Post #8 A Day of Chance... Never Unforgotten!

Tony arose earlier than usual on May 23, 1935. He, like all the Colonists, were looking forward to being assigned a piece of the Valley to call "home". Forty acres in most tracts, though some were eighty to allow for unfarmable areas such as steep hillsides and swamps.

For the previous ten days he had been roaming the Valley looking for the area where he felt most comfortable. Nothing too near the rivers Knik, or Matanuska or Alys would leave on the next train. Many families had already left, knowing what was to be done, was not for them. Most stayed in the Seattle area where jobs were available.

He had fallen in love with a section towards the west near Wasilla, a village of a few old log cabins and some clapboard homes, a general store "Herning's", Cadwalder's Wasilla Road House, a Post Office with Territorial Magistrate, Alaska Railroad station, and the Territorial Deptartment of Educations had built a school grades 1-12 just after the school at Fairview was closed. The new building was a source of great pride for the community.

There were more bars then Churches! You could learn much of the local news while being warmed both inside and out at a bar. The most often heard order for service was "Whiskey and Water". Water meant a shot glass full,placed next to the shot glass of whiskey, which was always filled carefully to above the marker line, to show the "bar keep" wanted your business and new how to serve a value! Skimping was not done in any measure in any endeavour. To be labeled as a "Cheapskate" was difficult to overcome.

Tony had visited several "Original Homesteaders", encouraged by the building of the railroad in 1915, with a gift of Coppenhagen Snuff, and a pint of Four Roses. They were pleased that this young man would care about them and want to listen to their stories.

He took it all in. Direction of prevailing winds? Temperatures at the various seasons? What crops are you growing? How do you get cash money? How deep is the soil? How did you clear your fields? What equipment do you have? What size rifle do you own? How deep is your well? Does the water have an order or taste? What can you do with swamp land? What fish are in local lakes? On and on he would ask.

I can recall visiting with Mr Irwin, the first Colony Manager,in my teen years and being proud of his opinion of my father. Don Irwin had been in Alaska and the Valley a few years as a scientist with the "Experimental Farm" to learn what worked best to make a farm work. He told me that he was impressed with dad's knowledge of how to survive. When he asked Tony where he gained so much information, Tony replied: "I went to the School of Hardknocks and used the books called Coppenhagen & Seagrams!" And to his credit, so he had.

Mr. Jacob Metz sold his 320 acres to the Alaska Rural Rehabilition Corporation. This half section bordering the Seward Meridian was divided into four eighty-acre tracts numbered one through four. At $5 per acre, he had a nest egg of about $1500 and apparently the right to live out his days at his cabin site in a hollow just beyond and below tract #3 where Camp Four was located. He resided there until his death.

Mr. Conway owned the 320 acres adjoining the Metz spread just to the East. He did not sell to the ARRC. Nor did Mr. John Johnson who owned 160 acres just south of Conway and across the "road" which was a walking trail made more useable by horse and wagon. The distance to Palmer was 8 miles to the East, and to Wasilla 4 miles to the West from Tract 4 which Tony preferred. It was on the road to be known soon as the Wasilla-Palmer Highway. He had already made verbal committments to Conway and Johnson to help with planting and harvesting their crops in trade for a share of the crops. Tony was the best at "Horse Trading" even without the horse!

Cottonwood Lake, Cottonwood Creek with connections to Wasilla Lake to the west, and over a small isthmus to Finger Lake would be easy pickens for his fishing plan. Cash crop to go with the ice harvesting business he had in mind,and Mink food if he fur farmed.

Henry and Ona Olmstead lived on 80 acres just beyond Conway to the East. They became good friends of our family and we always called them "Grandpa & Grandma" as their children were grown, living in Anchorage and had two granddaughters just a year or so older than Tiny and Gerry. They were in the berry business and always had strawberry, raspberry, currant, and hi-bush cranberry preserves or served fresh in season with cream on freshly baked bread items. The family from "The City" would bring them all manner of magazines and loads of comic books which they kept in their out door privy. A good reading spot for us visitors who would be allowed to bring home any and all that we wanted to read again and again!

Just to the North of this eighty-acre berry patch, was the the home and business of James and Nellie St Clair. They ran "St Clair's Roadhouse" right on the shores of Finger Lake which was a land-locked body of water abundant with Dolley Varden trout. A few Rainbows could be caught, but Cottonwood and Wasilla lakes had the big Rainbows. I was named after James St Clair who was very kind to the Vickaryous family offering trade of farm produce for cash and in-kind food, drink, and entertainment.

"OK, BOYS!" was the call to pay attention from the bosses as the drawing was to begin. That verbage of "You Boys" is found readily in the speaches of the day from President Franklin D. Roosevelt down to the lowest level supervisors. The ARRC managers gave their usual "pep talks" on how important everyone was and how they must "cooperate" and trade only as a combined unit to the "outside" world. Such talk was not welcome from the "Original Homesteaders" already producing farmstuffs for sale in Anchorage, and to the villages along the railroad route to Fairbanks. Some animosity was born between the two groups, but as time went on and the influence of the "Social Experimenters" faded of necessity they became real friends and neighbors with inter-marriages cementing the deal.
Of the several rules of the drawing one of the most important was that a Colonist could trade tracts with others for any reason at all for up to 15 days. Most trades were made so that friends who were neighbors in the states could be close-by neighbors in Alaska.

Tony had a number giving him a draw about in the middle of the line. Two tracts that he would want were still not drawn. He drew tract #7 which was south of the "Wasilla Road" near the "Y" where Hyer Road split off to the South to join the "Matanuska Road" that ran from Fairview near Wasilla to Matanuska Station and then on to the Colony Tent city soon to become Palmer. This put the Tony and Alys just next to the Olmsteads, across from Conway and just East of Johnson. Not his first choice, tract #4 which had frontage on Cottonwood Lake, but close enough.

They went out that day to take a closer look as Alys had not gone with Tony to "survey" the areas. Tiny & Gerry stayed in the tent city with Mrs. Boice whose husband Harold had drawn tract #1. Alys and Lona were already friends in those first ten days, and now they were going to be neighbors and learn to survive without husbands at home all the time as Harold had also taken employment with Bliss Construction in Anchorage. Bliss had also been hired by the ARRC to bring construction crews out to the Valley as they were much behind schedule to get all families "under roof" before snow! Harold was an excellent carpenter and crew leader. Of course any contractor worth his salt would hire him on the spot. Rules of the "Colony" were being ignored by some colonists and the people hired to help build it!

The Colonists began to show a spirit of independence from the start. Soon would come the demands, commands, law suits, and settlements and outright "tickets South on the next train. The "experimenters" in Washington wanted to make this social planning work in the worst way! "Is that so?"