Chapter 7
The weather in September, 1964, in Fairbanks was just going into winter. There was freezing rain and some snow. Bernie rented a car to get to work at Ft. Wainwright. He shared an office with one other Civilian and three (I think) Army Officers. We got together once a month at someone’s home for dinner. That was nice, though we weren’t (or at least I wasn’t) used to having wine with dinner. I discovered that one cup of coffee would cancel out two glasses of wine, or vice versa. That way I didn’t’t feel the effects of either one. I didn’t extend either of them to see if it would last longer! No point tempting fate! Philip was the baby sitter for these outings.
One of my first experiences with being involved with military activities on post was a lunch with the Officers’ Wives Club. My hostess introduced me and the other new woman to the group. That was fine, but then she apologized for us not wearing hats and gloves. She said we didn’t have our “hold baggage” yet! (My second encounter with this ‘hold baggage’ thing!) I can’t speak for the other woman, but I was embarrassed! No one had told us about ‘hold baggage!’
The program for the luncheon was a fashion show of winter wear, preceded by a talk by the presiding General of the Post. He spoke of ladies coming in finery covered with fur outergarments for the cold weather. Well! The fashion show was something to behold. There were fur coats, jackets, Parkas, all very much beyond my means.
Another time, I was helping with some kind of activity and noticed what a snobbish group this Officers’ Wives Club really was. I didn’t go back and have never regretted it. The ladies in the group from the office were very nice, and I enjoyed the monthly dinners with them. We had an Oriental one at our house one time. We made ‘our’ Korean chop suey, and it was a success. Philip was in a Chinese Club at school, and made oregami swans and made scroll invitations for us. We decorated the family room in the basement with Chinese lanterns. It was nice.
Another aspect of our new location was moving into an unfinished house. We agreed to do the finishing work and the builder was most helpful. He brought out the paint for the back porch and actually started painting it when he thought the weather would close in before Bernie got to it. We had some good visits with him, too. He and his wife had lost two little girls in a house fire. He was very interested in our family and was very nice to us.
On the morning of August 13, 1967 my husband went off to work at Ft. Wainwright as usual and I put my laundry in the washer in the basement while my four children were still in bed. The radio was telling me that the river was rising. Our home in the Taku subdivision was high enough for me to look out the livingroom window for a good view down the street. I saw water coming up, about four or five houses away. I called my husband to come home and he made it. By this time, water was coming up in the basement. My husband and some netghbors moved furniture upstairs or into the garage. My piano went to the garage. My husband used an inflated air mattress for a raft to get himself to the fuse box in the basement. The water was 5' deep. After turning off the breakers for the downstairs outlets, he fished my laundry out of the washer and floating in the water. He took the burner from the furnace and later dried it in the kitchen oven.
Meanwhile, our newly planted wooden fence around the back yard floated up and drifted away. Some of our neighbors were out in boats patrolling the streets for any who were stranded in their homes. They reported on pieces of our fence and a carpet that had floated into other yards and towed them back. My husband secured them with lengths of garden hose to keep them home. We were also blessed with plenty of food from the freezers of people who had left their homes.
We couldn't use our toilets, so we had a honey bucket on the back porch. Our water and electricity worked just fine.
Our little Renalt parked in the driveway was covered with water. Our Chevy Greenbrier was about half submerged and did drive a little while after being dried out. The Renalt was called 'totaled' by the insurance company, but apparently it was resold, because a year or so later we received a notice from the Anchorage PD that it had a ticket. We had never driven it to Anchorage!
The next time I saw my piano, it was floating on its back with the keys drifting away around it.
When the water went down, I inventoried the books we'd lost and sadly bid fairwell to the pile of ruined belongings set out for pickup. Then cleaned up the basement and settled in for a nice warm bath soak.
No sooner was I settled in and heaving a big sigh, than a gentle knock came at the bathroom door. "Mom," said a child's voice, "There's water in the basement again!" The sewer had backed up!
Philip joined the Lathrop High School band and was a good student. Daniel had some very good teachers at Denali Elementary and did well there, too. Ruth started Kindergarten and had a little classmate right across the hall at Fairview Manor while we were there. I kept in touch for a while, and then they left the State and we lost contact.
During the first year in Fairbanks, we joined the Methodist Church. Bernie taught a class for a while. Then the church had some problems and we started going to St. Matthews Episcopal Church. The pastor there was Fr. William Warren. I wasn’t used to calling the minister “Father.” Later I learned this was a “High Episcopal” church, and the one I’d grown up with in Detroit was “Low Episcopal.” This came about when Bernie and Daniel were confirmed. I showed Bill the little book I’d been given at my confirmation. He looked at it rather disdainfully and announced something to the effect that this was an inferior type of thing given out by lesser congregations. I lost a bit of respect for him then.
Daniel did some lawn mowing at the church and talked a lot with Bill Warren. Daniel thought for a while he might like to be a clergyman. Bill warned him that he’d better have another occupation as well! Good advice. Ruth joined a confirmation class, and was confirmed at St. Matthew’s too.
Bernie got on the church Vestry and was representative to Campus Ministry. Eventually, Bill Warren began to want Bernie to act as his personal counselor. Granted a minister needs someone to talk with, but Bernie didn’t want to serve in that capacity. A little before all this, there was some talk about the Methodist and the Episcopal churches combining. Actually, that helped bring us back to the Episcopal Church. St. Matthew’s was using it’s education building to help with some alcoholic rehabilitation work. They had their Sunday School at the Methodist Church as well as an early church service in the Methodist sanctuary. We went to that, and it was like coming home for me.
Well, we went along for a while, but Bernie just didn’t want to be a counselor for anyone, and the only way to get out of it was to quit the church. We didn’t resign as such, we just stopped attending services.
I don’t know how Bernie felt about it, but I felt a void in my life.
About the second year in Fairbanks, we started Square Dancing with the Polar Promenaders. It was a new group started up by Joe and June Moser and met in the gymnasium of Hunter School on Saturday nights. That was a lot of fun and excellent exercise. We were encouraged to join the Sourdough Folk Dance Club too. Irene “Brooksie” and Finn Brooks encouraged us. They met on alternate Saturday nights. It was a lot of fun. There we got into a specialized group that danced on Golden Days floats and sometimes for special occasions. We were making friends right and left with all of this!
One of our dancing friends, who worked at the University Library, told us about a group of University people who were starting up a light opera group. They needed dancers for the second show they would be presenting soon, “Die Fledermaus,” and invited us to a read-through at the home of Charles Davis, the head of the music department. We went, and we were hooked! Their first show had been “The Mikado.” We saw that and enjoyed it.
Initially, we thought we’d dance in the ballroom scene and that would be it. But Bernie got the part of the jailer, and he was superb. People talked about it for years afterward. I danced, and helped to teach some of the other cast members how to waltz.
We stuck with FLOT (Fairbanks Light Opera Theater) for quite a few years and had part in quite a few shows. We were chorus, choreographer (Bernie for “Oklahoma!”) makeup (both of us), and costume seamstress for myself and a few others (me), set designers and painters (mostly Bernie), or whatever was needed that we could do.
Meanwhile, the children were growing up and having their interests. Philip took up Debate in his Senior year at High School. The band director, Mr. Boko, wouldn’t let his band people get into other activities, so Philip quit the band to debate.
Daniel went on to Jr. High School and High School. He made some very nice things in Shop Class. Unfortunately, Bernie didn’t seem to appreciate his accomplishments, even when he was doing well with piano lessons. He was the only one who followed through after the trial first year.
Ruth and Daniel had piano lessons from the same teacher, but Ruth was discouraged. Many years later she told me that the teacher kept comparing her to Daniel. She might have done very well had she stayed with it. She certainly had the long tapered fingers for it!
Ruth went to Jr. High School and then was in chorus at Lathrop. For a while she had some classes at Hutchison Career Center when the high school became so crowded and they had split sessions. West Valley High School was constructed to relieve the congestion. While at Hutchison, Ruth had child care, which came in handy later on in her life. She joined a group called “Young Alaskans,” which was under the direction of John Turner. The Turners were friends from the Methodist Church. We’d had them over for their first Thanksgiving in Fairbanks. Both of them were University professors.
Naomi followed Ruth through Denali Elementary, but went to Ryan Jr. High, which had been built next to Lathrop. The old Main School which had served so well as a Jr. High up to then, was abandoned for a while. At Ryan, Naomi took up Clarinet and played with the band. She was doing well with it, but didn’t keep it up. She didn’t get the piano lessons because the 1967 flood destroyed the piano.
Next door to us on Talkeetna Ave., we had neighbors with a daughter about Naomi’s age. Before both of them were in school, they would take turns playing at each other’s homes. The Fritz family had an older daughter, Ellen, and a son, Andy. Barbara was a friend to me, and we had a good relationship. Jim had a beautiful tenor voice which was a boon to FLOT. He played the lead in “Mikado.” Barbara helped off-stage. It was a tradgedy when Jim, a researcher at the University, drowned while on a field trip.
Barbara was a smoker. She found a breast lump and had a radical mastectomy. Jim wanted her to stop smoking, but she said she couldn’t. She had tried hypnosis, various other cures, and nothing worked. After Jim’s death, she started dating, and about a year later met and married someone. He was a pilot with whom Bernie could relate.
Bernie had wanted an airplane for a long time, but it wasn’t in our budget for quite a while.