Tipper called out instructions. “I’ll stay with the pumpkin. Mendel, can you run to Miss Zelinsky at the school bake sale booth and give her the money? Gloria, will you go with the twins to Pop at the hobby and crafts tent and tell him it’s time to round up that truck and a dolly?”
As the crowd drifted away, clutching cameras and recipe books, Grandmother strolled over to Terpsichore. “Now honey, can you please explain what all this hullabaloo is about?”
Before Terpsichore had a chance to answer, someone called out, “Is that you, Happy?”
CHAPTER 51
Home Sweet Home
TERPSICHORE ALMOST DIDN’T RECOGNIZE HIM AS HE approached her stall. His lower face was white where the beard used to be. He was wearing a suit instead of a flannel shirt and dungarees. She recognized his voice, though.
Grandmother fanned her face with a fair program and squinted toward him. “Do I know you?”
Mr. Crawford grinned all the way back to his molars. “Happy?” he said again.
“Why, my goodness! No one’s called me that in over thirty years.” She stopped fanning her face with the program and peeped over the top of it. “Nathaniel?” Her eyes were wide, and though her lower face was covered, anybody could tell she was smiling behind that program.
“Grandmother, this is Mr. Crawford,” Terpsichore said. “He’s our friend and he’s one of the genuine old-timers in the valley. He’s been here since just after the Nome gold rush. Mr. Crawford, this is my grandmother, Mrs. VanHagen.”
Without his beard, his blush showed up, rosy as radishes. Grandmother matched his blush, cheek for cheek.
“I believe,” Grandmother said, “we have been introduced, although it was long ago.”
“So we were. And now, here you are in Alaska!” Mr. Crawford said, with another smile. “What do you think of Palmer? This town’s growing just like one of Terpsichore’s pumpkins and your family is helping it happen. Terpsichore and her friends got a library started, and Pastor Bingle told me he hoped your daughter would volunteer to be the music director of the new church.”
“Really? But how can she be a music director if she doesn’t have a piano?” Grandmother said.
Their conversation was interrupted as Pop tooted the horn of Mr. Crawford’s pickup and inched toward the rest of his family. The twins started bouncing again.
Terpsichore couldn’t help bouncing too. “What do you mean, no piano?” She pointed to the piano in the back of the pickup. “Here is your piano, Mom!”
As Pop jumped down from the truck, Mother transferred Matthew’s hand into Grandmother’s and raced up to hug Pop.
Pop reached for her hands. “Terpsichore’s the one to thank, not me,” he said. “She bought it herself with her pumpkin prize and recipe book sales.”
Mother ran one hand through her hair. “Terpsichore? But you don’t even like to play the piano.”
“But I know you miss it and I want you to vote to stay. We all do.” Terpsichore’s voice faded out as she watched her mother’s face for a clue on whether the piano was enough to change her mind.
“You still haven’t voted,” Pop said. “But come up here first.”
Pop reached down to pull Mother up to the back of the pickup with the piano. She sat on the bench and ran through some arpeggios. She grinned to have the feel of piano keys under her fingers.
A crowd gathered. Among them was Scoop Swanson, the reporter from the day before. “Was this the surprise for your mother you were raising money for?”
“Yes!” Terpsichore shouted over the murmuring of the gathering crowd.
“Hey,” Scoop Swanson shouted back, “the picture of you and your pumpkin was picked up by the Associated Press and is appearing today in newspapers across the country. Even President Roosevelt will probably see it!”
Terpsichore almost forgot to breathe. Even President Roosevelt would see her pumpkin? And President Roosevelt would see Terpsichore’s grin, and eyes sparkling with faith, optimism, and cheer, just like she’d imagined he might when she listened to his fireside chat. That was amazing!
But she couldn’t bask in fame. After one wave to thank the reporter, she riveted her attention back on her mother.
Mr. Crawford lifted Matthew to the back of the pickup and then hoisted Grandmother up to the pickup too, despite her protests.
Terpsichore and the twins were right behind them, along with Mendel and Gloria. Scoop Swanson took picture after picture.
Mother said, “I guess I’d be a spoilsport to say I want to leave now . . . after all Terpsichore’s—Tipper’s—work for the piano.” She turned on the piano bench to hug Terpsichore.
“Then how about it, Mrs. Johnson, are you going to stay?” That was the reporter.
Still holding one of Terpsichore’s hands, Mother said, “Yes. My answer is yes.”
“Hooray!” shouted Cally and Polly.
“It worked!” shouted Mendel and Gloria.
Pop hugged Mother. Mother hugged Terpsichore again. Terpsichore hugged Cally and Polly, and Gloria and Mendel bent down to hug Matthew. Pop hugged Mr. Crawford. Mother hugged Grandmother. “If you were in Alaska,” Mother said, “I’d have everything I need here. If you’re lonesome in Madison, why don’t you stay too?”
Grandmother looked at Mr. Crawford with a slight nod and surprised everyone by saying, “I’ll think about it. Perhaps I’ll give Alaska a try.”
“Alaska grows on you, Grandmother, see if it doesn’t,” Terpsichore said.
Mother laughed. “I hated to have people tell me that. I thought I would never get over missing Wisconsin. But it’s true. Alaska does grow on you.”
“Do you miss your old home?” Terpsichore asked Mendel and Gloria.
“I did at first,” Mendel said.
“Only until I made new friends,” Gloria said.
“Me too,” Terpsichore said.
Somebody in the crowd shouted, “Hey, are you going to play that piano, or what?”
Mother’s hands hovered over the keys while she thought about what to play, then she decisively struck a three-chord introduction and began to sing. “‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam . . .’”
As people in the crowd recognized the song, their voices gradually joined in for the next line: “‘Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home . . .’”
The hundreds of voices singing together gave Terpsichore delicious shivers. Some sang on-key, others sharp or flat, but the imperfections evened each other out to something perfect.
As Mother began to play the second verse, Grandmother nudged Mother to make room for her on the left-hand side of the piano bench. She played slow, rich, grounding chords to Mother’s melody that made the spinet sound almost as good as the piano Mother had sold back in Little Bear Lake.
When they stopped playing, Grandmother turned on the bench to take Mother’s hand into her own. “It’s been a long time since we’ve played a duet,” she said.
“Too long,” Mother said. “I hope you’ll also decide to stay.”
Pop was standing behind the piano bench, one hand on Mother’s shoulder. “Me too,” he said. “I know Clio’s missed you.”
• • •
Low rays of sun made Laura gleam like solid gold.
“That’s some pumpkin,” Gloria said.
“The size of all these giant vegetables is attributable to the longer hours of sunlight of Alaska’s summer days,” Mendel said.
“Yes,” Terpsichore said, “but it also takes hard work and luck.” She looked fondly at Laura, still surrounded by people amazed at her size. “No wonder folks dream big here. Who’d ever have imagined that a pumpkin seed from Wisconsin would lead to a champion like Laura and a piano that would convince Mother to stay?”
Cally and Polly slipped their arms through Terpsichore’s and sang, “Just our sister Tipp
er.”
“Yep, she sure has the pioneer spirit I love,” said Mr. Crawford. He jumped down from the back of the truck. “Let’s get that piano home!”
Author Notes
MY SON INSPIRED THIS BOOK BY PURCHASING A HOUSE from the 1930s next to a potato field in Palmer, Alaska. As I followed my curiosity about the early settlement in Palmer, I was astonished to discover accounts of a New Deal program that took two hundred and two families off relief and shipped them up to Alaska to become self-sufficient farmers.
Some of those families left behind tar-paper shacks, and some left solid homes with electricity and indoor plumbing. No matter what life had been like for them before, in Palmer they were equal, all starting out in identical tents with shared outhouses.
You’d think that with mud and mosquitoes, and living in tents in the snow, people would have unhappy memories of the early days of Palmer, but most of those interviewed remembered their childhoods in Palmer as a happy time. After all, instead of living on isolated farms, for the most part, they had dozens of children their own age nearby in the colony to play with.
Although I made up Terpsichore and her friends, other people, including Dr. Albrecht, Pastor Bingle, and Don Irwin, were real people who were credited with the survival of the colony. Major incidents, such as the measles outbreak, children dying and the telegram to Eleanor Roosevelt, management problems that left many families still in tents as the first snow fell, and Will Rogers’s visit and plane crash, are all based on real events.
A notable omission in accounts I read of the Palmer Colony was reference to the people who were in Alaska for thousands of years before the colonists: the various Eskimo, Aleut, Athabaskan, and other Indian tribes. Since I married into a part-Native family, I was concerned about this omission, but finally decided not to create contacts with Native peoples if the colonists themselves did not mention them. However, I hope as many readers as possible will visit the Anchorage Museum to learn more about the original colonists of Alaska.
The colony started with two hundred and two families, but over fifty percent of the original colony members left within five years. Thirty years later, only ten percent of the original families remained.
The Matanuska Valley, an hour’s drive from Anchorage, is now the fastest-growing area of Alaska. You’ll find a Fred Meyer store where colonists once planted potatoes. But you’ll still find remnants of the colony era: the water tower, the railroad station, and even Pastor Bingle’s Church of a Thousand Trees, where my son and his wife were married. The early colonists are honored every year in early June with a parade, a salmon recipe contest, and a tour of the Colony House Museum on old Tract 94.
The Talkeetna and Chugach mountains still preside over the Matanuska Valley, and the wind still blows. On street signs, businesses, and mailboxes you will still see the names of the stalwart colonists and their descendants who stayed.
Resources
HERE ARE THE RESOURCES I RELIED ON MOST IN WRITING Sweet Home Alaska. If you get a chance to see these books yourself, you’ll find photographs that inspired several scenes.
Atwood, Evangeline. We Shall Be Remembered. Anchorage: Alaska Methodist University Press, 1966.
Hegener, Helen. The Matanuska Colony Album; Photographs of the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project in Palmer, Alaska. Anchorage: Northern Lights Media, 2014.
Hill, Paul and Joan Juster, Mark Lipman, and Jim Fox. Alaska Far Away; The New Deal Pioneers of the Matanuska Colony. (DVD) Paul Hill and Joan Juster, Producers, 2008.
Lehn, Lynette A., and Lorraine M. Kirker. Matanuska Colony 75th Anniversary Scrapbook. Anchorage: Pyramid Printing Company, 2010.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Kink Matanuska Susitna; A Visual History of the Valleys. Sutton, Alaska: Brentwood Press, 1985.
Terpsichore’s Favorite
and Not-So-Favorite Recipes:
Terpsichore’s Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
2 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup butter or shortening
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 ¹/3 cups rolled oats
1 cup canned pumpkin
¾ cup walnuts or pecans (optional)
½ cup raisins (optional)
Directions
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Sift together flour, salt, soda, and spices.
Cream shortening until fluffy and gradually add sugar, creaming until light.
Add egg and egg yolk.
Beat well, add pumpkin, oats, and flour.
Add nuts and raisins if you are using them.
Mix and drop by heaping teaspoonfuls 1 ¼ inches apart onto greased baking sheet.
Bake for fifteen minutes, but start checking at ten minutes in case your oven runs hot.
Jellied Moose Nose
Put a large kettle of water on to boil.
Hack off the upper jawbone of the moose just below the eyes and boil it for forty-five minutes.
Dip the jawbone in cold water and pluck the hairs from the nose. Wash the nose thoroughly.
Boil the nose again in fresh water with chopped onion, garlic, and pickling spices until tender. Cool overnight in the water it was boiled in.
The next morning, remove the meat from the broth and remove the bones and cartilage.
Thinly slice the meat, pack it in a glass dish with high sides, and cover with the broth. Season with salt, pepper, or vinegar to taste.
Refrigerate. As the mixture cools, it will jell so it can be sliced.
“When It’s Springtime in Alaska” (song)
“WHEN IT’S SPRINGTIME IN ALASKA” IS A PARODY OF “When It’s Springtime in the Rockies,” a song Mary Hale Woolsey published in 1929 and Gene Autry made famous with his recording. The tune was probably based on old folk melodies. The new words were made up by colonists as they rode the train from their homes in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan toward the Matanuska Valley.
When It’s Springtime in Alaska
When it’s springtime in Alaska
And it’s ninety-nine below,
Where the Eskimos go barefoot
Through the white and drifted snow,
When polar bears get sunburned
At midnight or by day,
When it’s springtime in Alaska—
In Alaska far away.
Where the berries grow like pumpkins
And a cabbage fills a truck,
Where milk and cream are flowing,
For a market we’re not stuck,
Where the sun is always shining
And the seals sing all the day,
When it’s springtime in Alaska—
In Alaska far away.
Some people think we’re foolish
And are sure we will regret;
I’m afraid they are mistaken,
For I see no sign as yet.
We want to make a new start
Somewhere without delay,
So, here we are Alaska,
AND WE HAVE COME TO STAY!
Acknowledgments
I THANK ALL THE AUTHORS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS WHO inspired me as a child to turn a flowered couch into a covered wagon, a ship, or a house in the big woods. I still like to play make-believe, but now I call it research for the historical fiction I write today.
My agent, Steven Chudney, found me the perfect team to work with: Nancy Paulsen and her imprint at Penguin Young Readers. Nancy gently coaxed me into revisions and additions that gave the book its heart. Her assistant, Sara LaFleur, eased me into modern online editing. Robert Farren, meticulous copy editor, and Kathleen Keating, equally meticulous proofreader, saved me fro
m anachronisms, time warps, and assorted boo-boos. Erika Steiskal painted the captivating jacket art. My thanks also to everyone else at Penguin who helped get this book out into the world, and to librarians and booksellers who will put this book into the hands of readers.
I started research with books, and thank the staff of libraries in Palmer, Alaska; Everett, Washington; and the University of Alaska. Outside the library, I appreciate the help of longtime friends who live in the valley, Bill and Caroline Prosser, their sons Loren and Alan and their families, and Bill Prosser’s mother, Sophie, who invited me to their fish camp to see how salmon are caught and canned.
Weekly emails with my writing friends helped me finish this book with sanity intact: Amy Fellner Dominy, Alissa Grosso, Kiki Hamilton, Penny Holland, Julia Karr, Deb Lund, Christina Mandelski, Gae Polisner, Bettina Restrepo, Caroline Starr Rose, Angie Smibert, and Ruby Tanaka.
I couldn’t write without the support of my family:
My sisters, Helen and Randi, still my best friends, who never doubted I could write this book;
My son, Rolf, who started it all with his Palmer house, and his wife, Lilly, who reminded me to include Palmer’s winds;
My daughter, Emily (also a children’s librarian and one of my best boosters), and her husband, Hampton;
My grandsons, Gosta (junior editor in training), Arthur (who reminds me to laugh), and Iggy (the jellied moose nose recipe is for you);
My cat, Billi (named after Billiken, the symbol of the 1909 Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition), who herds me like a sheepdog to the computer to write every day;
And through it all, my husband, Gosta, who converted the woodshed into my quiet writing hideaway and humors his writing wife.
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