I'm a person that likes all of my modern comforts in life.

I have never understood people who want to live even on the fringes of town, much less live out in the wilderness. I have always said it is a good thing my ancestors had more frontier spirit than I or I would still be living in Virginia. After visiting Jamestown, Virginia I realized I would want to still be living in England.

My ancestors on all sides of my family came from England or Scotland before the Revolutionary War and came on West about the time of the Civil War. I have never been able to understand why they would leave family, land, & prestige to come to southwestern Missouri & southeastern Kansas while it was still wild frontier land.

We are truly a Kansas family. My mother, Jessie Mae Butterworth Moore is the only one of my family who was not born in Kansas. She was born around Golden City, in Barton County in southwestern Missouri, but she moved to Cowley County close to Winfield, Kansas, when she was a young girl. My dad, Zina Edmond Moore, myself, my husband, four sons are all native Kansans & with the exception of our 20 months in Alaska, we have always lived in Kansas.

My dad was a mail carrier in a small village, Maple City, which is now almost a ghost town. It was about 20 miles east of Arkansas City, Kansas. The Post Office was in a corner of the general store. Since he was a rural carrier, we always had a Model T Ford car. My dad was always in demand for comic "readings" at every entertainment around Maple City and later in Wichita. Sometimes he would have me on the program with him when I was around 3 years old, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the attention and applause I got from the audiences. I guess that interest was passed down, as drama was one of my majors at Friends University and our son, Roger, has always been interested in drama & our granddaughter, Ariel in New York City, tells me that drama is one of her favorite subjects in school.

We moved to 1544 Lulu [St.] in Wichita just a while before my 4th birthday. I am an only child so I loved having many playmates in our new neighborhood. I had been the only little child in the small town of Maple City therefore I was a bit spoiled, by having older people around, so it was great fun to have a neighborhood of kids about my age and a lot of cousins to play with.

We had a large lawn on the south side of our house which was a great place for all of us kids to gather and do our gymnastics. In the evenings we like to play hide and seek because it was easier to hide and harder to find you when it was twilight. We girls always had our bag of jacks ready to play a game on the sidewalk at any time. Each person would have 6 jacks and a small ball. You would bounce the ball then try to pick up the jacks and catch the ball before it bounced again. You would pick up one jack at a time, then two at a time and keep going until you were picking up all six jacks on one bounce. Do kids play jacks or marbles anymore? My granddaughter says no.

We also liked to play statue. Another favorite activity was roller skating on the sidewalk in front of our houses. There was a cranky old lady living on our street who always yelled at us about the noise and didn't want us skating in front of her house, so of course we always made sure we didn't turn around until after we had gone past her house. We also had fun with hopscotch and jump rope, which I think kids still do.

All of my mother's Butterworth family lived in Wichita. There were nine children. They and their families would all congregate at my Grandparents William Blondville (Pete) & Nancy Ellen [Rakestraw] Butterworth's every Sunday afternoon, except when we would go visit my Grandparents Moore at Rock, which is a very small town north of Winfield, Kansas. George tells how intimidating it was when all of the Butterworth grandchildren would take the boyfriend or girlfriend on Sunday to meet the family.

We spent every other Christmas with the Butterworth family and every other Christmas with the Moore family. I was the only grandchild in the Moore family for many years, and the only granddaughter until after I was married. My first school was Linwood Elementary which was only two blocks from home so we walked. We didn't have school busses to take town kids to school as they do today. My first day at school is memorable because of all the fun play equipment such as swings, teeter-totters, chinning bars, & merry-go-round to play on. The big disappointment for my friend & me was, the older kids were playing on all of the equipment & there was nothing left for us to play on. Pretty soon a bell rang and all the kids went into the building, so my friend & I were having a great time playing on first one thing then the other. Imagine our disappointment when our teacher came out & explained that we were supposed to be in class and made us go into the building and start our education.

A girl named Joyce Salberg came to live with us when I was in the fifth grade. She was a year older so was a year ahead of me in school. Her parents were divorced and both mother & father had to work, which was the reason for us to be a sort of foster family for her. We were both only children so it was almost like having a sister for the three years she was with us. I remember her mother's boyfriend worked for Cessna Aircraft Co. Joyce & I were excited when he frequently took us out to the factory & let us get in the cockpit of the plane. He would explain all the dials & levers. You can tell this was long before World War II when they had to have tight security. I don't know what his job was for sure (I think he may have been a test pilot), but it must have been a very high position to be able to take us in when people weren't working. It sure was fun for 2 grade school girls, and we thought that boyfriend was the greatest.

Joyce now lives in Oregon & we correspond at Christmas. Last Christmas she wrote that her granddaughter was marrying a Templeton, so maybe we were going to be related, but the boy was not in our Templeton family.

When I was in the 6th grade, my dad was transferred to a new Post Office in North Wichita. So, between elementary school & Jr. High we moved from the south end of Wichita to the north end at 2110 Wellington Place, where I attended Horace Mann Junior High.

The Stock Market Crash started the years of the Depression during the 1930s. Since my dad had a steady job with a steady paycheck from the government, we were not hurt by the depression as much as most other families. While we were not rich, compared with many of my schoolmates, we had a comfortable lifestyle that many wished for. I am very thankful for this & hope we never have another such depression.

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I wanted to play the piano from the time I was a little girl, but since pianos cost a lot of money and violins did not cost so much, and my dad really liked viiolin -- which is really the reason -- I ended up taking violin lessons and got pretty advanced. Violin is still not one of my favorite instruments.

I still wanted a piano, so my grandparents (William Young & Mary Margret) Moore, who lived on a farm by Rock, Kansas, gave me a pig for my 11th birthday. Because I lived in the city of Wichita and had no place to keep a pig and wouldn't know what to do with it if I had it, they kept it on the farm, then sold it when it was ready for market and gave me the money. That is how I got my first piano and started lessons when I was 12 years old.

Alene Watrous, my home room & music teacher at Horace Mann Junior High had a big influence on my future. She had a great rapport with the students so was able to keep good discipline because we were eager to please her. It was during my Junior High years that I decided my career should be a music teacher and I planned my high school classes around that plan. When I was ready to do my student teaching in college I was fortunate to be able to have Miss Watrous for my supervising teacher and some years later, when I was teaching in the Wichita schools she had advanced to supervisor over the music teachers in many schools, and again was one of my supervisors.

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In Wichita High School North I had fun in our Redskin Pep Club. Our outfits were white skirts, & red sweaters with a big Indian Chief head on the front. Our star football player was an Indian boy. Even though I don't really like football, it was exciting to dress in our uniform to go to the game on Saturday afternoons to cheer our team on.

North High school is on the bank of the Little Arkansas River which made it a natural to have a water carnival each spring. We had different contests in the afternoon ending with a decorated boat parade in the evening. There were only two high schools, East High & North High, in Wichita at that time, so there was great rivalry between the two schools. The only time I ever had to stay after school was for talking to the boy next to me during study period. In high school we had study period in the cafeteria. Since we sat at long tables it was so easy to visit with the person next to you without getting caught. This time the teacher that roamed around to keep things as they should be, slipped up on us, so we both had to come back for an hour after school. I bet that was the only time this boy ever talked instead of studying because he was a brain. In fact, he went on to become president of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This of course was not the only time I visited with the person next to me; it was just the only time I ever got caught.

I had planned to attend Wichita University (which is now Wichita State University). After I had been rushed by some of their sororities, I changed my mind about a week before school started & went to Friends University in Wichita instead. Friends had a football player killed sometime in the past so they did not have a football team during the four years I was there. I was surprised how dull school was without the excitement of football games in the fall, especially since I don't like the game.

My major in college was music education with minors in drama & English. The drama teacher thought I should take everything offered in her department as well as everything else needed for graduation, which resulted in a heavy class schedule every semester, besides all the extra hours spent in rehearsals. This resulted in me having enough hours in drama for a major in both music & drama.

One fun thing we got to do was to be in the big star productions that came to town. Students from the 2 Universities would be in the mob scenes in the play. I was in the traveling production of the Passion Play when they came to Wichita.

The main thing I learned from my science courses I had to take was that I am not a scientist. Math was O.K., but chemistry & physics were completely out of my realm even though George & the student teacher, who went on to be a professor at Purdue University, were the best coaches: they were able to barely pull me thru physics. Thanks to them, I was able to get thru college because we had to pass so many hours of science.

I had attended only 4 schools by the time I graduated from college, in comparison with our oldest son, Gary Wayne, who had attended 6 schools by the time he entered high school & 9 different schools by the time he graduated from college.

It was while I was in college that I started earning some income by giving piano lessons which remained my lifetime career. My schooling was all to teach music in secondary school & piano, but the job I got after graduation was teaching 3rd & 4th grades and music 1st thru 8th grades in Cheney, Kansas. I had no problem with the music, but I had no idea what 3rd or 4th grades studied. Needless to say I had to study harder than the kids to keep ahead of them. I felt that I needed to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week & still needed more study because I had to learn elementary education on my own while doing my job. I felt very lucky to get this job because jobs were very scarce in 1941-42 when I graduated.

The most fun job I did for 2 days the summer after graduating from college was filling in for the Sedgwick County Superintendent of Schools. I was in the same class with his daughter & also knew his son. I was surprised when he called to ask me to be the acting county superintendent the 2 days he had to be gone. The office was next door to the Sedgwick County jail. Since this was before everything was air conditioned, all windows were kept open and we could hear the inmates of the jail. I learned they loved to sing at the top of their voices and their favorite song was they hymn "Shall We Gather At The River". Mr. Throckmorton went on to be Kansas State Superintendent of Schools. He never called me to substitute for him in that position.

Another lady that played a big part in my life was Lois Blankenship. She was Minister of Education at First Baptist Church in Wichita during the years that I was active in all the youth activities. I was president of the Baptist Young People's Union. That was during the years that First Church Wichita was the largest church in the American Baptist Convention, running over 1,000 attending Sunday School. I was also treasurer on the State cabinet which took me many places in Kansas for cabinet meetings. I remember one weekend we were having a local youth retreat at a camp near Wichita. The night before I had to go to the State cabinet meeting we were playing a running game and when I didn't get stopped in time, I ran full force into the sharp edge of the window frame which resulted in two beautiful black eyes. I learned then that you might as well make up a great story about how you got them because everyone was going to razz you about it and make up their own stories.

Lois went from there [First Church] to Children's Director at American Baptist National Headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. It was special for me to teach in the Blankenship Children's Center in Green Lake, Wisconsin, the summer of 1989. We visit Lois when we go thru Petersburg, Florida, where she lives in a retirement home.

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December 7th has many memories for me each year. The first December 7th memory is the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt came on the radio on Sunday evening to announce the surprise attack which had happened that morning. In 1994 the attack would probably be televised to the whole world before the attack was over. That was the beginning of the United States' involvement in World War 2.

The next December 7th memory is being bridesmaid in Kelsey Bodecker and Melba Pittenger's wedding in 1943. They kidded about that starting World War 3.

Then, in 1984, my Dad, Zina Moore, died on December 5th and was buried on December 7th.

The happiest December 7th we celebrate each year was the birth of our first grandson after having 4 wonderful granddaughters. Cory Moore Templeton, son of Craig and Debra Templeton, was born December 7th, 1987.

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I met George while I was in college. He lived with friends from church. Although he was a Methodist, he came to the Baptist Church with them. He saw me singing in the choir (Professor Conte, the choir director, always called me his "girl bass") and started coming to our youth meetings. We started dating but didn't marry for some years. He would come with my parents to the plays I was in at Friends U.

We both worked at Boeing Aircraft Co. in Wichita during World War II. I worked on I.B.M. machines doing payroll. I remember going to work one night when we were running the paychecks and discovered the machine was printing an extra ten thousand dollars in front of the amount the check should be. All checks had to be re-run. Test pilots would come to Boeing for orientation on the new planes and thought the B 29s were a flying fortress. I wonder what they call the Boeing 707s the commercial lines use today, which make the B 29s look as small as toys?

After the war I went back to teaching piano. George was still stationed in Iceland in the Signal Corp. It seemed that almost everyone came home before he came back. One of our friends (Ed Moody), who got back long before George, likes to tell people that don't know that we know each other that I went with him to pick out his civilian wardrobe when he came back from the Army, so if he wasn't well dressed it was my fault.

George and I were married April 5th, 1946, a few weeks after his discharge and he got home. Our honeymoon was spent in Colorado which turned out to be a poor choice because the high altitude after 3 years of living at sea level in Iceland proved to be too much for George and he was sick most of the time.

George seemed to have an image of marriage different from reality. We were eating lunch one day on our honeymoon when he commented, "I thought marriage would be like living with my twin sister, but it isn't."

I have never let him forget that remark.

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Our first home was a 3-room apartment on East Kellogg in Wichita. I had a car, a bed, and a record player and the rest of our furniture was borrowed. I also had my piano, but since I couldn't have it in the small apartment, and all my students were around my home before I was married, I went up there to give the lessons.

George worked for Southwestern Bell telephone Co. for about 6 weeks while waiting for summer school to start at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. Most of our time in Manhattan we lived in Kimble Castle at the west end of Poyntz Ave. The last people to live in it was an old bachelor and his two old-maid sisters, and it had been closed for several years until a professor and his family cleaned it and fixed it up. They rented us a room upstairs with a closet remodeled to serve as our kitchen. All sorts of stories had been passed around about it being haunted, with secret vaults from the Hall. We didn't find any of these to be true, but it made everyone want to get in to see the place.

There were fruit trees growing on the property so Nelda Flinner (the Professor's wife) decided that her husband, Art, and George should pick peaches and she and I would can them. She didn't know any more about how to can peaches than I did, which was absolutely nothing. We got the cookbook and it said to cook peaches until clear. Since we could not imagine what that could mean, she called the University Extension Department to ask for the meaning. When the lady learned the call was from Kimble Castle, she volunteered to come help us. Our peaches got canned by the professional from the University. We never did find out what "clear peaches" are, but we had beautiful canned peaches that winter. After that I always put peaches in the freezer.

While in Manhattan, I took a course in Beginning Journalism, even though I'm not a writer. I learned a bit about how they write articles for newspapers, but the style has changed since then. I also took some classes in the Drama Department. I did the lighting on one of the plays and the makeup for another play at Kansas State University.

It was while we were at Manhattan that I about became a believer in Friday 13th. We started for Wichita about 4 P.M. We just got out of town when the car died, so we took it back to a garage in Manhattan where they couldn't find anything wrong with it. We started again, but every few miles the car would die and start again after it had a little rest. It was raining, and we even slid off into a ditch. A truck finally came by and pulled us out. The car continued to stall time and time again, until the clock turned Midnight, September 14th. Then there was not another bit of trouble. It took us from 4 o'clock in the afternoon until 2 o'clock the next morning to drive approximately 160 miles.

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George decided he didn't want to be an electrical engineer, so transferred to Wichita University (now Wichita State), changed majors, and went back to work for Southwestern Bell where he remained for 39 years. He finally graduated in the spring of 1950 before Roger Mark was born, September 2.

We bought our first house at 662 South Minnesota on the canal bank in Wichita. There were many times we stood and looked out our kitchen window hoping the water would stay in the banks of the canal. This was a small, 2-bedroom house. We kept it for rental property when we had to have a larger house after Don Eric was born, and we move to 2828 Euclid.

It was while were living on Minnesota that my mother, Jessie Mae, died of cancer, January 5, 1954. Since I was very close to my mother and depended upon her a lot, this was a very traumatic experience for me. Also, while living here, my dad, Zina Edmond Moore, fell while at work and broke some ribs, so he came live with us until they were healed. He could do nothing but sit around, which was very boring, so he decided we needed the relatively new entertainment invention of television for him to watch. He bought our first television set. We didn't have room for it, so we built a shelf in the corner above the dining room table to put it on. This was before the remote control, so it had to be high enough that we could get in and sit under it, yet low enough that we adults could reach the controls.

Another funny television experience was the time Gary, Roger, and Don were watching a program about Mt. Vesuvius and just when the volcano was starting to erupt, smoke started pouring out from the back of the T.V. set. The timing was perfect, but we had to buy a new television.

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January 1, 1960, George got a promotion which involved a move from Wichita to Topeka, Kansas, where we lived for 21 years. Craig David was 2 years old so it was a good place for me to take a break from teaching piano to be more available for the boys after school, and be with Craig in his early years. We bought a new home at 2832 Sunset Road which was almost out of town in the southwest corner. Now, the town has built up for miles south and west of where we lived.

We were in Topeka looking for a place to live and Roger made the remark that, "This seems to be such a small village." This has become a quote for us when we are thinking of a town smaller than where we live.

I had a totally unexpected reaction after we moved. I was not active in anything and didn't know anybody. When I would be in a store and hear people speak to friends I would get a lonely feeling and think nobody speaks to me. I still remember the first lady to speak to me in Safeway grocery because we knew each other. It was a wonderful feeling to run into someone I knew.

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In June of 1966 the big tornado hit Topeka. It was one of those events that every detail remains in your memory the rest of your life.

We were to a dinner at Community Baptist Church on 21st Street across from Washburn University. We had just finished eating when Don Tarver came down the stairs where we all were in the basement of the church yelling, "everybody get into the corner now!" About that time the lights flickered a few times then went out completely. It was a very eerie feeling to come up from the basement and see everything around you completely demolished.

George, Gary, Roger, and Don started around the neighborhood to help where needed. They helped two spinster sisters which led to some years of interesting friendship as well as a job taking care of their yard, first Don had the job, then Craig took over when Don left for Bethany College in Lindsborg. One of the sisters, Miriam Franklin, was a world traveler and children's book writer. She took special interest in Craig when he decided to go into writing.

Tornadoes do strange things. We had 2 cars at church that evening that were parked in opposite corners of the parking lot and they were the only 2 cars there that weren't damaged beyond a bit of chipped paint. There were 2 churches about 1 or 2 miles apart that were of "A" frame style architecture which were the only 2 buildings that had only minimal damage. We had been in one of them, as the tornado came through Topeka.

We didn't expect to have a home to go back to, but when we got there we found no damage. We were without electricity for many days which made living difficult. We really got tired of nothing but cold cuts to eat so when we were invited to Ed and Rogene Moody's for a hot cooked dinner, before our electricity came on, it was one of the best tasting meals I remember eating.

Another funny happening at the end of the clean up process happened just before midnight. We had a generator on loan from the Boy Scouts to keep food freezers around our neighborhood cold. Each night we would take it to the Red Cross Center a few blocks away to help people in that area. The last night they said they didn't need it but a young man standing there needed to get his things out of his duplex, and since he worked all day he had to do it then. We went down to help. I stayed in the car while George and Don helped the man carry his things to his truck. A policeman came by and asked what they were doing. This young man told him, and was very irate because people were looting his place before he could get to it. Perry and Gwen Proffitt were looking for bathroom fixtures for their cabin on the lake and this fellow said they were going to tear down what was left of those duplexes before 8 in the morning. We went out and got them out of bed about midnight to tell them. Since Perry didn't want to take anything without first getting permission from the owner he called him and he was unhappy to be called from sleep at that time of night. He thought it was some sort of joke since he had no intention of demolishing the houses. That was the first inkling we had that the young man was the one doing the looting and George and Don were helping. He was so convincing that even the policeman believed him.

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We had a boy, Jose Carlos de Alvarenga from Brazil live with us when Gary was Junior in high school. Carlos was in United States for school thru the American Field Service at Topeka West High School. We had lost contact with him after he had been back in Brazil a while until we were living in Kodiak, Alaska. We were completely surprised to get a letter from him addressed only to us at Prairie Village, Kansas, no street address, and no zip code, but it was forwarded to us in Kodiak.

He had been in Topeka and the people told him we lived in Prairie Village but they didn't know our address. We now have pictures of him and his family with pictures of our own boys and their families. He has twins that were born on Roger's birthday, September 2.

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Besides holding offices in our local church, we do some volunteer work for the American Baptist Convention. We took a group of high school students of the First Baptist Church in Topeka to Anadarko, Oklahoma to help with Bible School at our Indian Mission churches there. We all learned much about our Native Americans by living and working with them. Two of the Indian women gave me a pair of earrings they had beaded for me.

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I finally went back to teaching piano again after Craig started to school. The boys were older so it was much easier to schedule lessons.

We went to Interlocken, Michigan where I attended a week of classes under James and Jane Bastien whose material I used in teaching. George and Craig had fun at the state park where we camped and seeing the countryside while I was in school. This was the last of August and first of September and was hot when we left Topeka but it was rain and cold in Michigan so we had to go to town and buy some warm clothes.

We went up to Sault Ste. Marie over the weekend. A warm room and a hot bath never felt so good. We enjoyed watching the ships go thru the locks from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. In 1993 we were to Sault Ste. Marie again and took the cruise thru the locks, and also flew over the locks.

The only time in my life that I thought I would welcome a broke finger or arm or something that would keep me from playing the piano for a while was one time when I was asked to do a piano program for a music club. The lady told me it was just a group of women that liked music that got together. I prepared a program of pieces written by modern women. When I got there the club was made up of the leading piano musicians of Topeka.

They then asked us to give the program at a retirement home where I had played for chapel services for 5 years. I had enjoyed playing for chapel at Brewster Place where I met some interesting people and got in on some great entertainment they did for the retired ladies living there.

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Menninger's Psychological School and Hospital was located in Topeka. One winter I went to evening classes on lifestyle for healthy people. The classes were mostly on relaxation methods which proved very interesting as well as helpful. One session had the opposite effect on me from the one the teacher was aiming for. We had spent a delightful week in Hawaii and were flying from San Francisco, California to Seattle, Washington. The flight took us over Mt. St. Helens, a volcano in Oregon, which had erupted not long before. The pilot wanted us to be sure to see it so he tipped the plane as we flew over. This enabled us to have a good view of the crater's boiling, churning mass. In fact it erupted again about a week later. The first class session after I got back the teacher was leading us in a visual relaxing exercise up a mountain side to the top where we were to visualize a cupped out place where we could lie back to watch the fluffy clouds in the sky. When I got to the cupped out place all I could see was the volcano churning and I didn't want to lie down there.

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Three years before George retired he was again transferred, this time to Mission, Kansas, which is a part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. I had stopped teaching piano and had been working at the First Baptist Day Care Center for 5 years. I really retired when we moved to Prairie Village.

I had the same adjustment to make that I had when we moved from Wichita to Topeka. Again I moved from where I knew a lot of people and was very involved to a place where I knew nobody and had nothing to do. I remember that I told myself that if anyone asked me to do a job that I would say yes.

The first thing I was asked to do was to be circle chairman in American Baptist Women at church. I didn't know anything about the job but I guess I did OK because they asked me to do it again even though I would be gone during the winter since George had retired by that time.

The last six months before George retired and the first six months after he retired we had bought tickets for $1,000 for each of us that were good for a year which enabled us to take a great trip each month. We were able to go to see Roger in San Francisco 3 times and also to New York to see Don and Marina 3 times. We visited Key West, Florida and Disney World in Orlando, Florida for the first time. The greatest trip that we would never have got to do without that ticket was to go to Puerto Rico where we rented a car and toured the whole island.

We spent the first winter after George retired in Phoenix, Arizona at Paradise R.V. Resort. Since George's twin sister, Loverne Cunningham, lives close to Prescott which is about 70 miles north of Phoenix, we were included in a lot of activities there and she would come down to see us about once a month. We both live by the motto that a woman's place is in the mall so her visits were shop, shop, shop, and eat at the elegant places. It is still our favorite winter location.

By this time Roger was living in Los Angeles so we were able to see him each month by either us going there for a weekend or he would come to Phoenix. This is the pattern for each winter we have spent in Arizona.

We spent the 2nd winter of retirement in Florida. Craig and Debra had moved to Richmond, Virginia where Craig worked for Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity. They met us in Savannah, Georgia and we went together to Key West where we spent Christmas in the R.V. I didn't know whether that would seem like Christmas or not but it turned out to be an interesting and different time. Debra and I were able to get a good Christmas dinner in our little space and we had a tiny Christmas tree made out of pine cones with tiny lights on it. It was interesting to see the boats in the harbor decorated with Christmas lights. This was granddaughter Lindsay's first Christmas so it was special to spend it with her. Of course she doesn't remember any of it but we remind her of it from time to time.

New Year's night Don, Marina, and Ariel met us at Orlando so we could do Disney World together. We camped in Disney World's camp ground which is a fun place even if you didn't go to any of the other places. Ariel was so excited that she had a hard time sleeping until she said her mother gave her "The Speech". It was more fun seeing it with them than it was the first time we were there.

We weren't fond of Florida weather or scenery after we went to Ft. Meyers Beach. There were interesting places such as Cypress Gardens, Edison's, Firestone's, and Ford's winter homes, and Sanibel and Captiva Islands but since we didn't know anyone, there was no social life. The people at the park had their little groups and there were no activities for everyone in the park; that was the only winter we spent in Florida.

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We have traveled extensively by plane, by car and motel, but mostly by R.V. We have enjoyed trips with our kids and their families but have taken more with Don, Marina, and Ariel than with the others. I think the two best trips with them was when they met us in Maine. Don's boss at the Metropolitan Museum had made arrangements for them to leave their car at his friend's parking lot while we went on in the R.V. thru New Brunswick, to Nova Scotia.

The funniest thing was the Tidal Bore caused by the incoming ocean tide. All tourists try to be there when it happens. It had great billing so we were expecting a big wall of water to come down the river so were totally unprepared for this seeming little ripple of water coming in. You knew a lot of water came in because you knew how low it was before but it didn't gush in like we expected it to.

Nova Scotia is not very large, yet each section is so different from each other. Peggy's Cove is a picturesque fishing village and very rocky. We climbed over the huge rocks to the famous light house where they postmarked the mail with their special mark. We found when we got home, nobody had even noticed the postmark on the postcards we had sent them. I told some friends when they went that I would pay attention if they climbed over all those rocks to mail me a card from there, but their tour didn't go there. That is one reason we prefer to map our own tours so we can try to see everything we want to.

Prince Edward Island is a tranquil pastoral scene. We caught the ferry from Nova Scotia over in the morning and drove around the Island. We toured GREEN GABLES of the well-loved Anne of Green Gables books. When we went to catch the ferry back to our camp ground we couldn't get on the ferry and it was the last one for the night. There was a ferry leaving later from the other side of the Island for New Brunswick if we could get there in time to get on it. We barely made it then had all those miles to drive from New Brunswick back to Nova Scotia and on to our R.V. Five worn out, sleepy tourists finally got "home" about 2 or 3 in the morning.

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We continue to like to travel to see places that have made history and are making history now such as Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We have traveled in all 50 states and have pictures of most of the capitols. We have visited the museums or homes of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt in Oyster Bay, New York; Herbert Hoover in Iowa; Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York; Harry Truman in Independence, Missouri; Dwight Eisenhower in Abilene, Kansas, John Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts; Lyndon Johnson in Austin, Texas; Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, California; Jimmy Carter in Atlanta, Georgia; and Ronald Reagan in the Los Angeles, California area.

The Alaska Years
1989-90, 1991-92, 1993

We were working at the American Baptist Conference Center at Green Lake, Wisconsin during the summer of 1989. I was teaching in the Lois Blankenship Children's Center and George was enjoying his work at the boat dock. Teaching in the children's center had special meaning for me because Lois Blankenship had been a help and influence during my high school and college years.

One day when I came in for lunch, George told me that there had been a call from A.B.C. Headquarters in Valley Forge, PA that Jeannie Volker, Director of Kodiak Baptist Mission in Alaska, wanted to talk to us. She would call at 8 o'clock our time, so for us to be at our phone. A group of us were having a party that evening to watch the eclipse of the moon, so we had to leave the party long enough to wait at our phone for the call.

We thought she would just tell us what the opportunity was in Kodiak that might be a possibility some time in the future, but she wanted us right then if we couldn't have left yesterday. George had always wanted to see Alaska, since it was the only state we hadn't been to, it seemed that we should include it. We told her we would think about it and call her back.

This was a big decision as it was for a whole year and Alaska is a long way from the "Lower 48" or as may called it, "down in America". We had a house to make some arrangement for, as a year is too long to leave it vacant. We learned that a friend's daughter and her family were moving back to Kansas City area for medical reasons, and were needing a house, so the arrangement was made for them to live in our home while we were gone. Green Lake excused us from our commitment to them so we could get back to Prairie Village to pack and store things so the other people could move in and we could leave for our new Alaska residence.

We drove up the Alaskan Highway which seems to be a forever and tiring drive, but interesting to do at least once. In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada we took a quick look at the biggest indoor shopping mall in the world. It has a sandy beach and an Olympic size swimming pool. There is a wrecked pirate's ship partly sunk in the water, as well as 2 submarines. It even has a full-sized amusement park inside and many other things, as well as stores for shopping like our malls.

After we left Edmonton we had no idea what to expect as the signs let us know the Alaskan Highway was "not a wilderness road, but a road thru the wilderness". Not being a wilderness person, I was a little more than apprehensive from here on to Fairbanks, especially since this was the last part of September and I had all the usual ideas of weather in Yukon and Alaska. We were always able to find a place open to eat and sleep, though many were more rustic than we would choose at home. We stayed in log cabins a few times which made me feel we were really being frontier pioneers even though these cabins were more snug than the pioneers had. We spent one night in Muncho Lake which is so surrounded with mountains that they couldn't have any television. The man that had the cabins was also the one that ran a one-man restaurant which was the only one in the settlement. This man was about the only person that stayed there for the winter, even his wife went south for that part of the year. This made me more apprehensive than ever about what we were getting ourselves into. As a man told us before we left Kansas, "It's only for a year", but a year can be a long time in an unhappy situation.

There was one other town with a population of 3,729 (Ft. Nelson, British Columbia) on this long highway before arriving at Whitehorse, Yukon.

It was really great to arrive at Whitehorse which was big enough to recognize as a town. The Government buildings are all glass and very modern which makes them look a bit out of place in this more frontier looking town. In the lobby, I got the feeling of open space. There is a big beautiful mural done in blues, aqua and shades of pink, which depicts the history of the Yukon. In the Legislative Chambers there is a tapestry of a fireweed which is their flower. On the other wall are 5 panels of the Yukon women's tapestry showing the role of women in the development of the Territory, depicting the 5 seasons of the North: spring, summer, autumn, winter, and "survival": the cold gray period between winter and spring. Whitehorse claims to have the largest weather vane in the world — a Douglas D.C. 3. The plane is mounted on a rotating pedestal with the nose pointing into the wind. It looks like some sort of display instead of a piece of weather equipment.

We expected this to be our only trip to Alaska, so we went straight to Fairbanks for a couple of days. On the way from Fairbanks to Anchorage we stopped at Denali Park and saw Mt. McKinley while the top was out of the clouds for about 2 minutes. We have been lucky because we have seen Mt. McKinley since then, and every time it has been in bright sunlight.

After a couple of days in Anchorage, we drove down to Homer for a night crossing of about 12 hours on the ferry to Kodiak. We arrived as the sun was coming up and were delighted to find we were going to be living in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is known as the "Emerald Isle".

Our front picture window looked over the Gulf of Alaska with mountains behind the town. Our year working in the Thrift Store at Kodiak Baptist Mission was the most different and interesting year of my life so far. I remember reading in our paper about a fishing town in Alaska having the highest income per capita in the United States never thinking I would ever be living in that town. The income statistic was before the Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1987 from which they had not yet recovered.

Kodiak is a town of about 8,000 with another 2,000 people from the largest Coast Guard Base in the United States. Since Kodiak Island benefits from the Japanese current, it often is colder in Kansas than there. There was a volcano eruption over on the Peninsula in 1912 which covered Kodiak with 18 inches of black ash. Many of the older residents talked about how it was like night and they had to wear a handkerchief over their faces to be able to breathe. This resulted in the ground being like pulverized coal instead of dirt.

All but one of our beaches sere black. I kept hearing people talking about going to the white sand beach, since I hadn't seen any white sand, I asked and found they were talking about Monashka Bay where the sand was beige.

The Good Friday earthquake in 1964 caused a tsunami (incorrectly called a tidal wave) that destroyed the waterfront and business district. We learned to have everything we would need for 3 days ready to grab & run up the mountainside to at least 125 feet above sea level when a siren sounded. We didn't have an alert while we were there but we stayed prepared.

What do you think to pack? One lady said she watched the women come in with fur coats and jewels and she wondered what they would give for some of her toilet paper after a few days.

Kodiak was the first capitol of Alaska when Baranof first set the colony for the Russian explorers and traders, so it has a strong Russian flavor. Almost all the Natives belong to the Russian Orthodox Church and very few of them have converted to other faiths. We had two Christmases and two New Years. They have what they call "starring," when one young boy carries a big lighted star and leads the group as they go from place to place and sing Christmas carols and Orthodox chants. We also went to their dinner on the Orthodox New Year's Eve.

I learned a lot about Russian food and customs while living there. It was almost like living in a different culture, especially for us who had lived all our lives in Kansas because almost everything revolved around the fishing industry, the sea, and wild life. Kodiak bears are the largest in the world and they have a lot of them, but the only ones we saw were stuffed for display in the lobby of our bank and the lobby of the airport. The first meat that was given to us after we arrived was a moose roast. Since I had no idea that you ate moose I had to go buy an Alaskan cookbook. It turned out to be much like roast beef.

We were luckier than many of the towns because we had 4 roads out of town, of course you had to come back the same way you went out though. It wasn't much variety but the beautiful scenery made up for the lack of different roads. It was strange, the feeling of freedom, when we came back to realize we had choices of different roads to go someplace and even come back a different way.

Since everyone on the island from the rich to the poor shopped at our bargain store, we made friends with many people. We even acquired 2 Filipino grandkids. The first time they came into the store after visiting family in the Philippines, they brought us a sack of the best cookies that melted in your mouth from a bakery in Manila. The fisheries hire many Filipinos during fishing season.

Customers would be crowded around the door before time to open and all tried to be the first one in like they were afraid someone else would get all the bargains before they did. We did have great bargains as many things came in with the new price tag still on. Since we who went thru the donations were the first to see if anything was what we wanted, if so, we felt our money was as good as the next person's. After getting used to buying sweaters for $2.00 or a new wool suit for $5.00 I really had a shock the first time I went clothes shopping when I got back to Kansas.

The second year we lived in Alaska we were doing research to write a manuscript about the 100-year history of American Baptist work in Alaska which started with an orphanage in Kodiak in 1893, and the first Protestant church on the island. The other churches started since World War II. This time we lived in Kodiak for a little more than 6 months and the rest of the time divided among Cordova, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. We visited all the American Baptist Churches in Alaska, interviewing church members and reading their church records. Thus, we spent time interviewing in small villages, i.e. Wasilla, North Pole, Eagle River, Talkeetna, and Ouzinkie.

The only way to get between the Mainland and Kodiak is either to fly or by the ferry, Tustumena (always referred to as "the trusty Tusty") of the Marine Highway System. Since we had the car we had to go by ferry which was O.K. when the water was smooth, but not so pleasant if the water was rough.

When we were leaving in 1992 I was telling everyone to pray for a nice crossing for us. I was unhappy when that was the windiest, worst day we had for months. As we were leaving I commented, "Well so much for my prayers being answered." After we watched them unload and load at Port Lions, which is on the other side of the island, we went to bed. In a few minutes it began to get a little rough but calmed down again right away. I thought if that was all the rough sea we were going to have it wasn't so bad. Next morning when we went up for breakfast we saw the town so thought we were arriving at Homer on time, but about then the boat started turning away from the town. The girl in the next booth told us we had been going around in circles all night and we were still at Port Lions. The waters finally calmed down enough for us to go, so my prayers were answered, as we had a beautiful crossing just 12 hours late.

Cordova is another fishing village of 2,110 population. It is built up the mountain side coming up from the waterfront. The town still has the board sidewalks. It has one road out of town, called "The Road". It was cleared of snow for the 13 miles to the airport when we arrived by ferry the first of April. The road was cleared for about 30 miles when we left the first of May to go to Anchorage, but it didn't go anyplace. All shopping here was done by flying to Anchorage or by mail order. It was an interesting experience but one month was enough for me to live there; I was glad to get back to the real city of Anchorage.

The last time we were to Alaska was to help with the 100-year celebration in Kodiak. It was great to see our many friends again and take part in the celebration by briefly reporting on our research in which they had participated.

Each time we have tried to see something we didn't have time for before. This time we went to Nome, where the Iditarod finishes each year and watched prospectors pan for gold on the beach. Our guide around Nome was a character who used to be an actor on Broadway, so we were entertained while seeing the sights. We called it our International Day because our traveling companions were from Germany and when we boarded the plane for Kotzebue the young man sitting by me was from Manchester, England. I commented that at least he spoke English even though he had an accent. He wisely responded, saying, "No, you have the accent."

Kotzebue is above the Arctic Circle and the natives there are Eskimos which is different than the Aleuts on Kodiak. Kotzebue is like no other place I have ever seen. There are no recognizable streets going any particular place, only dirt tracks going where ever there was a building. The only thing that might be called a street was along the waterfront which still had a lot of ice in the water in June.

We also visited Talkeetna where a lot of movies are filmed. It is also where the opening scenes of "Cicely, Alaska" are filmed for the Northern Exposure television show. It is a quaint tourist town off of the highway where you get a great view of Mt. McKinley.

Our son Roger asked George how I felt about flying in a small plane when we were on vacation this summer in Michigan. I wondered how he thought I lived 2 years in Alaska where most of your travel is either by boat or plane, and some places, such as Ouzinkie the plane comes in over water onto a short runway with water at the end of the runway.

On one of our trips up on the ship they were having an Elderhostel from New Zealand on board. They invited us to sit in on their lectures. A Naturalist conducted lectures and "see & tell" about the trees, flowers, and animals of Alaska. When any whales or seals, or sea otters were spotted he would point them out and tell about them. A former state legislator who still worked in the State government taught about their government. The other class was about Native Crafts. The Natives are the only people who can have ivory, so any time you see carved ivory you know it is made by a native.

On our trip this spring they were celebrating 50 years of the Marine Highway so they had a Native lady demonstrate their weaving and explain what the symbols meant. There was always something to do, see, or someone to visit with on the ship. After driving up the Alaskan Highway once, my favorite way to go to Alaska is on the Marine Highway from Bellingham, Washington to either Haines or Skagway, Alaska. You still have many miles to drive after leaving the ferry before getting to Fairbanks or Anchorage.

We returned on one of our trips by taking the Cassiar Highway, which was nostly a gravel road -- not maintained as well as the famous Alcan Highway.

We were selected to be interviewed about volunteer work at the American Baptist Convention in San Jose, California in 1993. The month of August, 1993 we spent working in the archives with Beverly Carlson and Betty Layton at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Since we had that experience we were asked to help sort and file papers in the Historical Library at Colgate Rochester Seminary in Rochester, New York for the month of August, 1994. We were provided an apartment on campus for the time we were there. We also spent a week helping again at Headquarters in Valley Forge. Deborah Van Broekhoven is the present Director.

We remain on their list of names to call when they need volunteers where we can help. This proves to be a learning time for us while filling a real need. It is also an opportunity to get acquainted with many interesting people from many different places. You have a chance for more in-depth knowledge of the area and also of what Baptists are doing and who is doing it.

For several years we have volunteered one afternoon each week at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas. Elva serves as their receptionist, also operating the telephone call director, and George assists in the seminary library.

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Read Elva's answers to our "20 Questions Biography"