When my Grandparents moved to Alaska in the 1940s, it was still very much a frontier. It was both the wild, wild west, and the frigid north.
Grandma took notes. By compiling and transcribing her notes, and sharing them on my blog, I’m fulfilling a promise to her to make these stories available and accessible to the rest of the family. I have created an archive to which I am slowly transcribing and adding these documents: McKinley Family Archives.
I’ve left these stories exactly as she wrote them, although I have been hunting down photos for illustration.
Here she is again, Doris McKinley, in her own words.
enjoy.
Steve, Karen, and Rodger with the family plane
The Last Frontier, Alaska 1947
Anchorage, a thriving business community, is the nerve center of western Alaska. In 1939 it had a population of 3000, now with the post-war influx, it boasts of nearly 15,000 – causing a serious housing shortage. Building in all classes is progress, but far too short of its needs.
Ft. Richardson, located only five miles from Anchorage is a combined Military, Naval, and Air Command with a personnel of about 12,000. The United States Government is pouring tremendous sums of money into the development of Ft. Richardson as the permanent headquarters of all Alaska Defenses.
Thus, there are some 25,000 local people served by Anchorage business. This is exclusive of the “bush.” The term “bush” is used to identify outlying terretory. “Bush pilots” are very efficient airmen, piloting their own planes. Their business consists of scheduled and unscheduled hops to almost any point within a radius of 400 to 500 miles. Residents of these remote localities, traders, trappers, and miners rely on the bush pilot and his light plane as readily as persons in the States use the bus or train. For in all Alaska there are only about 2000 miles of automobile roads.
The Alaskan economy is dependent on the various phases of aviation.
One day we saw a shy native boy carrying a baby seal. Walking along the street, he was drawing considerable attention. He had found the seal on the shore, it apparently had become lost from its mother. It lay quite content and quietly in the boy’s arms. The face seemed much like a dog’s, tho larger, with a rather pointed nose. The heavy brown body and flippers were interesting.
When my Father was in Anchorage last March, he saw several native Indian women carrying babies on their backs. As he was talking with one, he noticed severe sores along the baby’s jaw. Inquiring of the Mother what caused the sore, she replied, “Just rubbing.”
On a motor trip to Valdez, a distance of 300 miles by highway, which I am sure is not more than 75 by air, we saw a fish wheel in operation. This wheel was similar to a conventional water wheel, excep that each peddle had a wire screen which built up the side and end. The inside was left open so that as the river current turned the wheel, a fish was caught and held until that section reached the top and the fish dropped out onto a slide thence into a tank of water. The native then picked up the fish, split and cleaned it, then hung it by the tail on a nail with rows of other fish. Drying frames were built in a square and a fire smoldered in the center. Smoked, dried fish are a staple diet of the seld dogs and natives in winter. The use of these wheels are limited to the native population.
McKinley Family log home
Salmon fishing is most popular and during the season it is very common to see men, women or children on the streets with their fishing tackle going to Fish Creek near the Railroad. One day an old-time showed us the procedure. We bought stought fish line, heavy sinkers and large three pronged hooks. The idea is to throw the hook into the stream and jerk it back. Really, we snag salmon as they do not bite. Some time passed and we had no luck, our friend insisted, however, that the salmon would be at that spot about 15 minutes after the tide came in.
Shortly afterward a little boy, possibly 8 years old said, “If you’ll throw your hook right over there, Doc, you’ll catch a fish!” Sure enough, Lee brought in a nice four or five pound salmon, and brought in several more in a short time. The youngster caught two, pulled them onto the shore, but before he could get a good hold on them they flopped back into the water. He went on fishing as tho nothing had happened. When we were ready to leave, he handed two other fish to my husband, saying “Here, Doc, you take these. My mother wont let me bring any more fish home!” Lee skinned and filleted them, and we cooked in a friend’s kitchen that evening. They were truly delicious.
These were the silver salmon and were about 18″ long, later in July the big king salmon appear which may weigh 10, 15, or 20 pounds.
The famed Matanuska Valley farming project which was publicized a few years ago is located about 50 miles from Anchorage on the only highway which joins Fairbanks and Anchorage. The project is managed on a cooperative basis, is successful, and is developing into a real asset to Alaska. These farms, many only ten or fifteen years removed from the wilderness, are remarkably fertile. Farmers are farm owners as tenant farming is frowned upon. The valley produces vegetables of unusual size due to the very long days during the growing season. Dairying is being rather slowly developed because of the difficulties of carrying the herds thru the long winters. Farm buildings, built with Government assistance follow identical plans and are built of logs. Most farm work is, however, carried on with tractors and modern machinery.
Several years ago, a friend flew down to visit me from Anchorage. During the visit, she asked me if I had considered moving back home to Alaska. This was mid-February, it was bitter cold up North, the ground and everything else covered in snirt (gray, gritty, dirty snow). I looked around at all the flowers, and the fresh fruits and vegetables on the stands as we walked through Pike Place Market, mountains on view in the background, and ferries making their way across Elliott Bay. “Seriously?” We both got a good laugh.
Me: As seen on…
GalTime: The Pink Daisy Project: Helping Women with Breast Cancer – I interviewed Debbie Cantwell on how she found the silver lining in her own breast cancer battle when started the Pink Daisy Project to help other women with breast cancer
Its been a long… Happy Birthday Sweet Matt – Anna, a fellow breast cancer survivor, linked to my story about my brother Matt. Her story, based on her blog, was written as a play and presented by Coyote Rep Off Broadway at Wings Theater in Greenwich Theater this past October. See the clip below.
My favorite recent reads
The View From Right Here – not a read so much, but a picture that stopped me in my tracks. Photo of a homeless women in stark focus as the world blurs by.
Public Bookstore: Having a Crappy Night? – I loved this post on dealing with a crappy evening. Made me smile, and might have even made me feel better. Certainly inspired me to look in to Little House on the Prairie re-runs.
BlogHer: Olly Olly Oxen Free – My, this was the week for sentimental reads. This post took me back to 9 years old. Not the awkward, gangly, prepubescent aspects of the nine year old me, but the running through a field with the wind blowing through my hair, and nothing to prove to anyone just be free me.
Every single one of my New Years Resolutions have already been derailed, in the first six weeks of the year.
My resolutions weren’t anything revolutionary or out of the ordinary. Not even all that difficult really, with the exception of that 33 grams of fat thing (multiple sources recommending this as a means of preventing a cancer re-run). That one is REALLY difficult.
Exercise daily
Become skilled at yoga
Keep daily fat intake under 33 grams per day
Eat 7-9 servings of vegetables per day
Take at least one picture every day
Get my house organized, and keep it looking nice
So what’s going on? Why can’t I stay on track with these relatively simple and straightforward changes? Well, aside from the fact that I’m a full time student, and I have a toddler that climbs on me like a monkey all her waking hours, and I’m still recovering from 2nd degree radiation burns over half my torso, I’ve had a few writing gigs lately as well as some other opportunities to learn and gain experience doing exactly what I want to do for a living. Mama’s been a little busy. Maybe, for starters, I over-committed myself. Maybe I need to give myself a break.
So what to cut? Most of the items on the list above are recommended to prevent a recurrence; the house, well that just needs to get done. Obviously I can drop the picture a day idea, but that leaves 5 things – major changes for a 15-hours-a-day-on-the-computer-while-eating-junk-food type of girl like me. Bear in mind that the vast majority of the computer time is spent on school.
I read a wonderful article a few weeks ago about creating sustainable change in our everyday lives. I really wish I could remember where I read it; I would give the author some link love here. The article stated that in order to make a real and lasting change, we need to make one change at a time, make it really stick, before adding the next change. Over the course of the year, devoting 6 weeks or more to each individual change, we can create sustainable change in several areas with a much higher degree of success than the “I’m going to change everything all at once” approach.
Change is not something you do once and then get on with your life. It takes practice. You fall down and then you get back up again. Over and over and over and over again.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to decide to make a change, but I’m not going to change everything at once. I’m starting with the eating 7-9 servings of vegetables per day, and if I don’t hit my goal one day, I’ll keep trying the next day. Once I’ve built a practice of eating vegetables, I’ll add working out every day. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to exercise between now and when I start working on that resolution, it just means that the focus on habit building for that particular change will be delayed.
I’m still a bit overwhelmed by the amount of kitchen time eating that many vegetables will take. I’m now accepting applications for volunteer prep cooks if you’re interested in chopping vegetables.
The first night I met him, he glared at me then leaned back a ways before slamming his head down on to the table. That thud of skull connecting with wood was so hard it made the walls shake and the windows rattle. I choked a bit on my heart, and my stomach churned with that nauseous fear that comes when everything is wrong. Very, very wrong. What were we doing with this kid in our home?
To say I wasn’t thrilled about my mom’s decision to take in foster kids was an understatement. That she was specifically interested in taking developmentally challenged kids, made it worse. This was a bad idea. I was sure of it.
Matt’s case manager told mom that he was a “head banger.” Those two little words were inadequate to describe the frequency and force with which his head made contact with any nearby hard surface.
He was difficult to look at. His brain had not developed properly, and he was born with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus. His hair grew in funny little tufts around the patchwork of scars on his head. His face was scarred, and frequently bloody from the head banging. He couldn’t stand up straight, and could barely walk.
And he was angry. Mad. Furious at the world. And with good cause.
It was Matt’s story specifically that finalized my Mom’s decision to become a foster parent. At the time she first heard about him, he had been living in a motel with hired care givers taking shifts sitting with him in that room, because they could not find a home that would take him. He had extensive medical needs, that required a great deal of work to manage. And developmentally he was a two year old, still a baby.
He didn’t know what was going on; he just knew that most people were mean, and he didn’t know who to trust.
It was a long period of adjustment: him getting used to our large boisterous family, and us getting used to this new person in our midst with so many new needs (like needing help with toileting, among other things), and of course, that head banging.
But one day we discovered something. If you put your hand on the table, or wall, or whatever else was the target of his swiftly moving head, he would stop mid-swing. He would bang his head, he would hit things, he would break things, but he would not hit us.
That discovery started a little shift. For one thing, it helped us significantly cut down on the head banging by just putting a hand in the way. But it also started to change the way we saw him: self-destructive, yes, but not violent towards others.
He got easier to look at over time as well. Eventually, we started to see past all the scars, and notice other things, like that mischievous twinkle in his eye.
Matt was a little prankster, especially once he got comfortable with us. He was funny. He’d blame his farts on you. He’d pull your chair out as you were trying to sit down. If he was done with you, he’d dismiss you: “Bye!”
And he was gentle, so very gentle, especially with babies.
The obvious lesson here is about not judging the book by the cover, or the person by how they look. But there’s more. It wasn’t just the way Matt looked that was scary at first. It was his behavior that terrified us. Matt also taught us a lesson in looking past the angry in others – that the attitude is likely a hard-earned, self-protective shell, and not necessarily indicative of what’s inside. Its a difficult lesson, and one I forget frequently. But I’m still trying.
Over the years, Matt went through dozens of procedures and surgeries. His hydrocephalus was managed by a shunt that drained the excess fluid from his brain. That shunt frequently had issues, perhaps caused by the head-banging, but that pressure may have also been the cause of the the head banging – the pressure caused a great deal of pain, that bang momentarily equalizing the pressure.
He actually became quite popular, at school, at church, in the community. He passed away from complications of surgery when he was 24. He was still a toddler developmentally, but he was a happy toddler. When he died he was surrounded by his family, foster family perhaps, but family still. And he knew he was loved. His funeral was standing room only; the community had learned to love him as well.
It has been 11 years since his death, today would have been his 35th birthday. I still think of him often. He taught us so much about accepting others, and about resilience and redemption. I’m still learning that lesson about forgiving and understanding the angry.
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