Red Hot Peppers and Candy

Fresh fruits and vegetables in bush Alaska were hard to come by in the winter. One day I took our kids over to my friend, Linda's, house. Her husband was the trooper for our area. He had an amazingly large area that he was responsible for. So he wasn't home very often. Our kids liked going over to their house because they had a T.V. and movies to watch. Micah was 9, Julie 4 and Angela was 2 at the time. Angela was a curious little girl and many times it would get her into trouble. Linda had pepper plant with the brightest, prettiest, teeny red peppers on it. I noticed that Angela walked over to it and just looked at it several times. Without my knowledge, she took a couple of those peppers off and put them in her pocket. Linda had told me earlier in our visit that one pepper was hot enough to make several pots of chili. We visited with Linda and her family for a couple of hours and then we left to go home. Our house wasn't far from Linda's house. We had to go down "Slop Bucket Road", which was between Lake Iliamna and Slop Bucket Lake. At the start of Slop Bucket Road, Angela put one of those peppers in her mouth and started to cry and cry and cry. Then she wiped her hand over eyes, mouth and face. It made her face a fiery red color. I could not stop and get her any thing so had to continue going home. When I got home, I asked her what she had put in her mouth and she showed me her peppers. The only thing I could think of to do was to put evaporated milk on her skin and have her drink some. It seemed to help. What an opportunity to teach her that she had stolen those peppers from Linda and that it was wrong. She thought they were red pieces of candy. She learned that stealing was wrong and had consequences that were powerful to learn. She also learned that not everything is what it looks like it should be. Whenever we went over to the trooper's house and the trooper was home he would ask her if she wanted some candy and then he would laugh and laugh. She would say, "No!" in a rushed, quivery voice!! She didn't want to learn that lesson again!!! It became a fun game between the two of them!!!

Adventures with Dumpsters and Dogs

Shortly after we arrived in Iliamna, we were introduced to a new family in the village. We had just gotten home from a very fast trip to Homer, AK for a missions conference. Driving to Anchorage was an adventure in itself. We left Homer about 9:00 p.m. hoping to make the next flight out to Iliamna. Our youngest was sick and she got me and herself covered so often that I ran out of clean clothes. We were tired; so we had to stop every once in a while to sleep or get some refreshing, outside air. Once my hubby asked me to let him sleep no longer than ten minutes. While he was sleeping, a semi went by. Soon after that we were back on the road. Some miles up the road the semi hit a little pick up head on. The man in the pick up had fallen asleep while driving. We contacted emergency crews and waited for them. Surprisingly, we made it to Anchorage in time to make the flight. We were very weary and stinky but made it to our new home-sweet-home. We had just climbed into bed for a very short time when we heard a knock on the door. The guy asked me, "Is the parson home?" He was and we entertained our new neighbors who had just arrived in Iliamna. They ended up being very special friends. Joyce and I had many adventures together and she became one of my closest friends on earth. Joyce was always neater than a tack, pretty, a great cook and full of lots of tears, laughter and fun.

After being in Iliamna, Alaska for a while, a person needs to leave for a variety of reasons, one being sanity and another to shop for everything a family may need in the next six months. It was expensive for a family of five to fly, so quite often I would get to fly to town with my friend Joyce. We had sooooo much fun together and aided and abetted to each others doings. We did crazy things together like driving through a car wash in March and not having the back window latched properly. We got the giggles so bad as we helplessly watched Niagra Falls come through the back window. Then the problem was to figure out how to get the water out before it turned to ice. More giggling as we tried scooping it out with our hands, only to have them frozen to the nubs. We tried using paper towels but realized that took way too many. Our next attempt was to vacuum the water out and that worked but . . . who knows what happened to the vacuum cleaner! Our next adventure was shopping. We would buy hundreds of dollars of things from groceries to oil for the car. Sometimes we would forget that our International Scout was only so big, and trying to get everything in it, was an art of knowing where to put each bag so every nook and cranny was full. Then what an adventure to take everything to our hotel room and go find boxes of every size and shape. Finding boxes included hunting in dumpsters ... even where the homeless people lived. When we found a box, we were excited. We would have made it easier on ourselves just to go buy some but that would have taken half the fun away! The whole time we hunted we laughed and talked and had so much fun. Once we found our treasures, we would go back to the hotel to start packing, taping and addressing them to ourselves. Most of the time we would pack just the bare essentials in our suitcases so we could use them to carry perishable things back to the village. That way we didn't have to eat frozen oranges, eggs and pineapple. To mail our boxes could take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for them to arrive. It cost $40 per hundred pounds to ship the boxes into Iliamna. Joyce's hubby worked for the FAA, (Federal Aviation Agency) so she shipped hers via the FAA and received the shipping for free. For me, to have two suitcases and my carry-on full of perishables for free was exciting!!

Joyce and her family lived just up the hill from us in the FAA compound. We spent many nights watching movies, playing games and eating some of Joyce's wonderful food. She was a great cook and made our time special whenever we went there. They had a son who was Micah's age. He and Micah were best buddies. They both had dogs and loved to wear camouflage. Another interest was 4-wheeling. The kids had the Alaskan tundra wilderness as their back yard. They spent many hours riding their 3-wheelers or 4-wheelers together. Their dogs, Micah's was yellow lab and golden retriever mixed, would follow along behind them. One time the boys thought they would train their dogs to pull a sled with them in it!! Well . . .the dogs had differing opinions about that. The boys got the sleds attached and the dogs took off across the frozen lake like a bullet out of a gun. The boys went screaming and running after them but to no avail. The dogs were having a ball! They came back minus their sleds!! The boys really loved being outside whether it was the dead of winter or the long days of summer. Another thing that the boys seemed to enjoy was helping bring in the set-net full of salmon, white fish & trout and cutting up the fish on shore to get it ready for smoking and canning. Both of the boys learned how to shoot a sling shot much like David's in the Old Testament. They both learned how to use one with much accuracy. So . . . everywhere they went they had their sling shot in their back pocket. Such fun memories flood my heart as I write this.

My friend Joyce died three years ago. We called each other often and would talk or cry or laugh together. I thank God for my friendship with Joyce during a time in my life that could have been lonely. I am also thankful for sweet memories of things that happened in the past. Both Joyce and Micah are with the Lord in Heaven and I miss both of them dearly.

Moving to the Wilderness of Alaska

Moving to Iliamna, Alaska, in February, after being in Ketchikan was quite a culture shock for our family. I am so thankful I grew up on a farm in Kansas with no running water and an outhouse. God used these in my life to get accustomed to the isolated village life. Getting to Iliamna was an adventure we will never forget. We took the ferry from Ketchikan to Haines, Alaska. It was snowing when we got off the ferry and had accumulated a foot or two. Trying to leave the dock we went up a huge hill with our trusty International Scout that had 4-wheel drive! The 4-wheel drive, however, didn't work when we had to stop at the top of the hill. The weight of our trailer started pulling us back down the hill. My hubby yelled for me to get out of the car and help direct him as he backed down the hill. He backed into a drive way that had been plowed out. So we headed back up that hill a second time and my hubby announced that he wasn't going to stop at the top. So we prayed there would be no cars and there wasn't any. We drove to a hotel and got a room to see if the snow would let up a little or stop during the middle of the night. We woke up the next morning to a lot more snow. We talked with some other people who were driving to Anchorage. So we had our own little caravan of vehicles headed in the same direction. It took us 8 hours to drive from Haines to Haines Jct, Alaska. This is only about 60 - 100 miles. The snow on the sides of the road was higher than our car! Our little caravan followed a snow plow all the way to Haines Jct. We spent the night in a very dirty hotel room but we were exhausted and ready for sleep. Going from Haines to Anchorage was a long, arduous drive. One of the cars in our caravan slipped off the road and my hubby was able to pull it back onto the road. Other than that we arrived in Anchorage ready for the next part of our adventure.

We stayed with new friends in Anchorage for a few days and I ended up so sick that I probably should have stayed a few more days. We got our trailer, full of all of our earthly goods, wrapped in what looked like Saran Wrap, to get it ready to ship to Iliamna. That is a lot of work!! Our missionary friend got his airplane ready to take us out to the village. So the day came and we left. (Being new missionaries to the bush, we had no idea we should probably have waited til' spring to move. We were doing this in February with very short days to fly.) The airplane was for 5 people so Micah ended up in the tail of the airplane in two sleeping bags. He was so cold. We were flying along and came to a white out. We did not know if we were going straight, upside down, or into a mountain. God opened up a patch of clouds right over a runway in the village of Port Allsworth. The "chances" of that happening are one in a million! Alaska is a big state and the wilderness is so vast. We landed on the runway and walked to a lodge in the distance. We had to walk in thigh high snow. My hubby took the girls and Micah came with me. My lungs felt like they were on fire - as I had pneumonia at this point. Micah and I were walking as fast as we could. A snowmobile came by and I told the guy to find my hubby with my two young daughters ages 1 and 3. So . . . Micah and I trudged on through the snow and feeling as awful as I did, I said, "Micah, if I die just make sure I get buried!!" Poor kid! What a horrible thing to stay to an 8 year old. We finally made it to the lodge. By this time I thought my lungs were going to explode. We stayed in Port Allsworth for a couple of days. For me, that was wonderful. The day came to try to fly to Iliamna. We had a beautiful day for flying as the scenery was incredible with its rugged beauty. The mountains were completely snow covered. We arrived at our new home totally unprepared for what was to come. We stayed with the outgoing missionary for several days and then they packed up EVERYTHING and left. We had very little left to live on. We had no idea what wilderness living was like. To buy milk at the trading post was $9.00 a gallon. Bread was $6.50 a loaf. Coffee was $17.00 for 3#. A gallon of gas was $3.85. My hubby took me out for an anniversary dinner one time. One spaghetti dinner was $21.00, so we shared a $10.00 hot dog and a $2.00 cup of coffee! We were in complete shock. This was in 1983. We had spent most of our money just getting to our new home. Bless the trooper's wife who told us we could shop in her pantry. What we learned later, was that any time one of us was in Anchorage we needed to buy enough groceries to last for 4-6 months. We would spend about a thousand dollars each time we went. We would then have to find boxes to mail our groceries back to ourselves in Iliamna. We were definitely "cheechackoes" or new people in the village. We had so much to learn about our new surroundings. What we learned later was that we had to buy gas, fuel oil and propane once a year when it came on the barge. That was like paying for all of our utility and gasoline bills for a year in one check to the barge guy. But . . . we needed it! Our village did have electricity but it was "on again off again" which was hard on appliances. We also had a telephone. One time I called my folks in the "lower 48" and got three people in our village. My dad thought that I was a prank caller when I called them because there was a long delay after I said something. Mom did pretty good when I called her but my dad would hang up.

Hunting was a necessity and not a hobby for the people in the village. We were given a moose that someone had shot and rubbed down with liquid smoke to keep flies off of it. It tasted horrible but it provided food for our family. My hubby went on a 3 week moose hunt the second year we were up there. He wanted to get a moose as well as the other guys with him. They went on a river boat 400 miles down the Yukon River and a hundred miles up the Kyukuk River. The day he left was a crazy day with all kinds of things happening. After I dropped him off at the airport, I had three flat tires on my van! The guy in the village that I did not want help from, is the person who helped me with all three flat tires. I had my three kids, three other kids,a baby plus 2 dogs in the van at the time. He ended up being so helpful - I had to tell God I was sorry for my attitude towards him. After we got home, I saw that my youngest daughter had a clear stream coming from one nostril which was abnormal. So I asked her if she put something up her nose - she said, "Yaw". I asked her to show me what she had put up her nose. She showed me a Bic pen and pointed to the top where there should have been a little black plug. So . . . I tried to get it out and gave her a bloody nose which made her sniff. I told her not to do that. Then I called a nurse who attended our church and lived up the hill from us. She tried to take it out and gave her a bloody nose, also. She told me that we needed to find out if there was a doctor staying in any of the lodges. We called several and there was a podiatrist - still out hunting, a vet - still out hunting, and finally the last lodge we called had a doctor who had just came in from hunting. He was the doctor who made the Jarvix heart and is still on television as an advertisement for heart health. He came to our house and took it out very quickly by lying Angela on the toy box, sitting on top of her, putting her hands under his legs, and him holding her head with one hand and taking the Bic plug out with the other hand. PTL for his coming to our house and taking it out. He never did send us a bill. Wow! What a day of excitement! But . . . there was more to come.

I got an urgent knock on the door about 10:00pm. I wondered who that could be. I opened the door and a totally disheveled Eskimo man was standing there. He told me that he wanted to talk to the parson and I told him that my hubby was out hunting. (I did not tell him that he was going to be gone for three weeks.) He left and I thought that that encounter had gone pretty good. The next night he came back and knocked on the door at 10:00pm. I opened the door and he walked in and sat down at the table across from me. He needed to unload his heart. He had been in prison for 7 years for murder, but he didn't know if he had done it or not because he was so drunk. He thought that by coming back to his own village that he would be able to work. He worked but did not get paid. So he had no money and no food. He could not hunt with a weapon because of the felony charge. He had a wife and a little boy. In my heart I really hoped Chuck would get a moose, so I thought, hmmm maybe I could give him the moose that was in my freezer because I really disliked cooking it. So I gave him a couple hundred pounds of that moose. He was really excited (so was I!) and he and his wife became special friends. By the way, my hubby did get a 1500 hundred pound moose! It was yummy and lasted the rest of our time being in the bush!

Camping - Ketchikan Style

I would be remiss to leave Ketchikan behind, without telling our crazy story of Wilderness Camp. It was our first summer to be in Alaska when we were asked if we would be counselors for a week of camp. We said, "Sure that sounds like fun." That was the understatement of the year! Getting to the camp was quite the ordeal in itself. First of all, we had three little children. How do two people take care of a cabin of kids plus our own little ones? Jewel's Sunday School teacher said she would take care of Jewel and the camp nurse's daughter, Eva. So we thought we could handle two kids between us. We only took along what we could hike in with. With a baby to carry on our backs and all of her belongings, my hubby and I took very little with us. Micah carried his own backpack with just a little murmuring. He loved this new adventure he was headed into. Anyone going to camp had to be at the dock at an appointed time. If someone was late, too bad. We had to travel at high tide because we were going to cross where a rapids normally was. If we would have been late then we would have to wait until the next day. We made it through the very choppy area and ended up on a smooth river. We took the river to a dock. From the dock we hiked, about 3 miles, through a virgin forest that was absolutely beautiful. This is a wonderful way to tire kids out so they sleep the first night of camp :0) When we got to the camp, it was inundated with tree frogs! They were everywhere much to the delight of all of the little boys and big boys. You had to check everything you used or wore to see if there were frogs in it. Before we sat down we checked to make sure there were no frogs on the seat - some were put there on purpose!! The cabin I was in had 10 girls and another counselor. The other counselor really did not want to be there but got talked into it by several people. Bless her heart one of the first nights she crawled into her sleeping bag, she had a mouse come running up her leg. She screamed and screamed and screamed. She said she was walking home - that was rather impossible, knowing it would be a long walk and swim for the middle of the night. Also there was a bear that checked out our camp each night. She reluctantly stayed the rest of the week. Someone thought it would be fun to take the boys fishing. Taking 10 little boys with fishing poles and hooks was a crazy idea. Lines and hooks were flying everywhere. I did not go to the shore to watch. One boy ended up with a fish hook in the skin beside his eye. The nurse had to take it out with nothing to deaden the skin. Needless to say, he screamed and made the other kids rather nervous about visiting the nurse with any problem the rest of the week. The week went smoothly for how remote it was and for how many things could have gone wrong. Frogs and mice and bears do make for an interesting week. My baby decided to try to walk that week and loved to try catching some of the frogs but I did not see her try to eat any!! The last day to be at camp was busy. We had to carry everything out plus now we had tired kids to hike with. We had to be at the dock at the appointed time because we had to cross the rapids with the tide going out. If we were too late we would have to hike back in with all of the stuff to spend another night ~ sigh! We made it and had a very choppy trip. It was a relief to know we all made it safely back to Ketchikan. Would I do it again - sure!!

The Big, Big Move

Prior to moving to Ketchikan, AK, we were traveling to different churches every Sunday A.M., Sunday P.M., Wednesday P.M., Conferences, etc. I was pregnant with my third child. It was a stressful pregnancy because for some reason her little heart would quit beating and then start up again. Many doctors told me to abort her because she would be born dead, with hole in her heart or mentally challenged. That wasn't an option for us. We sent out a letter so people could pray for her and for me. I had two doctor's appointments per week for about 10 weeks. I had an appointment with one of the doctors and her heart beat quit and started again. The next day at another doctor's appointment it was normal and stayed normal til' she was born!!! My labor and delivery was only 4 hours. She was born in the morning and greeted us all with a look of, "Good Morning world" ~ very alert and she is still a lot like that to this day.

So after our little daughter's birth, we packed up our earthly belongings, said many sad good byes and started our move.We have the saddest picture of Micah with his cousins A and J. When we look at even today it makes our hearts tug. Our dear, dear friends, J and R helped us move across the country. My dear mother-in-law paid for the kids and I to fly to California. So R flew with the three kids and I across country. We drove to Minneapolis and then flew to San Francisco. We stayed with my sister in the San Francisco area for about a week. Chuck and J drove across country and had quite the story to tell. They had car trouble crossing Nebraska that cost both time and money. The rear end went out of our Scout. They were in Sydney, NE at the time. It was late on Saturday night so the guys got a motel room and went to church the next day. On Monday they went to a car garage and found out that there wasn't a rear end to be found even as far away as Omaha, NE; Denver, CO; or Cheyenne, WY. The guys waited a couple of days and then a guy said he found one 3 miles away right there in Sydney. Does Jesus care - oh, yes He cares. It cost $700 which was hard on the travel budget. J said he would help out financially if needed. But . . . Chuck wanted to see how far God would take them. They crossed Dead Man's Pass in a blinding blizzard, had a toll bridge to cross going into San Francisco and arrived in Seattle with change in Chuck's pocket!!!! R, the kids and I rode up to Seattle with my sister and her family and had beautiful weather for crossing over mountains in November. Our family arrived at the ferry terminal with tickets in hand that had been purchased prior to our trips. We didn't have to cancel because of bad weather, car trouble or anything. We were thankful to God for His care. He provided just the perfect timing, with just enough energy and the perfect amount of money.

It was sad getting on the ferry and leaving our loved ones behind but we were excited about the uncharted adventure in our lives that lay ahead. The ferry was decked out for Christmas and it was wonderful and relaxing. Micah (7) and Jewels (2) had a ball getting their "sailor legs" through exploring and looking out the windows or walking on the deck. Micah and Jewels were thrilled there were no seat belts on the ferry. We saw Killer Whales, lots of Dolphins and lots of Seagulls. We had a berth to sleep in which was a wonderful relief to be able to put Jewels and A.J. down for naps. We had French Dip on the ferry for the first time and we all agreed that it was very good. Trying to eat and drink with the swaying of the ship was interesting! Our ferry trip lasted for 40 hours. We met lots of interesting people. One couple even supported our ministry for several years after only meeting us that one time. Learning to walk on solid ground was quite a hoot. We walked like wobbly sailors for a while. We went to church that night and the pastor had us come to the front. Little Jewels still had her sailing legs and struggled to walk to the front!! The church people had a wonderful food shower for us.

Living on the Pacific Ocean had many benefits. Salmon and Halibut became our staple food. We learned how to fix it and use it in many different ways and it became a favorite for us. Chuck had an office at the church so the kids and I would walk the five miles to see him quite frequently. Many times we walked in pouring rain. I would put A.J. in a backpack and Jewels in the stroller and Micah would walk along beside me. We walked along Tongass Narrows on a boardwalk. What an education for a seven year old boy. We saw jelly fish, multiple colors of starfish, sea horses and different kinds of fish. We didn't mind our long walks in the rain unless the wind was blowing too hard.

I grew up in Kansas a long ways from the ocean so moving to Ketchikan had lots of new things in store for me. The Welcome Wagon came to our home and gave us lots of goodies. One of the things they gave us was a Tide Book. I thought to myself, "Wow! That will be a lot of coupons for boxes of Tide detergent." I had never seen coupons with "moons" on them before! Am I ever happy that I didn't tell anyone in Ketchikan about that! I was so surprised to find out that the Tide Book was for telling the times for the high tide and low tide on a certain date. Did I ever feel dumb!!! I had never eaten crab before going to Alaska. One of the men in church gave us a whole cooler full of Dungeoness Crab. He told me to put a pot of water on to boil. Then he said to put the crabs in one at a time and put the lid on for a certain amount of time. Then I needed to take the crab out. What he didn't tell me is that it sounded like they screeched when I put them in the pot. They even tried to push the lid off. I felt sooo bad for them but it was free food. Chuck and I had to crack them open so the kids could eat them. It reminded us of what mother birds do for every feeding. We would drop crab in the kids' mouth and then they would immediately open their mouths again. So . . . it was a while before Chuck and I got a bite of our own.

Prices twenty plus years ago were very high, in Ketchikan, compared to any place we had ever lived before. A gallon of milk was $5.00, a pound of cheese was $5.00 and our rent was $700 for a 3 bedroom apartment. Our apartment was on stilts because of the "muskeg" soil. It was soil similar to a slow quicksand. I learned quickly that even if you could go faster from point "a" to point "b" by crossing "muskeg" it wasn't an option. So we walked on boardwalks to go from one apartment building to another. Skunk cabbage grew in the wild open areas. Blueberries, the size of my thumb, grew close to our apartment buildings. We could help ourselves to as many as we wanted. Yummy!!

Micah was in the first and second grade while we were there. He was going through a name crisis at the time. He couldn't find his name on pencils, shirts, hats, etc. To our surprise there were three little boys, in his class of 8 kids, named Micah. Two were Micah John and all three of them had last names that started with a B. So . . . that ended the name crisis. None of them wanted the teacher to shorten their name to Mickey or Mike. So she spent the year calling them by both their first and last names.

Twenty plus years have gone since living in Ketchikan; but it will always have a tender place in my heart. The people were wonderful to this "cheechako" couple and their little family.

Oh Boy! Oh Boy! It's A Boy!! (Part 1)

March 27, 1975 was a much anticipated day for my hubby and me. I had stayed up all night March 26, typing a 20 page paper for one of my hubby's classes at Bible College. This was in the days of typewriters, not computers. If I made a mistake I had to start all over on a clean sheet of paper. I finally went to bed at 4:00 A.M. and then my hubby came home from work at 5:00 A.M. We were both in a sound sleep. At 7:00 A.M. Micah decided to wake Mom up with contractions. Of course, Iowa was having its worst ice storm in history. I woke my hubby up because the contractions were getting closer. So we trekked out to the car very carefully. All the way to the hospital we saw cars, trucks and semi's in the ditch. I prayed and asked the Lord to keep us safe and to keep the car on the very icy road because I selfishly did not want to have my first baby, during an ice storm, in a ditch. We got to the hospital safely with plenty of time to spare. The hospitals at that time were just starting to allow the fathers to be in the delivery room. Micah was born at 6:33 P.M. My hubby was in the room for the delivery and was elated that our first born was a boy. (Micah means "who is like unto Jehovah".) We were in the hospital until Easter Sunday morning. My hubby was with a pastor friend when he heard the song, "Because He Lives" and it became a favorite one that he sang quite often to Micah.

Bringing baby Micah home was an entirely different thing. I was a nervous, new mother and Micah was a very colicky baby. So he cried and cried and cried. Chuck and I kept a vigil during the night so we would stay sane. That allowed one of us to sleep. The crying continued for about a year. Once that ended, he became a very good sleeper. Since my hubby was still in school Micah became my little buddy. We did everything together because daddy was in school or working. Micah was born before car seats, so he stood behind my shoulder when I was driving. He had a pathetic car seat that basically just allowed him to see over the dash. He loved boxes and would arrange them so they looked like a pulpit. He would stand behind them and put his pointer in the air and say, "Peech da Word." Who do you think he was imitating? It was so cute.

The summer Micah turned 3, my hubby graduated from college. I received a "PHT" degree - ("Put Hubby Through" degree) Both my hubby and I had to take 2 summer school classes. Then we joined a mission and started traveling to different churches. Micah was such a good traveler and learned to read maps at a very young age. He would sleep so soundly in the car that we could carry him in or out of the car or a house and he stayed asleep. He had our slide presentation memorized!!

The summer Micah turned 5, he became a big brother to a baby girl, "Jewels". He had prayed for a girl and then changed his mind. I told him that God may have already answered his prayer and he decided that was okay. I was at my sister's house when I went into labor. My hubby and Micah were at a camp 8 hours away. (I almost went to camp - we would have caused quite a commotion!) They didn't make it back to Iowa in time for the delivery. But they both came a few days later and Micah was so excited to meet his sister. But he was so disappointed that she couldn't play football!!! "Jewels" and Micah had so much fun together when she learned to walk. We were in New York helping with an Indian Camp and ended up staying there while we traveled to different churches. This camp was a little boys' paradise with all kinds of trees to climb and land to roam around on. The camp director had two little boys Micah's age. They played from sunup to sundown.

The summer after Micah turned 7, "A.J." was born. He now had two little sisters to tease! By this time he was learning how to tease without hurting someone and also to know when he should stop. He was a protective big brother which was so nice. When A.J. was 2 months old we moved to Ketchikan, Alaska.

A Farm Girl's View From the Past

My sister, Esther, was only 20 months younger than I was. We were inseperable when we were growning up. Since we lived on a farm, we went to a one-room schoolhouse. We lived about three miles from the school. Every morning we had a routine that makes me wonder how we ever got to school on time. First stop was just across the railroad tracks. We usually got cookies to eat while we visited with the farmer and his wife. The next stop was enthralling to us. The farmer was blind and had a rope tied between his house and the barn. We watched him walk to the barn and then watched him milk his cows. Our last stop we talked with the farmer and his wife and got some more cookies. Our trip got a little faster because I got a bike. It was way to big for me, so I had to ride it standing up. Poor Esther! One night after school I got a brainy idea to take her on the back of my bike. I felt sorry for her because she always had to run along beside me. Well, we were going down a hill a little too fast and had a bad wreck. I ran home, crying all the way. Esther came home dragging the bike behind her. We were in the third and first grade. That ended my trying to take her and she happily ran beside me until she got her own bike.

One of the things you learn growing up on a farm in big family, is responsibilities. Everyone has chores to do and no questions or criticisms were ever given. One of the chores we were supposed to do every spring was to clean out the cellar to have it ready for tornado season. It was the dreaded chore because you never knew what you might find. For instance we might find a rattlesnake, spiders, a raccoon, a rat or a mouse - yuck!
One spring we waited too late to clean our cellar. You guessed it, we had a tornado on our farm. My dad had been watching the sky all morning (we should have gotten a clue from what he was doing - duh) when all of a sudden he yelled for all of us to go to the cellar. We didn't want to go in because we hadn't done our job. We had no flashlights because we hadn't replaced the batteries. We didn't have a Coleman lamp because we hadn't replaced the oil. Being in the dark during that tornado, wondering what we were sitting with, was the longest ten minutes of my life. "Be sure your sins will find you out." The tornado uprooted trees, blew out windows and made a big mess of our yard. We had lots of bonfires that summer. My dad had wanted to move a windmill from our south pasture to closer to our house. The tornado moved it for him - right side up!!!

Another adventure with Esther was that of taking the railroad tracks to town instead of walking to town by roads. We weren't ready to go to church one day so my dad left us at the farm and we had to walk. It was much safer to do that back then. So . . . Esther and I decided to try to go to town by way of the railroad, thinking it was a faster way to town. There was a long trellis bridge over a deep gorge. We were half-way across it when we heard a train. We didn't think there was enough time to go back where we came from or to finish crossing to the other side of it. We climbed under the track and held on to one of the poles for dear life. Trains are very loud when you are under them! When it crossed over we climbed back up on the track and we were so deaf and scared we couldn't hear. We had to literally pull our fingers off the poles and we were such a mess with all the creosote. But to my knowledge my mom and dad never knew what we did. Do you suppose they could tell just by looking at us? I doubt that we were very clean for church that day.