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.