From Pelican to Seward

Pelican had a two-room school for grades K-8. I took eighth grade there and graduated the year Alaska became a state--1959. Since Pelican had no high school, Barbie and I began taking correspondence courses that fall, our freshman year. Grade school had been easy for me, but now I had to dig everything out for myself. That was the year I learned how to study.

The only option to correspondence courses for high school in Pelican at that time was for the students to go away to boarding school. Instead of that, since there were six or seven teens in Pelican, the school board decided we could all take correspondence courses. They arranged for us to meet daily during school hours in the tiny library on the second floor of the fire house and paid my dad to supervise. That arrangement worked well. Most of us were freshman so we could help each other on coursework, and my dad proved to be a good teacher when we got stuck, especially in algebra. This job also helped us financially.

My parents had put in a request to be transferred to another church in a town with a regular high school. In February 1960, my dad was offered the pastorate of a small church in Seward, Alaska. We packed up, shipped our household goods and books, and flew to Juneau on the Alaska Coastal Airlines Grumman Goose. (Since Pelican had no roads, we didn't own a car). In Juneau, we boarded the Pacific Northern four-engine prop plane, the Constellation (nicknamed "Connie"), and flew to Anchorage. There, we transferred to a single-engine plane to fly to Seward.

The day we flew south through the Chugach Mountains and swooped down toward Resurrection Bay, on which Seward was situated, the weather was picture-postcard perfect. Surrounded by rugged, snow-capped mountains, the clear blue waters of Resurrection Bay reflected the azure canopy and sparkled in the bright sun. As I peered out the plane's tiny window and caught my first glimpse of our new hometown, I thought Seward was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and I'd seen most of southern Alaska as well as much of the United States from Washington to Pennsylvania.

When we entered the parsonage attached to the tiny church, though, I cried. We had left a lovely home in Pelican. Though the living quarters in Pelican had not been large, the upstairs, which extended the full length of the building, had afforded enough bedrooms for each of us to have our own. Now, we three girls had to share a room only large enough for a twin bed and a set of bunk beds set side by side with only an orange crate between as a lamp stand. One double dresser extended from the foot of the twin bed to an open closet across the other end of the room. My sister's dresser stood outside our door in the nine-by-twelve living room.

We could see daylight through cracks in the plank floor in our closet. That winter and every winter thereafter in that house, I often could not change my sheets for weeks on end because they were frozen securely to the wall. Our parents' bedroom was even smaller--one double bed with enough space for one person to walk around and built-in drawers along one wall and a closet along the wall by the door.

Our "central" heat consisted of a furnace in a hole dug under the floor covered with a large metal grate not quite three-feet square. That became a favorite place to stand during those winter months when the strong, frigid winds blew in off the bay and rattled the house.

In spite of the inadequacies of the house, though, I soon made many friends and learned to love Seward. God again proved His faithfulness in meeting our needs. See my previous post, "God Is Never Too Late," and my next post of how God showed His concern for a special need I had.

God Provides

During our ten years in Juneau, our church outgrew its building and built a new one on the edge of town. All the men of the church spent evenings and Saturdays donating labor to complete the structure. During that time, my dad served as an usher in the church. One Sunday, he and another usher, Harry Bates, were talking when Harry said, "A Christian has to be ready to pray, preach, or die." Those words stuck in our minds, because they were Harry's last words to my father. That week, the oil tanker he was driving was involved in an accident, which resulted in an explosion, and Harry Bates was killed.

It wasn't long before my father was preaching full time. My grandparents, who had built and had been pastoring the church in Pelican for ten years, retired. My dad was appointed as the new missionary to Pelican. Most new missionaries in Alaska itinerated from church to church in the States to raise support before coming to the Territory of Alaska. Since he was already there, he did not get that opportunity. So my family moved to Pelican by faith. The Juneau church pledged $30.00 a month toward our support, but that was no where near what was needed to support a family of six.

The family moved to Pelican in February 1958. There, my dad renewed acquaintance with a man he had known while stationed in Ketchikan in the Coast Guard during World War II. Pros Ganty owned a float plane, and my father had flown with him a few times. Now, Pros Ganty owned the Pelican Cold Storage Company, Pelican's primary employer. He hired my dad to do the inventory for the general store that winter.

Pelican is built on piling along a boardwalk that stretches a mile along the rugged coastline of Lizianski Inlet, on Chicagof Island. Winter storms off the Pacific hit the mountains of the Alexander Archipelago and dump heavy amounts of snow all winter long on Pelican. For ten years, the "city" had hired my grandfather to shoveled that long boardwalk. After he left, Pros Ganty hired my father to do it.

During the first summer in Pelican, my dad bought an old skiff with a small outboard motor and trolled the inlet for salmon. That year, my parents froze, smoked, and canned a lot of salmon, which supplied us with protein all that winter. My mother became quite creative in coming up with new ways to serve salmon!

The next summer, a Christian fisherman who visited us whenever he was in port, hurt his back and had to go to Sitka for a spinal fusion. His 18-year-old son could not operate the boat alone, so my father fished with him for the rest of the summer.  Most times, though, when they would haul in a fish, seals would steal it right off the line, leaving only the fish head before they had a chance to get it into the boat. (In spite of that, one of my favorite memories of our years in Pelican is of the week I spent on the Alitak as "chief cook and bottle washer" out on Cross Sound where Icy Strait meets the open Pacific.)

With his part-time jobs, plus fishing and hunting for deer, and the fish given to us by fishermen, my dad was able to keep food on the table. During the summer months, we picked blueberries for cobblers and pies. The cannery cookhouse, the only restaurant in town, hired my mother, an excellent baker, to make pies and sheet cakes. My foster sister and I did a lot of babysitting at fifty cents an hour to buy our own clothes. Even though the budget didn't balance on paper, God supplied our needs. We never felt deprived, and I have many fond memories of those years in Pelican, which often inform my writing.

Barbie, Part 3

The next morning when Barbie knew her father had gone out on his fishing boat, she crept home to bed. Even under her blankets, she couldn't get warm. She shivered and shivered. Then she began to sweat and threw off all her covers. All day she shivered and sweat, shivered and sweat in alternating waves. That night, she began to cough--deep, harsh coughs that shook her to her core. Her mother brought her fish broth, but the smell nauseated her.

Finally, after about a week, the worst of the illness seemed over, but Barbie felt weak. Her brown cheeks were pale. Her eyes had lost their usual sparkle. When she tried to return to school, even the short walk up the path exhausted her. And her coughing continued.

After several months, she still had not improved. Her parents arranged to take her to the doctor in Kodiak. After examining her, he told her parents that she had tuberculosis again, this time in her lungs. She was again sent to the sanitarium at Mt. Edgecumbe. There, after further examination, the doctors found that her lungs were so destroyed by the tuberculosis that she could not get well. They decided they could do nothing for her and would send her home to die.

In the meantime, the Cousarts learned of Barbie's condition. Knowing that God could heal her, they sent prayer requests to Christians they knew all across America. Before long, they heard that the doctors had changed their minds. Instead of sending her home to die, they would try a new drug on her--streptomycin. The results were miraculous. Within six months, Barbie was well enough to leave the hospital. (Streptomycin is still used today to treat tuberculosis, a once incurable disease.) The doctors, however, fearing she would only get tuberculosis again, said Barbie could not go home to Old Harbor.

The Cousarts were no longer operating the Bethel Beach Children's Home, which had been closed. They now owned they own home, where they lived with their three children. The Alaska Native Service social worker, who knew of the Cousarts' interest in Barbie, called to ask them if they would take Barbie into their home as a foster child. Even though friends and doctors warned them that their children could catch tuberculosis from Barbie, the Cousarts felt it was God's plan that she come to live with them.

What a joyful reunion when Barbie arrived at the Cousarts! Now she could go to Sunday school every Sunday without fear of receiving a beating! Barbie lived with us until she graduated from high school ten years later. She became one of the family--loved and accepted as a daughter and sister by all of us.

And none of us children ever contracted tuberculosis or even have a positive TB test to this day!

Barbie, Part 2

The Cousarts began to pray that God would send a missionary to Old Harbor. Before Barbie and Ralph boarded the plane to leave, the Cousarts gave them each a Bible. Clutching their Bibles and holding back their tears, the two children turned to wave and smile then disappeared into the airplane.

When Barbie and Ralph arrived home in Old Harbor, they found that God had already answered their prayers. A young lady named Violet Abel had come to live in Old Harbor to tell the villagers about Jesus. How Barbie and Ralph loved to visit her and listen to her tell the Bible stories!

Then one morning at breakfast, Barbie and Ralph's father said sternly, "You've been going to the missionary's house, haven't you?"

"Yes," they admitted, trembling with fear.

"The priest has forbidden us to go there," their father thundered. "You will not go there again. If you do, I will beat you!"

Hearts thumping hard with fear and disappointment, the two children left the house silently to go to the one-room schoolhouse. Barbie felt as though someone had turned out all the lights in her heart. She loved Violet Abel. She would miss her very much. And she wanted to learn more about Jesus.

For many days, Barbie obeyed her father. But finally she couldn't stand it any longer. She decided to take the risk and visit Violet. After school, she looked to see that no one was watching as she quickly ducked into the doorway of Violet's house. Inside, she was having such a wonderful time listening to stories about Jesus that she completely lost track of the time. Before she knew it, it was dark. Her father would be home. He would ask where she had been.

Afraid to go home and face her father, Barbie walked up and down the beach in the cold wind for hours. When she could walk no longer, she huddled down in the shelter of a rock and fell asleep.

To be continued: Barbie, Part 3

Barbie, an Aleut Girl Who Became My Sister

Barbie was an Aleut girl, born in the tiny village of Old harbor on the shores of Kodiak Island, the largest of a long chain of islands that extends from southwestern Alaska in the Pacific Ocean. Called the Aleutian islands, this chain stretches so far west that the International Dateline must jog around it. Barbie's father was a fisherman, as were all the men of Old Harbor. Salmon, halibut, and other fish and seafood made up the main part of the villagers' diet. In the cool summer months, they picked wild blueberries, goose berries, and salmon berries from the treeless hillsides above the village to add variety to their diet.

Old Harbor in the late 1940's and 1950's had few modern conveniences--no running water in their houses and no electricity. Kerosene lanterns lit their homes on the long winter nights. They carried water in buckets from a nearby stream or melted huge chunks of ice in the winter. Instead of toilets, outhouses stood behind each house. Since lumber was scarce on this treeless island, the houses themselves were small, hardly more than shacks.

The largest building in the village was the Russian Orthodox church with its onion-shaped dome, the Russian cross on top. The Russian Orthodox priest held a lot of power among the Aleuts. As their spiritual leader, he was respected, even feared, and obeyed without question.

When Barbie was just a little girl, she and her older brother, Ralph, became very sick. Since no doctors lived in Old Harbor, their parents had to take them several hours away by fishing boat to Kodiak, the largest town on Kodiak Island. The doctor there examined them and found that they were suffering from tuberculosis, a very serious disease. Tuberculosis usually affects the lungs, but Barbie and Ralph's tuberculosis had attacked their spines. They needed surgery to remove the diseased bones. That meant they would have to fly in an airplane to a faraway hospital somewhere in the United States (Alaska was still a territory then).

After two spinal fusions and having to lie perfectly still for many weeks, the two young children were returned to Alaska to another hospital, a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients at Mt. Edgecumbe, near Sitka, Alaska. After several years of treatment and some schooling, they recovered and were sent to the small children's home in Juneau operated by my parents, where they would live until they grew strong enough to return to their family in Old Harbor.

At the Bethel Beach Children's Home, Barbie and Ralph found many other children to play with. Picnics at Tee Harbor, romps in the tall grass with the other children and Taku, the husky-German shepherd-wolf dog, filled the long summer days. With nourishing food, fresh air, and exercise, Barbie and Ralph gained weight and strength. The thing they liked best of all was when their houseparents, Mr. and Mrs. Cousart, took down the big Bible story book and read aloud the stories of Jesus. And each Sunday morning all the children dressed in their best clothes, and everyone went to Sunday school.

By the end of the summer, Barbie and Ralph were strong enough to return to Old Harbor. They both cried because they didn't want to leave the home where they had been so happy, where they had learned about the love of Jesus. Who would tell them more about Jesus in Old Harbor?

To be continued: Barbie, Part 2

The Teacher Who Influenced My Life

I was privileged to have many wonderful school teachers. Several were born-again Christians who shared my faith. My fifth grade teacher, Miss Dinsmore, inspired me to be a teacher. Miss Mayberry, who I thought was very strict, cultivated my writing. We published a book of poems and short stories that year. But my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. Yates, went beyond the call of duty to pour herself into my life over a period of years.

Although she was a school teacher, I first met Mrs. Yates in church. She was the director of the junior choir, of which I was a member. My family was very musical. Both parents had trained singing voices, and my mother played the piano, mostly by ear. My brother, sister, and I used to sing together when we were preschoolers. Mother wrote many songs, including one for us to sing at Christmas. I sang my first solo, "The Way of the Cross Leads Home," when I was 9 years old. Even my parents were amazed at the big, mature voice coming from their young daughter. Mrs. Yates often assigned solos parts to me after that, and she and I sometimes sang duets together.

I had a strong desire to learn to play the piano, but a growing family of four children left no money for music lessons. My father planned to go into full-time pastoring. While he was working for the airlines, he had brought home an adult piano course that someone had left in the waiting room and had never claimed. With that, I was able to teach myself some basics with Mother calling out, "That's not right!" whenever I hit a wrong note. She could hear what sounded good and could read notes but didn't have time and wasn't proficient enough to really teach me.

Mrs. Yates was a gifted pianist. Somehow, she discovered that I wanted to take piano lessons and offered to give me lessons free. For a whole year, she gave me free lessons. From her, I learned how to play for church. In addition to music from the John Thompson Grade Two piano book, she assigned hymns, one in each key. She showed me how to determine what chords to play along with the melody.

My birthday is December 2. In Alaska, the cutoff date for starting school was November 1, so I was nearly 7 when I started school. That made me one of the oldest in my class. Always mature for my age, I was also the tallest. I'd always been a good student, but when I entered sixth grade, I understood the work before it was taught. In fact, in those days before calculators and computers, I spent math period working out grade percentages for the office while the class did the lesson. On my twelfth birthday, I was allowed to skip into seventh grade with Mrs. Yates as my math and English teacher. She'd promised to give me special help if I needed it. Two months later, my parents assumed the pastorate of the church in Pelican, when my grandparents retired. Not wanting me to have to adjust to another change that year, Mrs. Yates invited me to live with her and her husband for the rest of the school year. We also continued my piano lessons.

The Yates eventually moved to Olympia, Washington. When I attended Seattle Pacific College to study music, their place became my home away from home, where I spent holiday weekends since it cost too much to fly home to Alaska whenever I wanted.  When my husband and I started a church in Gloversville, New York, the Yates drove up to visit us. By then, I was playing for church full time. I was excited to turn the bench over to her and hear her play once again.

Through the years, we have kept in touch at Christmas. They retired in Colorado. It's been years since we've seen each other. As this blog airs, though, my husband and I will have visited her again. She's in her eighties now. Her husband went to be with the Lord in March at the age of 93. We're retired now too, but I still play and sing for church occasionally. Over the years, I've directed church choirs, played the piano for services, and sung solos for the Lord, just as my teacher did years ago. She taught me more than math and English. She demonstrated a life of service to the Lord.

Did you have a teacher or other adult who has influenced your life in a special way?

My Faith Heritage

One advantage we enjoyed as a family that came from my father working for an airlines was free airfare for our entire family on a space available basis. During our ten years living in Juneau, we took three trips by air back to Philadelphia to visit my father's parents and other relatives. I remember flying in the belly of the Pam Am "Strato" Clipper in its comfortable lounge on one occasion when the passenger section was full. Another time, we were "bumped" in Detroit and spent the night sleeping in the airport. These trips gave my Philadelphia grandparents the opportunity to get to know their Alaska grandchildren.

During those trips we also visited our many relatives in Lancaster County, my mother's and grandmother's birthplace, where our ancestor was the first white settler in 1712. Isaac LeFevre, at age 16, was the only member of his family to escape martyrdom at the Revocation of the Edit of Nantes. They were French Protestants, nicknamed Huguenots. Isaac fled with the family Bible baked in a loaf of bread to the Feree home in Strasburg, France, then with them to Holland, and eventually to England, where they met William Penn, who deeded to them a tract of land in Pennsylvania in the Pequea Valley, 55 miles west of Philadelphia. They named their new settlement "Paradise," because they had finally found a place where they could worship God freely. The name of the town remains to this day, and a monument to them stands by the railroad tracks near the spot where U. S. Route 30 crosses Pequea Creek.

We spent many happy hours with my Grandma's youngest brother and his wife in the 28-room mansion, the home in which Grandma grew up, built on Isaac LeFevre's land in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. Our trips always took place in October. A favorite memory is of riding in the wagon behind the harvester and catching the ears of corn that slid through the machinery with the husks still intact. We loved to pull off "the paper," as we called it. Meals made almost entirely of fresh corn on the cob were a special treat to us Alaskans who only ate corn from a can at home.

In Lancaster, we also came to know my Grandma Personeus's sisters and brother who had given their lives in service to God as missionaries. Thus, the seeds of God's call on my life to full-time ministry were planted. And one aunt, associate editor of the Sunday School Times for many years, had also written nine novels, kindling my desire to write books.

Those trips also widened my understanding of our American heritage. In Philadelphia, we visited Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross's House, Christ's Church, the Philadelphia Mint, and the Franklin Institute. We sat in George Washington's pew, read the Declaration of Independence, and brought home a copy, along with our miniature Liberty Bells. The stories of America's fight for religious and political liberty came alive. 

On one trip, we traveled by car to Washington D. C., where we toured the White House, the Capitol building, all the presidential monuments, the statue of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, and witnessed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. 

My heart still swells with patriotic pride as I pledge my allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and sing the national anthem. As I read the writings of our Founding Fathers, I learned of the great sacrifices they made for the cause of freedom and their dependence on prayer and the Bible to encourage and guide them. How much we have lost as the history taught in our schools has been rewritten! How thankful I am for my godly heritage and the religious freedom we still enjoy here in America!

Do you have a faith heritage? Are you passing it down to your children?