I keep thinking I must have written some things for the web page.... Surely, by now, only a few weeks before we gather. But, I seem to have been writing in my mind, instead of the computer. I do that a lot these days. I get so caught up in consulting with my husband, Gary, that I push aside personal writing and think I’ll get to it later. By the way, “consulting” is a fancy word for working 12 hour days for very little pay. However, Gary likes to say, “We haven’t said ‘Yes, Sir’ to an idiot in 30 years.” And we’ve worked side by side for those 30 years. So, I guess “consulting” is actually a wonderful, happy word!
WHO I AM
My faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as an active member of the Mormon church, and commitment to families and children have defined my life, as an adult (and now an old person....). Gary and I adopted three children through the foster care system and had six the hard way. All of our children share our faith, six of them serving two year missions (one in Argentina, one in Brazil, and four in the U.S.). And all of them are married in the temple, which is a big deal to Mormons.
CHILDHOOD
I consider myself a life-long Alaskan, even though I was 4 years old when my parents homesteaded at Kenny Lake in 1947. We were the first homesteaders in that area, taking advantage of the VA stipend offered after WWII. My dad was a B-17 pilot who mustered out at Hill Air Force base in Ogden, Utah. He and his crew wanted to form a modern wagon train to the Last Frontier. Seven couples met twice a month through 1946 until April 1947, when everybody chickened out except Mama and Daddy. We were headed for the Kenai but it was on fire in July 1947, so we went to the Copper River country, instead.
We spent three years “proving up” those 160 acres–sod roof, dirt floor, no electricity or plumbing, we had it all. But the cabin morphed into a snug log house with electricity (supplied by a generator) and an actual bathroom with a chemical toilet and a bath tub that looked like a droopy camping cot. We had cattle, chickens, and goats and raised hay. The first Kenny Lake school was on our front porch and then built in the front yard.
We would come “to town” once in awhile so Daddy could earn actual cash. I attended grade school in Anchorage part of the time. Anybody else go to Talkeetna? How about Chugiak?
In 1950 we filed on a homesite in Mt. View where Daddy built several cabins (one of which still stands near Flower and Bragraw). In 1951 we went back to Kenny Lake until the spring of 1955, when we “moved to town” again.. It was supposed to be temporary, but Daddy was killed flying an AT6 in October 1955, so we never returned to The Homestead.
HIGH SCHOOL
You, my marvelous friends at AHS, helped me through a difficult, challenging adolescence as my overwhelmed mother struggled to support four young children without much education or training. You and, often, your parents kept me grounded and included me in wonderful ways. I noticed many different groups, kids who shared interests and histories, but I never felt left out at all. I have lots of memories of being waved over to a lunch table, given a ride home from school, and complimented for a talk in speech class (when I was half dead from fright!). Oh, and dragging 4th Avenue while listening to The Royal Coachman–very cool. I rode with you, though–I didn’t get my driver’s license until after I was in college.
Hmmm, so what comes to mind? I’m doing a bit of brainstorming....
Didn’t somebody put Mr. Crouch’s Volkswagen on the roof? Does anybody else remember that?
And there was something about Limburger cheese in the radiator–I think somebody was suspended over that.
A favorite memory is gathering around Miss Johnson’s desk in Freshman Biology, especially the time the frog she was dissecting twitched. She screamed and threw her scalpel into the ceiling. One of the boys climbed onto her desk to retrieve it.
I remember the train trips to Palmer for basketball games. One odd detail was somebody throwing Barbara Foote’s shoe around the passenger car and joking about having a “foot’s shoe” or something equally inane. As I remember, she was good humored about it.
I discovered a passion for writing in Mr. Crouch’s class. Mrs. Shockley and Mrs. Shakespeare also encouraged my efforts. I loved going to school and it never crossed my mind to skip–school was clean and comfortable and filled with terrific friends and caring adults. I remember how surprised I was in the final assembly of our senior year when the principal asked everybody who’d cut at least once to stand up. Almost everybody stood. :)
That last year sharing the building with East High meant that we had to be to school by 6:50, in pitch black darkness. The sun came up during creative writing–we were in the library, a good place to watch the pink streaked sky grow brighter (as much as it did in December or January)..
The picnic at Independence Mine on Senior Skip day stands out–I can’t remember everybody who came, but I do remember the girls climbing into mine cars and the boys pushing us in the dark along the rickety tracks (were we really that dumb??).
I remember John Skousen’s moving to town in his junior year (from Arizona?). His people skills were amazing, especially his campaign speech for Senior class president–another proof, from my perspective, that cliques didn’t make much impact on the general flow of life.
AFTER HIGH SCHOOL
After graduation, I went to Utah to live with my grandparents and go to Weber College, the only school I could afford. But my ho-hum scholastic record in high school turned into something a bit better at Weber, and I managed to get into Stanford where I earned my BA and MA in English.
The best thing about Stanford, though, was meeting my sweetheart (45 years and counting), Gary Farnsworth Player (yep, he’s sort of related to the South African golfer). Gary, majoring in geology, was thrilled to meet a girl from Alaska and had visions of living in a cabin in the woods. I, on the other hand, day-dreamed about living in the San Francisco Bay area where he’d grown up. We compromised by returning to Anchorage after he completed his graduate degree at UCLA. Seven of our nine children were born in Anchorage, and we even spent a year in a 14 x 70 mobile home on The Homestead during the construction of the Pipeline.
Like you Air Force and Army dependents, our kids have endured frequent moves. We lived and worked in Oklahoma, Texas, California, and finally settled down in Utah. During all those moves, we also ran a special needs foster home, specializing in teens with behavior problems. I taught technical writing and business communications at various colleges along the way, interspersed by publishing a bunch of articles, a few books, and a regular weekly column which has run for nearly 20 years (in the local paper). I also conduct seminars and workshops on parenting, mostly adolescents, and we keep our foster care license current, although we only take emergency placements, now.
The last of our kids finished growing up in Utah where we became empty nesters, sort of. Some came back: for college, to save for a house, between jobs, etc. And both Gary’s and my mothers lived with us the last years of their lives.
I enjoy southern Utah–and the red rock country is a geologist’s dream, but we both continue to wish we could live in Alaska. We still have my piece of The Homestead and may, one day, build something there–it could happen!
But the realities are that we raised nine kids without a reliable, consistent income and we’ll never have enough to actually retire. But that’s OK, because we thoroughly enjoy what we do, and even consider it worthwhile. We have children in Israel, London, Hawaii (but he’s being transferred to Missouri), Washington, D.C., Washington state, California, and Utah. Those children have provided us with 33 grandchildren, so we’re not in any danger of becoming idle or bored.
I have a disabled brother who lives in Hope Cottages in Eagle River and I’ve been fighting to become his guardian, so I can move him to Utah. Alaska is too far away for me to ensure his welfare and happiness, but the State took guardianship when my mother’s dementia worsened in 2001. Trying to get him back is a huge struggle. That’s an involved, not very pleasant story, but I keep thinking the powers that be will finally figure out that I’m his closest living relative and he deserves to be with me. OK, enough of the downer stuff....
I’d held out hope that I’d be able to gather with all of you this time, this 50th anniversary, but it’s not going to happen. I guess that hope was one of the reasons I didn’t get around to writing about my life after AHS.