Come take a tour of our yard in April 2010... enjoy!!

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Growing up in Nome Alaska - part nine

My dad really enjoyed camping with hunting and fishing. He was a loyal friend and had many friends. There was always someone visiting our home. Mother would serve something yummy like homemade donuts, cookies, pie or cake.

Mother supported dad and would accompany him on some camping trips and making our home a happy place to welcome friends. I remember that my mother fell on the ice when she was pregnant and had to go to the hospital where she had a miscarriage. The doctor told my dad it was a little boy.


I remember taking baths in a round metal tub and thrilled when we bought a long rubber tub. I had a bath then mother washed a few clothes in that water and finally mopped the floors with the water.

It was February 1950 when I received a message that I was not to come home for lunch but to go home with Suzy for lunch. I wondered what was happening and why I couldn't go home for lunch. I went with Suzy for lunch but as soon as we were finished with lunch I didn't go back to school but walked home which was only a few houses from Suzy's house. My mother and Aunt Florence were crying. My dad asked why I didn't go to Suzy's house for lunch. I said I had gone there for lunch but I wanted to come home. My dad took me by the hand and we walked into the living room by the window and he sat down and took me up into his lap. He told me that my Grandma Verheek had died. He was very gentle and loving. He told me mother would need to go to Montana and I would be staying with Suzy while she was gone. He gave me a hug and told me I needed to go back to school I was very sad because I loved my Grandma but did as I was told.

June 25, 1950 the Korean War which was called a military conflict began. So in August of 1950 my parents sent me out to Montana to live with my Aunt Mabel. Mary Louise Lyle and I flew out together on the plane. I was 12 and Mary Louise probably two or three years older than me so we were just young girls traveling alone. The picture shows Mary Louise and I with corsages from her mother and my two good friends Donna Lyle and Suzy Galloway. Mary Louise and I had flown to Fairbanks and then to Seattle. While we were flying to Seattle the men behind us were talking and said that two of the engines on the plane had quit. We were so scared but the plane was able to fly safely to Seattle on the two remaining engines. My father told me he knew about the engines quiting as he was tracking our trip. My parents left Alaska at the end of 1950.

Here are three photos taken at the airport that day. The first is my mother, then me, then me and my friend Suzy Galloway.

It is very interesting what we remember and what we have probably forgotten. I really have tried to do the best I can to share my memories with you and be as accurate as I can.

I loved walking in the crusty snow believing I was walking on little diamonds. When it is snowing and the wind blows it reminds me of the wind and show whipping around making drifts of snow. I recall the midnight sun in the summer with dark shades to keep the light out so we could sleep and the beautiful stars shining on a clear night in the winter. i would look for the big dipper and the north star.

The Alaska flag is so beautiful! There were lots of dogs in Nome and I would feel sorry for those sled dogs that were chained to their little box sheds. You couldn't go near to them though because they would bark and growl at you. I don't want to forget the mosquitoes either and all the jokes how big they were. Mother would try to protect me from the mosquitoes with some kind of repellent when we were on picnics, camping or picking flowers and berries.

Living in Nome Alaska was a memorable opportunity and I remember fondly my loving family, choice friends and terrific experiences. In my autograph book someone wrote...

"Make new friends but keep the old...Some are silver and the others gold."

I'm grateful that I had the unforgettable and memorable experience of living in Nome Alaska!

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part eight

Our phone number in Nome was Main 96 and you had to talk to the operator to connect your phone call. Our mail box number at the Federal building was Box 104. There was no mail delivery so you rented a box and had to go to the Federal building to pick up your mail.

Mother took this picture of me after one snow fall. There was so much snow and Dad was gone working for the Army Engineers. Mother thought she wouldn’t have to go to the bank to work but the President of the bank came to our house and shoveled the snow so mother could go to work and I could go to school.

Some of my friends and I were able to take tap dance lessons. There must have been someone at Marks Air Force Base that could tap dance and they donated their time. It was fun. We were in a program and ordered pajamas from the catalog to wear as costumes.

My parents told me that I was never to let friends come into the house if they weren’t home. One day I had several friends in the house when I saw my mother coming home from work. I had my friends hurry out the back door but mother saw them and she was very unhappy with me. She tried to spank me with her yard stick… I jumped under the table and she broke the yardstick. It was her favorite yard stick and she was not happy with me. This was the only time she every tried to spank me.

I told you near the beginning of my story that we went swimming in a small creek north of Nome called Dry Creek under a little bridge called Red Bridge behind the mining company. Well, I was searching for pictures and I found a couple that I could share. So here they are:

 











One warm day a couple of my friends and I decided to go swimming in the ocean. There was no one around so we took off everything but our underpants and went into the water. It was cold but fun. I remember there was a big drop off as the waves rolled… luckily we were smart and didn’t go into the ocean too far. I don’t remember if I ever told my parents or not. I know they would have been horrified. I found a picture of a different time that we were playing in the ocean. 

My father bought an old boat and was going to repair and restore it. It was parked in our front yard during one summer. Dad had friends from Marks Air Force Base that came often to help dad with his boat. Lt. Jennings was one of the G.I.’s. My mother named the boat “Ben’s Folly”!! So here is a picture of the boat and the guys who were helping my dad repair it. This picture was taken when they took the boat to see if it would float. Not sure what happened with the boat.

One night after we had gone to bed my dad wokeup because he heard someone in our storage room in the back of the house. It was the middle of the night and someone was in our house! My dad woke mother up and told her to get his gun while he got his pants on. The person heard my dad and ran out the back door. It was very scary! I think that experience had a profound effect on me and I still lock all the doors. Here is a picture of my dad, Bill Millhouse and a friend. 

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part seven

two options - run back.....or stay there and wait. There are no outs as we know them. When the team "on top" is running, the team "on bottom" must hit the runners with the ball. When this happens, the team on the bottom runs to either the spot or where you hit, as fast as they can. While the team on the bottom is trying to become the team on the top; the team that was on the top can pick up the ball and hit someone trying to be on the top. If that is the case, the team that was on top runs back to the spot or to bat to regain their title as "The Team on Top." It sounds rather confusing but it really isn't once you start to play. There are definitely LESS rules then the usual baseball. They use a log that someone has carved down to be a "good bat." They use any kind of ball for their ball.

During the summer months the ships would come to Nome. The ships would anchor 3 to 4 miles out from the shore and all the freight was brought in on barges. The Eskimos who lived on King Island would come to Nome in June in “umiak’s.” They’d load all the stuff they needed to live for the year during the summer months to carry back on their umiaks. They lived in shacks on the beach. They would carve on ivory and make bracelets and cribbage boards under their umiaks. Most of the Eskimo ladies wore fur parkas summer and winter. They made covers of calico to wear over the fur to protect the fur from getting dirty. They would carry their babies in the hoods of the parka. I can remember going to a restaurant and watching an Eskimo mother take a bite of food and chew it and then put some in the baby’s mouth.

Lucy Fagerstrom was a good friend and I remember going to her home and seeing her grandmother who was Eskimo sitting on the floor mixing something. I asked what she was making and was told she was making Eskimo ice cream. It didn’t look very good. I think it was whipped fat mixed with berries. The thought of it being fat didn’t sound very good to me. Her grandmother would dip the tips of the willow leaves in it. Lucy and I would wrap little things from our kitchens and share with each other. I would wrap something from our kitchen; maybe chocolate chips and give to her and then she would wrap something from her kitchen; maybe some coconut and give to me. It was fun!

The 4th of July was an important holiday in Nome. I remember we participated in a parade by wearing costumes and decorating our bikes. The Eskimos had a lot of games and contests. I remember the blanket toss. About 30 or more Eskimos gather in a circle, holding the edges of a large skin made from walrus or seal hides, and toss someone into the air as high as possible. The object: to maintain balance and return to the blanket without falling over. Of course, I never did that.There were kayak races too.

I attended the Methodist Daily Vacation Bible School and received a bible for memory work on June 2, 1950. I really enjoyed going to bible school. I loved the bible stories told with a flannel board. Also, the songs we sang were fun. I remember the Easter sunrise morning breakfast at the home of the minister and his family. I remember we ate bacon and an egg cooked in a muffin pan. I thought that was unique.

Our troop of Girl Scouts had a surprise one day. A submarine had come to Nome and they were inviting the scouts to tour the ship in the harbor. The boy scout troop was invited first but they they were gone somewhere so our girl scout troop was the next choice. I still remember how scary it was.
We had to ride a tug boat out to the submarine and the waves were active. Then they would lift each girl over the swirling water from the tug boat to the submarine. I still can see the ugly water as I was lifted to the submarine. One experience I will never forget.

We loved to play in the snow and I enjoyed my little sled. When they plowed the roads they made hills and we would use our sleds on those hills. I tried skiing too but I think I wasn’t brave enough to go down hills. I liked going and coming on mostly a flat surface. One winter there was so much snow that my friends and I built a snow fort in front of our kitchen window so we would have light.

One day my cousin Ralph was giving me a ride to his house from my house which was only about 4 blocks. He was riding on the back of the a dog sled and he had three dogs pulling the sled and he fell off the back. Here I was hanging on for dear life and scared to death. The dogs stopped in front of his house. I jumped off the sled and Ralph was yelling at me to hang on to the dogs. I wrapped one arm around the telephone poll and grabbed the sled with my other arm. I was screaming for Aunt Florence to help me. Well, I couldn’t hold the dogs and they ran away. Ralph was very angry with me and he had to get help to track down the dogs.

I loved my warm parka and my lap boots. Mother left my parka in Nome but I still have my lap boots and believe it or not they still fit! They are seal skin with rabbit fur on the inside. I also have an Eskimo doll in with fur mukluks and fur gloves attached to a rope which hangs around the neck.

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part six

It was March 2, 1949; my mother looked out our bay window toward the Bering Sea and saw a ship out there in the ice. Florence, Joy Galloway, Suzy, mother and I walked out on the frozen sea to see the Navy’s Icebreaker the Burton Island. The sailors gave us the grand tour of the boat. They explained how the icebreaker worked—they pumped water into tanks in the front of their boat. The weight would break the ice so it was really slow traveling that way. Mother was impressed when she saw the sailors cleaning celery in the galley and it looked so good.

I remember that I had a lot of comic books and I enjoyed reading all the Nancy Drew books. I had a favorite book with fairytales and mother must have left it in Nome. I know I read the stories many times.

Uncle Frank was visiting at our house one Sunday morning when Gus Steinwandel, Ben’s boss came in. He said the ice was going out. Frank looked startled and asked--are you sure?—yes—come look. Frank said Ralph is out there with his dog team crab fishing!! Gus called someone who told him that a bush pilot had gone out but Ralph wouldn’t leave his dogs. My dad had moved a surplus army building into Nome across the street from our house. His outboard motor was there in the sheet metal shop which was heated. So the fellows got a boat and this outboard motor and Uncle Frank went after Ralph. The pilot told them where to go. We were all so worried because the ice was going out and the Eskimos who were on the ice were never heard from—they were lost. Uncle Frank got the boat to the ice flow and loaded the dogs, sled and Ralph on the boat and got them all back to shore safely. I remember standing on the shore when Ralph arrived and when he passed me with the dog sled I could see red streaks frozen on his face from crying. I was happy he was safe but felt sad for the pain he experienced not knowing if he would make it back.

I’m grateful that we had a sewing club where I learned skills about sewing and embroidery. We were given a sterling silver sewing club pin that means a lot to me. It is almost the size of a quarter and has the intitials – CSC – and Nome, Alaska engraved on it. One of the projects was to make a quilt and I choose red, white and blue colors. I’m sad I didn’t finish the quilt but it was fun to plan, organize and learn skills. Also, someone who lived in the Mining company apartments made puppets and was going to show us how to make them. The puppets were so cute!

Uncle Frank built Aunt Florence a room in the front of their home for a beauty shop. Aunt Florence cut my hair and gave me permanents. She also let me practice the piano at her home even when she had customers in her shop. The fun part was Duchess their dog… Duchess was an English Llewellyn Setter. Duchess didn’t like me to practice and she would come and lift my hands off the keys with her nose. I’m grateful for the many things that my Aunt Florence taught me. She was very talented and whatever she did it was done well and beautifully.

Bob and Margaret Long were friends of my parents and they lived in the Mining Company apartments. Bob was an artist and we have a drawn map of Nome that he gave to my parents. Mother and I went to Margaret’s for lunch a couple times. This is going to be hard to believe but I enjoyed washing her dishes. Go figure!

My birthday is in March and here is one of my birthday parties. This was March 10, 1945 and we had the party at Bingham’s. My cousin Ralph and Gary are in the picture.

The next picture is of a wonderful birthday party that my mother planned for me with all my friends. I’m sitting right in front of the door next to my friend Donna. See if you can count the candles. Look how big the ice cream containers were then.

I learned to ride a bike when I was probably about 8 years old. I don’t remember whose bike it was but Suzy and I were learning together. I remember how exciting it was to be able to ride a bike. Then dad bought me a bike and we rode all over town. Once when we were riding down the hill behind the mining company. I must of hit a rock because I went flying over the handle bars. I was in pain and had terrible scrapes on my legs and face. I was afraid to go home and tell my mother so a friend named Star took me to her house and her mother took care of the wounds. Mother was not happy that I didn’t come home first.

Suzy’s dad made wooden stilts for both Suzy and me . We had a lot of fun learning to walk with stilts. The roads were just dirt so we didn’t have to worry about pavement. We didn’t go on the sidewalks because the sidewalks were made of wood. There were cracks between the panels and we often looked for coins that would fall through the cracks. We also played hop scotch, marbles and jacks. I had a pretty good collection of marbles with my favorite steelie. At school we did jump roping with a huge rope. We had clever little poems to say as we jumped. I know we played Eskimo baseball. I often tried to get my children to play Eskimo baseball for family nights… but I don’t think they thought I remembered it correctly. So here is how you play Eskimo baseball:

Eskimo baseball is a rather interesting game. The game starts by picking two teams. Once you have picked teams, one team is "on the bottom" of the field. The other team is "on the top." There is a pitcher and a batter. When the batter is ready to take a swing, he/she touches the bat to the ball in the pitchers hand. The pitcher then tosses the ball up and away the batter will swing. After you have "batted," you stand behind the batter and wait until that perfect pitch and the perfect hit. Then you run like a polar bear is chasing you to the designated spot. Once you reach the spot or base you have....

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part five

My first pet was a cat that we named Nuisance. I loved that cat! I remember when she was a kitten she would climb up the inside of my mother’s pajamas as she was cooking at the stove. Nuisance would put her arms around my neck and give me hugs. I would sit in the living room and she would cuddly with me. But there was a problem. I started sneezing all the time and my parents were afraid that I was allergic to cats. So my dad took Nuisance to the sheet metal shop at the base to see if the sneezing would stop. It did…darn… I was allergic to my pet. Nuisance was very brave and she would scare dogs away. She would jump on their backs and go for a ride. At the shop, one night a man came into the shop in the dark to use the phone and the cat attack him. She was not afraid of anybody or anything.

My second pet was an English Llewellyn Setter named Babe… her brother was named Bo. My Uncle Frank had the mother dog name Duchess. English Llewellyn Setters are breed to be hunting dogs and it was so fun if something fell on the kitchen floor she would run and point at it in the position of a hunting dog. She was beautiful and gentle. She was so funny. I can remember feeding her and if the dish didn’t come off the table she wouldn’t eat it. You had to put her dish on the table then add the dog food and put it on the floor for her to eat. One day I was out in the front yard and she had run across the street. There was a car coming down the street and she ran out in front of the car and was hit. I was so sad. My dad took her to the vet and they sewed up the injury. Luckily she survived but when we breed her with another English Llewellyn Setter she had only one puppy because of her injury. This meant that the owner of the male dog got the puppy.

I still have my autograph books signed by many of my friends. I wish I hadn’t torn out what the boys wrote in my book. Silly me!

Here are a couple pictures of my classes in Nome. See if you can find me.
In the first picture I’m right in front of the teacher.

In the larger picture I’m in a Girl Scout uniform with my eyes closed in the middle of the group.

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part four

My Uncle Frank was appointed US District Attorney at Nome and his office was in the Federal Building. The jail was also in this building—biggest best building in town. Luella Grant was the cook at the jail. She lived across the street from Kaasen’s. Luella Grant started stopping at our house to visit on her way home from work. She and my mother were very good friends. One day she stopped and told Dad that her stove wasn’t working properly. Dad said he’d go over and fix it for her. That night we were awakened by the fire siren. We got up and went outside to see where it was—Dad got very upset when he saw that it was Luella Grant’s house—--he pounded the wall with his fist—he thought it was his fault because he hadn’t fixed the stove right. Mother and I stood in our front yard to watch the firemen fight the fire. It was cold, icy and dark outside. I watched a water truck come down the street to go to the fire, but when the driver tried to turn left to the fire his truck started to slide on the ice and he was heading straight for us. Mother pushed me into the ditch and fell on top of me to protect me. Luckily, the driver got control and was able to steer the truck away from us. Very scary moment but I knew my mother loved me and was willing to give her life to protect me. We later learned that Luella Grant had been murdered and the house set on fire by an Eskimo who had served time in jail.

My dad did sheet metal work for town people besides working at the base. Everyone had oil stoves for heat and cooking so lots of calls for smoke stacks! Also tanks to hold the water; we paid 25 cents a bucket for water in the winter. The buckets were coated with ice. We had a large tank on a stand in the corner of the kitchen. It held 50 gallons. Each week the Eskimos would bring in water. We’d put a card in the window when we needed water. By the end of the week the water was warm from standing in the kitchen.

Dad was asked to make a crown to be given to someone to be honored as the Arctic Queen. It was made out of metal and he put jewels on it. I thought it was beautiful! He spent a lot of time making it as elegant has he could. Dad was an outdoorsman and enjoyed hunting and fishing. He had a gun collection and displayed his guns in a gun case. The gun case was at the foot of my small bed in the bedroom.

I remember going to the meat market with mother and the butcher would give me a frozen wiener… I thought it was yummy then but I don’t think I would consider it yummy today. Mother said that our meat was sawed like a chunk of lumber and we bought a lot of reindeer. They would ship fresh produce for Thanksgiving and Christmas by air—$2.50 for head of lettuce, $2.60 stalks of celery and $5.00 a dozen for eggs.

Anne Jenks made arrangements for my mother to have a dog team ride with Al Carey, an old gold prospector, who lived around the corner, had a dog team of seven dogs. Anne talked him into taking mother on his dog team for a ride to Cape Nome to a civilian radio patrol station 15 miles east of Nome. Mother said it was 31 degrees below zero. Mother was bundled up in borrowed clothing. As soon as it got light they took off over the frozen Bering Sea. About half way home they saw an Eskimo with a dog team on the shore. He was waving his arms so Al Carey said, “we had better go see what he wants.”They headed for shore and discovered that they were on a floating ice flow. They were headed out to sea and Siberia. The lead or open water was about three feet across. Al unhooked the dogs and put the sled over the lead and they and the dogs walked over to safety. Al hooked up the dogs and they headed home. My mother said it was the most frightening experience she ever had. If that Eskimo had not warned them they could have floated across the Bering Sea and may never have been found.[See the picture of our school in the background.]

Some people would have groceries sent in on the last boat in September. Mother would turn the crate of eggs every week so that the yolk wouldn’t settle in one end and spoil. We had powdered milk in big cans. It was called “Klim” — milk spelled backwards. Our shipping cream came in small brown bottles called “Avoset.” [I looked up on the internet and found this information about Avoset: Avoset was sold in 8-ounce jars and you can substitute unsweetened heavy whipping cream ounce for ounce. From 8 ounces (1 cup) Avoset or whipping cream, you'll get about 2 cups whipped.]

I spent a lot of time playing with Suzy Galloway. Someone told me that her house had been a brothel at one time in Nome. We used to play upstairs and there were a lot of little rooms. Suzy’s mother, Joy, would sometimes give us an open slice of bread with mayonnaise on it. I just loved those little treats. One time I was there for breakfast and her dad introduced us to Rice Krispies and sat with us as we listened to the snap, crackel, pop. My cousin Gary would call Joy Galloway…”Momma Sue.”

It seem to me that there were a lot of deserted houses in Nome and I remember exploring some of them. There was one house that had a box of sticks that we thought was dymanite… not sure if it really was or just our imagination but the box was real. Interesting all the things we did and the fun we had. I’m grateful that nothing dangerous happened to us. The oil barrels near the mining company that had a mote of oily water around it and we thought we should crawl out on this pipe over the water… so glad no one fell in that ugly looking water.

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part three

The Nome Nugget was the local newspaper and it was run by Mrs. Boucher. It is still an important source of news and articles for the citizens in Nome.

The movie theater was important to me. I loved to go to the movie on Friday night and see serials at the beginning of the movie. I think the movie price was about 50 cents. I remember that the white people sat on the left side and the Eskimos sat on the right side. My friends and I would sit way down front. There was a balcony where the teens usually sat, also the “amorous!” I know I always bought popcorn but I don’t remember the cost but I think it was like a dime. There was one woman that would come to the movie and she wore way “too much” perfume.

Aurora Borealis was amazing and we thought if you whistled they would move…my friend Donna told me that they still believe that if you whistle they will move.

We traveled about 10 miles north to Dexter for Girls Scout Camp and the Lyle’s family [my friend Donna Lyle] summer cabin was located at Dexter.

I belonged to Girl Scouts with many of my friends. I remember one game where we went all over town looking for clues from poems. It was hard but something I still remember. Ellen Mandeville was our leader who made up those poems. Donna reminded me that my father invited the girl scouts to his sheet metal shop and helped us make little bowls of tin. She remembers it was fun and good of my father to let them come and make the bowls.

We went to Girl Scout Camp at Dexter which was about 8 miles north of Nome. It was fun and I remember we even had archery. I wasn’t very good at it but enjoyed it. I think there were three Quonset Huts that we lived in and the middle one held the kitchen. We also had the dreaded outhouse which we called the “Wimpy Office”. I don’t remember what food we ate but I remember one morning someone had accidently spilled kerosene into the utensils. Not good!! Everyone blamed everyone else. The meal was delayed so everything could be washed. Camp was kind of scary. I can still remember lying on my cot in the dark and seeing the wind blow a branch of a bush making weird images on the wall. Donna reminded me we were frightened of the “Green Man” lurking outside in the bushes to scare us! Also, every time we would drive on the curves approaching Dexter someone would say something about “dead man’s curve” and I would be scared. We did tell ghost stories too!

I remember a couple of terrible fires… one was the Bon Marche when three children died; and another fire close to the school where a child died. Fires were very dangerous in Nome because water had to be brought to the fire by trucks. My mother told the story often that she thought Al Doyle saved one of the children. The mother and father who were managers of the Bon Marche sold dry goods and groceries and lived in the second floor of the store. They had gone to the airport to pickup someone and left their four children home when the fire broke out. The father had bolted heavy steel mesh over the windows to protect the children. The fire was blazing and two of the children were calling from one of the windows. Firemen were trying to chop the steel mesh off the windows. I’m grateful to Frank Waley and Bonnie Hahn for sharing what they remembered of that traumatic day:

Frank Waley [my cousin Ralph’s school friend]: I was at the fire...Babe [father of the children] had bolted heavy steel mesh over the windows 'cause the little guy wouldn't mind and was always about to fall out …two firemen were up the ladder chopping away , trying to get in to get Jerry and sis... Al was standing next to me... I heard him moan, a really bad moan of distress, and suddenly he was gone into the crowd, then I saw him run up the ladder with no hands, throw the firemen off, one on either side, lace his fingers into the mesh, and with one massive jerk, tear the whole works off the wall, take sis and run back down the ladder with her in his arms. Jerry had been there in the window but went back to get his little brother. Al Doyle had phenomenal strength under extreme stress.

Bonnie Dunbar Hahn: I remember the fire well though… so terrible. We used to play with the Seidenvery kids all the time and I knew all the nooks and crannies of their house. Jerry Seidenvery was the oldest boy and Robbie was only five or so when the fire broke out. I remember Jerry at the window and shouting “hurry up, we can’t last much longer” and Robbie was looking out too just over the sill and then he sank down and disappeared and we never saw him again. After the fire they found Jerry and Robbie by the window. The stair had collapsed between the two bedrooms upstairs so Jerry couldn’t get across to Ilene’s side. The baby was Sara Sue who was found in her crib on the 2nd floor. I remember Walter Dowd who crawled on his belly from the front door and finally found the stairs to the 2nd floor. He thought he had found Sara Sue and passed her out a window, but it was a big teddy bear. He never did get up to the third floor. Such a sad, sad story!!

Mother was an experienced seamstress and was employed by the local dry cleaner Paul Mandeville to do alterations. She remodeled many Eisenhower jackets for the military.The jackets were made to hang below the waist but men wanted them raised to their waist. Mother could sew without using a pattern. She made most of my clothes. I found a couple samples to share with you.

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part two

Donna Lyle [Morgan] is a good friend and still lives in Nome; and we have been corresponding over the years. In fact, I sent her some questions and she was kind enough to answer them. I’m grateful to her for helping me recall names and distances. I can remember going to her house and her mother had new cake pans that would make a checkerboard cake. We baked a cake in the new pans and it was fun to cut the cake and see the chocolate and white pieces of cake that looked like a checker board. Donna also had a canary. Mother would give me the center of a green pepper with the seeds and I would take it to Donna for her bird. I think it was one New Year’s Eve that I stayed overnight with Donna. She and her sister had twin beds in their bedroom and I don’t know where her sister was but we slept in the two beds. We giggled and had a great time. Donna’s mother Ellen Lyle was very talented. She was an artist and painted scenes from Alaska. We have four of her paintings that my mother won at Bridge Club. We have two paintings of ducks, one of a polar bear and one of an Eskimo building where they dried fish. Mrs. Lyle also had a green house and would make corsages with her flowers. The Lyles also took me to their summer cabin at Dexter and Donna’s mother showed us how to paint. We used cartoon characters with drawing lines on the pictures and then drawing lines on the canvas. I can remember doing two cartoon characters and the experience was very helpful in other school projects over the years.

The Federal Building was on the only building with a cement sidewalk and we would roller skate around the building. In the summer time, prisoners would yell out the windows at us. Wonder why I was never afraid of them.

We did not have flush toilets because the ground was frozen. Houses had their bathrooms on an outside wall of the house with a little door behind the toilet that could be opened on the outside of the house so that the bucket could be emptied once a week. It was sooooo smelly!! We called the man that collected the stuff in the bucket the “honey man” and it smelled terrible if you passed him on the street. There was only one horse in town and he pulled the “honey wagon.”

The Methodist church was on 2nd Avenue same as the Fagerstroms about a block west of our home. Suzie Galloway lived on that street also.

One Christmas, my dad and Paul Galloway decorated our landlord’s house with Christmas lights. Our landlord Rube Kramer was an old gold miner and his little house did not have electricity. Paul was an electrician and he received permission from the power company to put lights on Rube’s house. Rube was very surprised!

Christmas traditions in Alaska—There are no trees growing in Nome but we had a real Christmas tree. I don’t know how my parents were able to get a Christmas tree. Our family celebrated Christmas with my Aunt Florence, Uncle Frank, Ralph and Gary [Bingham]. We would eat Christmas dinner at their house. Christmas presents were opened on Christmas Eve and Santa presents on Christmas Day. We baked Christmas cookies of Russian Teacakes, Birdnest cookies and my Aunt Florence would make a Black-bottom pie.

Our grade school always had a large Christmas program and everyone in Nome was invited. Santa Claus came and gave candy and nuts to the children. The Eskimos would perform a dance with the men playing drums and the women dancing.

When I was in the 6th grade I had the chicken pox and couldn’t go to school. We drew names at school to give presents for Christmas and Robert Dunbar drew my name. He bought me a charm bracelet and brought it to my house because I couldn’t go to school. Well, sorry to say I gave him the chicken pox.

Some names I remember of school friends… Donna Lyle, Kay Coulthard. Helen Glavinovich, Ruth Fagerstrom, Suzanne Galloway, Sigrid Olsen, Bunny and Chuck Fagerstrom, Robert Dunbar, Jacqualine Rigg, Edith Morton, Anna Ailak, Elizabeth Fricke, Margaret Jane Willoya, Starlette Jo Hunt, Sylvia Olson, Dianne Boucher… There was also Carolyn, Ruthie and Paul Glavinovich; the Swanberg family of Diane, Buzzy, Mary Jo and Lois. I remember one day when Suzy Galloway, Robert Dunbar, Toney Fults and I were just walking around the town. I think we just explored and enjoyed one another.

This is a picture of me and Suzy sitting on Gunnar Kaasen’s knee… his house was around the corner from us [same street as Suzy Galloway and Fagerstroms’s lived on]. Gunnar Kaasen (1882-1960) was a Norwegian musher who delivered a cylinder containing 300,000 units of diphtheria antitoxin to Nome in 1925, as the last leg of a dog sled relay that saved Nome from an epidemic. Kaasen was born in Burfjord, Norway and went to the United States to mine for gold in 1903, in the wake of the discovery of gold-bearing sands on Cape Nome in 1898, which triggered one of several gold rushes in the state between 1891 and 1898. His dog was named Balto and Disney made a movie about it.

Growing up in Nome Alaska - part one

When snow falls gently from the heavens and the temperatures are cold outside, I recall a wondrous childhood filled with sparkling snow, ice, a loving family, good friends and warm experiences. Our oldest son Michael has encouraged me to share with my family what it was like growing up in Nome Alaska. So I’m delighted to have that challenge and invite you to experience with me my feelings and memories of that period in my life from 1944 to 1950.

We will start in Seattle when I was in kindergarten. My father had gone to Alaska in June of 1944 to work in the sheet metal shop at the Marks Air Force Base. Mother and I followed six months later. On December 1, 1944 mother and I sailed on a ship from Seattle to Seward Alaska. It took three days going up the “Inside Passage.” I can remember singing to the service men on the ship. Mother said I sang, “Don’t sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me.” The ship stopped at Ketchikan and Juneau. When we crossed the open water of the Gulf of Alaska it was very stormy and I do remember that I got very seasick. I can remember lying on the bunk and throwing “straight up” in the air like a fountain. Mother said it was so rough that waves were washing across the deck. Mother told us she was the only woman down for breakfast one morning because so many were sick.

It was very dark on the ship because it was war time and they didn’t want enemy submarines or planes to see us. It was very cold when we finally docked at Seward. I remember that one of the soldiers gave me a cake in a big box as we left the ship. We took a small, old looking steam powered train from Seward to Anchorage. There was a pot-bellied stove but it was still cold. The seats were straight backed and hard.

Mother said we stayed at the Westward Hotel for three days because we were waiting for the weather to break so we could fly to Nome. We were on our way to Nome on December 7, 1944. We left early in the morning and it was dark outside. Mother and I were the only passengers on the small plane. We landed at Nome and took a taxi to my Aunt Florence’s house. I remember seeing the tall snow banks on the sides of the road.

Nome is located on the south coast of the Seward Peninsula facing Norton Sound, part of the Bering Sea. Cape Nome was about 12 miles east from Nome and I remember driving there to pick cranberries. They started building a bulkhead of rocks in 1948 along the beach to protect the business section and it was completed in the early 1950’s. The rock came from Cape Nome and is now a regular Rock Quarry and is owned by a Native Corporation in Nome.

Rube Kramer who we rented from had a cabin between Nome and Cape Nome about 8 miles on the Cape Nome Road. We had a lot of fun visiting Rube’s cabin. We would picnic there and even go swimming in a pool of warmer water by the ocean front. Rube made his own root beer and we thought it was delicious. His cabin was covered on the inside with newspaper print on the walls.

The Marks Air Force Base was about a mile west of Nome and I think that the commercial planes would land at that airfield. There was a little hill about a mile north of Nome called Chicken Hill and not sure how it got the name Chicken Hill. We liked to pick wild flowers there in the summer and I remember sledding down the hill in the winter.

Wild flowers were beautiful on the tundra and we loved to pick them and make bouquets. I have listed a few of them: Iris [or Flags], For-get-me-nots [the Alaska state flower], Bluebells, Buttercups, Shooting Stars, Monkshood, Poppies, Wild Yellow Roses, Cow Parsnips, Wild Flax, Pasqual, Anemone, Daisy, Lady Fingers, Richardson’s Saxifrage [bears like them and they smell like pepper], Mount White Avens, Wild Marigold, Wild Rhododendron [very pretty and low to the ground], Fireweed, Primrose and many more; plus cranberries and blueberries.

We used to go swimming in a small creek north of Nome called Dry Creek under a little bridge called Red Bridge which was across the road from Chicken Hill and behind the mining company. Some discharge water from the mining company power plant used to run into it, which made the water warm under the bridge, and we would play in it. We didn’t think there were any contaminates in that run-off from the power plant.

The name of the river on the east side of Nome was the Nome River and the bridge the Nome River Bridge by the mouth of the river. I can remember fishing there and watching the salmon spawning. Trout and Grayling were also found in the Nome River.

We lived on “B” Street which I considered the center of town. Our home had a bay window and we could look down the street and see the Bering Sea. We were a block from the main street which ran parallel to the coastline.

The school was on “B” Street too and if I remember right about two blocks north of our house. Here is a picture of our home.

My dad opened his own sheet metal shop across the street from our home on “B” Street; it was called Arctic Sheet Metal Shop. He was a general contractor for furnaces, stoves, plumbing and sheet metal. Everyone called my dad “Ben” and he was very tall [6 foot 4], dark, and handsome.

My Aunt Florence and Uncle Frank (Bingham’s) and cousins Ralph and Gary lived on 1^st Avenue which was directly behind the federal building. We always had our holiday dinners at their home. Also, my Aunt Florence let me practice the piano there before we got a little piano. Helen Dunbar was my piano teacher. There was a small wrecked plane on the property behind their house. My cousin Gary remembered playing in the fuselage too.

I asked my grade school friend Robert Dunbar who lived a couple doors down from the Bingham’s and he sent me the following by email in 2009:

“Now you're talking about something with which I am VERY familiar! I used to imagine myself as a WWII pilot in that fuselage! There were some old military cooking utensils in it, too, that I took home and actually used--like a couple of aluminum canteens and a couple of aluminum plates. It WAS the fuselage of a WWII fighter plane, although I don't know which one/type. It was more behind the Silverman house (which my sis, Bonnie, owned and rented out until recently). And as you remember, the Dunbar home was two houses East of the Silverman house, 2nd from the corner. I remember I used to wear an old Air Force pilot's hat, with a short brim and sheep's wool inside with leather outside during those years. “