shangri-la & I must share it with you each & every summer – now Mom, if we get title this winter & we must & I’ll never rest until we do!! THEN now, I am serious – plan your summers here!! Or at least 1 entire month every summer – but there’s so much room here you could have a little place all your own! Now you write & answer me!! No fancy trailer idea – no, no, no – a small log house or a tiny 26-ft trailer like ours – because after all, you live outdoors all summer here!!

Every time I look around I wish to run & shout with glee – oh, such beauty – I’ll never want again for anything — I’ll wait & wait & wait only this land, only this land!!! I love it, I love it, I love it – our homestead & will live here for ever & ever & ever!!

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I sound love sick & I am! Speaking of love do you realize soon we will have been married 10 years – Bill wanted us to go out somewhere fancy but we’re not gong to spend one penny. I secretly plan a B.B.Q. steak celebration here on our place, but I must admit it would be such fun to get dressed up in my white dress you gave me before I left Calif. – we haven’t been out together since Jan – New Year’s Eve & that is not right.

I never seem to see Bill & now we don’t even sleep in the same bed & of course, have no privacy. The children go to bed the same time we do. Several nights ago he brought their beds up – 2 sleep in 1 bed – 1 on each end in sleeping bags but at least they’re finally off of the floor!

Each little thing that comes up here is so wonderful!!! [she has a half page drawing here of yard and inside of hut showing furniture – where she is showing that they were going to put trailer on end is not where it ended up] Our 16 X 18 hut now looks crowded! See? Now it’s getting to be quite comfortable & very nice for now once we get the trailer up.

Mom, Mom please come, please please come up. Not to sight-see or visit like last year – Just to be with us each day & month is so precious. Couldn’t you get someone to look after things – Oh Mom, if we get the trailer up soon & leave the bed in there or you could sleep in the front room & it’s so warm & cozy & private! Would you come for the rest of the summer now that we have the tractor.

You could write here & I’ll spend the entire summer relaxing, organizing & writing!! Please, we could pay your fare back late Aug – please a 1 way ticket – oh Now, now, now Answer me now!!!!!

The road in to Pollards is pretty good now – it’s fixed up, still bumpy but dried up!!

By the way Mrs. Bockstahler says you could have their cabin where we stayed last summer. I said ‘no’ too alone in case you needed someone! Mrs. Pottle said for me to invite you to stay with them!

Now I’m serious Come now – take the summer off – could you close the house up for the summer? Your food here would be free, no rent & you could pay your flight up & we’d pay it back! Then I bet by devoting all your time to writing up here all summer then we’d both make enough to pay for your rent.

Last nite’s paper said Holiday Life, Outdoor Life etc. are all coming up with Alaska articles next month!! [line drawn with large words answer now!!] [Linda note: this is getting really boring!]

Tell Charlie again & again we think of him & appreciate the temporary loan! Without it we’d be walking & even hauling water –!! [we did that anyway, I guess she means we’d haul water walking]\\Well, it’s 6:30 now – I keep doing things & each time I sit down in the yard I’ve added notes. ** YOUR LAST LETTER WAS ONE OF THE SWEETEST I’VE EVER RECEIVED. Your marvelous understanding & such sweet thoughts. Mother, thank YOU for being YOU. I too, am grateful for C & C – so very grateful. I am so happy to know they are there. BUT I want you some time summer & all summer if possible!! Much, much Love & take care of yourself! Love, US ALL

My hand got tired so I took awhile to rest! I just took my plants off a shelf Bill made in the tree & put them in the garden for more sun. Each child has several plants in old cans. They tore off the labels, punched holes in the bottom & put small rocks 1/3 way up. Today we were all thrilled to see that they have sprouted & truly what’s more thrilling than to plant a seed and watch it grow? I love gardens and can hardly wait until we’ve cleared and cultivated our land – I can just picture our place ‘someday’. Sometimes it startles me to imagine it all so clearly and look out and see just wilderness. But it will happen!

We just had a picnic lunch. I cleaned up the Jamesway and honestly with wild flowers in vases (we can afford the luxury of giving them drinks now that we can haul water!) and our few things in there – except the canvas is so dirty and the floor so ugly! Oh well, all in good time – I get overly anxious.

Anyway then I made a pan of fudge (We had ½ for dessert and then we were walking around and I looked back and Smokey had eaten the other half!!! __ Oh, I was mad. We had Kool Aid, pnt and jelly sandwiches and cookies. I packed a basket and took a blanket and we took off.

Believe me, we’re still not brave enough to go to far but we did go out-of-sight of the hut to a grove of birch and spruce. Hum – sniffed so nice. The wild flowers are all in full bloom now and so beautiful. After lunch the kids climbed some of the sturdier birch trees – it was a change and fun!

** Well, it’s 5:00 now and I better finish the letter. I wanted to tell you all about yesterday! I had to go to town to sign house papers with Bill and take care of some plastic business. I finally let the other dealer take the bookings for June and July and I am thru except for a few more pkg etc.

We had to get up at 4:00 A.M and bundle up very warm. The top mt. peaks were covered with snow – it snowed there while it rained here – the valley was a bed of clouds and more clouds hovered over surrounding mts. We can watch them float by . We were going to town and ride in the 2 wheel trailer behind the tractor, put, put down the hill to the jeep to get there. One thing we can really appreciate the scenery like that. We all piled in and the marvelous tractor took off.

Oh, how I wish you could be with us. It’s so darned hard to describe it all to you. The 1^st part of the road is fine – the first mud hole is hardly recognizable – but then we leave the road and travel in the ditch – just ride enough, barely for the tractor – that ‘the operator’ made for the water to go down. The dirt is piled up on the side of us, some places 5 ft. high and in the ditch the water races down – dripping and draining continually from the sides of the bank. The water plus the tractor have got the ditch down to the gravel and rocks so it’s more like a creek bed, so amazing to me the tractor put puts right along in the water!!

As we progress we come back up to the high road – (other places he will come back and fix the high places into a road when it dries out) _- and then on the side of us the water runs in a narrow ditch and looks just like a creek with water falls BUT oh Mother, there it isn’t in the road any longer!

No doubt about it he has already accomplished the impossible!

Oh, we looked funny when we got to town – me with boots, levis etc and all of us looking – well just like homesteaders!! I hadn’t been ‘out’ for a week and hadn’t had a real bath since then! We took showers at the women’s dormitory on the base – and all got dressed up in summer cottons! My, we felt good!!!

I had packed our things in a suit case but had forgotten soap, shower cap and bobby pins and comb! I couldn’t do a thing until I had them and even refused to go to breakfast until we were cleaned up. I went over to the shopping center on Govt Hill and he opened up the store early (he was cleaning it) and I purchased the things. Oh, I hated to be seen that way. Once you’re in the city it’s just like Pasadena or any city and you feel out of place not dressed up—

Anyways later I found my shower cap and wanted a refund of 39 cents on one I’d bought so returned it and I was sure he’d never recognize me BUT he did!

We had so much to do wash to be done, pkgs at PO and to be delivered, all done just in time to meet Bill at 5:00. I’ll be so glad when we can just go in for fun.

(1 or 2 more times and I’ll be done) Anyways I’m so glad we can take FREE showers there and it’s so clean and nice. Remember when Bill first came here and stayed at ‘the barracks’ well, that is what this is, only it’s the women’s barracks! They all work during the day and so nobody cares whether or not we used the facilities. So that problem is solved!

On the way home, I stopped to see Mrs. Bockstahler a minute. She’s so nice. She has really fixed up the shop and has added fur things, Eskimo and native art, ivory etc. Of course, all very nice! They decided to keep the front house for themselves. He broke down and bought a couch and with the furniture he makes it surely looks nice. She’s so pleased and happy. They’ve rented the back house to a woman and her 19 yr old daughter on a year’s lease. Mrs. B’s aunt is coming up for a month and then his father will be up for the rest of the summer. She wants me to work part-time and I’d love to but just don’t see how it’s possible!! She remarked “I didn’t look like a homesteader” I told her why!

After we left her we turned homeward. It’s getting hard to know what to buy for food. We’re all sick and tired of canned meat. Yesterday in town I bought an enormous sack of potatoes at a roadside stand for 1.50 and some nice fresh vegetables – including our 1^st corn on the cob 6 for 1.00. I bought some corned beef to go with cabbage I bought (like buying a dress to go with earrings (ha ha)) But I didn’t dare buy anymore meat without refrigeration .

*

We changed clothes at foot of road and once again climbed into tractor. Oh, to think we didn’t even need the clumsy boots and all we were wearing. We chugged to the top. Each bad hill I thought – “oh how hard that one was to make and so a rock [?] and remembered Cindy and Sharon pleading “Let’s rest Mommy” – and how my heart had ached! [when we were walking up it before]

We rode in our convertible to the top of the Mt. – oh, what bliss. Only it doesn’t convert in case of rain, snow and all. But oh, so marvelous.

I had trailer half loaded with boxes and today had wonderful time [putting] pretty things in place!!

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post marked June 19, 1959

Thurs Eve LATE

Dear Mother,

Where does the time go? I’ve meant to write you all week but I get terribly frustrated because there’s so much I want to write & keep waiting until I have time to write a long letter but Bill has been bringing up load after load & I’ve been sorting etc all week!

Tonite I’m trying to straighten out some last Holliday mess to take care of in town tomorrow so must make this really a note & promise to get another off over week-end.

Really hate the bother of going to town tomorrow but must get showers, do wash etc.

No. We still can’t ride * up in jeep – how I wish we could. You seemed to think we can. We ride in 2 wheel trailer hitched to back of tractor. It’s rough, bumpy & oh, so terribly dusty!! I hate it. Consequently, I don’t go out unless I have to – I do wish every once in a while to go out & visit but how? I always am covered with dust after 1 mile & jeep is dirty & dusty too! Oh well, some day!

Golly you’re excited over Buttner’s place & you know there’s nothing I’d like better than to have you up there – 1 mile away BUT oh Mom, it really, I’m afraid, is impossible. Yes. You would have to file in person on it & then mark land off – Bill could do it. But you not being a veteran would have to live there for 14 months continuously & then only clear 10 acres (instead of 20 like us) or live there 7 months for 3 years & then can only be broken 3 X in 1 year — & clear 20 acres – 10 (1 yr) if so desired & repeat 10 next year & 10 more 2^nd year. Comprehending? There’s no getting away from winter. Even with us we can’t escape winter months!

See it snows here in October & Nov is really bad – usually – of course it depends. But will have to winterize our place to stay here til Nov – as much as if it were for all winter. So I don’t want to leave. We’re heaving such a job getting settled & can’t bear the thought of ever doing it again. Only time will tell what we will do – come Nov.

As far as Buttner’s place it isn’t much & is only a tiny valley & cottonwoods all rest is Mt. side. Of course enough for you. But 1 mile of this Mt. is a lot & supplies & all. Oh dear Mother I’m afraid it would be too much.

Settle for a cabin on our place. You can be on our level or above & privacy but no bother of land clearing etc!!

It’s all very hard & you mustn’t do it. At any rate I am planning on your coming in Aug. – Please — & will show you it then. Meanwhile rest & take care of yourself for us!!

I love you for your pioneering spirit – you’re truly a WONDER!!

John had a nice Happy Day. We celebrated it last Sun. with a hot dog roast & cake outdoors on our redwood set, which we finally got up!

Even Pollards couldn’t get their tractor up last Sun. – had promised Buttner to get their gear out — & had to walk up to our place. I guess Bill will take it out I guess this week-end. Pollard’s tractor was too wide!

We’re still having perfect desert weather. I am tanned – really brown. I can’t recognize myself! First time in my life & to think got it in Alaska. I live out-doors – between jobs inside –

Kids are fine. Tanned too. We put their play tent from Calif. Up & they have had lots of fun.

Bill clears land every nite until 12:00 A.M. It’s light enough at mid nite to weed my garden. It’s all up & I am thrilled to death. Each child now has a veg. Garden too!

Must close. I love you. Will see you in Aug. Wish Charlie Jr. could come with you!???

Love, Mildred. You mustn’t drive. Fly

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July 15, 1959

Dearest Mother,

Have thoroughly enjoyed your wonderful letters about your vacation – wish I’d been there too & John is ‘agog’ – about gold mines. So very glad you went! Got such a kick of reading about you in tent!

— Oh, see here it’s about midnite & Bill is returning from clearing – now it’s quite dark – dusk really out — & getting darker every day. Colder out now & has ‘feel’ of autumn – oh, please, not yet – “so much” to be done.

We take absolutely no time out — & I’m always bone tired – I think lifting water cans, gathering wood & all – I use different sets of muscles. How Bill stands it I don’t know – He’s truly a wonder – he goes, goes. Remembering – we used to wonder how he’d do it? He gets up at 5:00 & goes to bed at 12:00 – or later. Day in, day out –

I’ve been waiting to write hoping I’d have news! Pollard was to do road work this week-end for people that took over Buttner’s place – they did take it & are building a cabin from the Cottonwood grove up there – green, undied [sic] wood! She’s fun – quite a character!! [five underlines] Just the couple, both work & 18 yr old boy who will go to college this fall!

Anyway Pollard was to try to get trailer up – well it poured (naturally on week-end) & road got muddy. Well, he didn’t do anything & now says this week.

On 4^th of July I worked for 1s time at Bockstahler’s & guess what? I worked 25 [percent] of comm.. & got 34.00. I bet he’ll never recover – or hire me again! She had wanted to pay me 1.00 an hr + comm.. & I refused — & then made that. But from 9:00 to 9:00 Bill stayed in watching children in car so I was glad. [Linda note: we spent 12 hours in car waiting??] I gave it all to Pollards on his work & now him 95.00 & she hated taking any more when he’s never gotten trailer up. The road is now too narrow for trailer. It’s empty & our ‘hut’ is really crowded.

Oh Mom, so many big & little things to tell you & already bed time & bed is loaded with laundry to put away.

Day before went to town for 1^st time in almost 2 weeks. We stayed overnite at Motel for only 12.00 for 2 rooms & kitchen. It’s a remodeled house & nice. New sheets, pillows, blankets etc. I went to bed at 8:00. Did laundry in afternoon, we all showered & I ironed next day until 2:00 – closing time.

Then I took kids to see salmon boats coming in. Man gave me a fresh salmon!! I gave half to Bockstahler’s & his Father who’s visiting them cleaned it etc for us. Last nite we had steaks & oh, how I thought of YOU!

Oh Mom I must see YOU if only for 2 weeks – 2 yrs would be too long.

I’ve so hoped & prayed that I could write you trailer was up but can’t. We finally (or I did) put linoleum down here – we were waiting til had plywood down so it wouldn’t crack but couldn’t stand these awful floors. I could write you 10 pages about time I had getting it down was an awful job with all stuff we have in here not! Looks so much better but is cracking.

Let’s wait & see if trailer gets up? You can sleep on roll-a-way in with us but it’s so crowded but there’s room between kids bunk beds! Tis hut is warm – in fact too hot when fire is going. It’s up to you – I want to see you so badly.

Mrs. Pollard’s mother is with them until school opens. Her 85 yr old grandma was up here & her cousin – they left.

I want you here – we must be together, Please! We can wait for $ but our time together, I feel, is most important. Our whole family has a trip due us now to Calif. & will come next!

Now I want to know – I wrote 1 long, long letter & thought it would be waiting when you returned. I mailed it several days before I heard you were on vacation — & didn’t write since because I knew you were gone & thought it would be there when you returned & as I said I hoped I could write you trailer was here. Also I mailed 2 sets of recent road pictures & of John’s Birthday!! & asked you to return them. I wrote detailed descriptions & notes!! Did you get these! They were sent air mail. I won’t rest until I know. Golly did both letter & pictures get lost?

Must close now – Bill is washed & can’t get to bed until I clear it off. Got Sharon’s card & check today – oh, you must see her & others!!

I’m quite sure I’m going to have a nursery school in our old log house – more later – lease would start Aug 15^th & you could sleep there.

Love & write

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