After signing a lease with manager Jack Clausen on March 6th 1932, our Jackson family moved to the south side of Torsa Island and started raising foxes again. (Editor’s note: this island is named Torsar on the charts, but the family, and perhaps other residents of the area, called it Torsa.)

This fox farm lease included two nice-sized islands and a few others that were pretty rough. There were about three dozen fox left. At that point in time, fox fur pelts were selling for the lowest price in history- $11!  Unreal.  The harbor here is not very good because there isn’t good protection from the southeast wind, so ocean swells always roll in.

None of the harbors in this area were good, especially in the winter. That’s one reason George and JoAnn had to row Gertie and Polly out to the entrance on days they were going to school. It was way too shallow and rocky for the school boat to come in the cove to pick them up.

Food supply for the fox was perfect. There were plenty of rivers and streams around the island to get lots of salmon. There was also a good source for fish at all the canneries in Sitka.  George always loved to fish (like his dad), and in fact one time when he was fishing right off this island, he got 30 (yep 30!) kings in one place at one time. Wow!  At the end of August there weren’t any fish buyers, but the mission took advantage of the opportunity to serve some fresh salmon for dinner and paid him $9.04 for 10 king and 10 coho salmon. A real deal at 45 cents per fish--that was great!  The water supply was perfect too: there was definitely no shortage of water no matter what the season.

Here’s how this new place to live on Torsa happened for the Jackson Family:

In October 1921 the Forest Service transferred a permit from the Magoun Islands  (about 12 miles northwest of Sitka) to Torsa and adjacent islands, about 2 miles northwest of Sitka Hot Springs (and about 18 miles south of Sitka) because the Magouns were considered to be unsatisfactory. The next two months Chris Houger stocked the new lease and paid a $25 lease fee.  He died the next year, in August of 1922, and in October his wife sold the property to Dr. L. P. Dawes for $5,300.   

Included in the sale of this 612-acre fox farm was a big house; a nice little house; a tall smokehouse by the dock; a few additional buildings and 15 pair of foxes. There was also a skiff, four fox houses, one fish house, a gas boat (the LUE), and all the equipment in the house’s scow such as dishes, stoves, salt and barrels. 
Dr. Dawe’s special use permit was sent in at the end of January 1923. He was told that his next two $25 payments were going to be due the first of the year. At the end of May he sent a note asking the Forest Service guys if they had any printed notices on cloth to post on his fox islands. 

Jack Clausen was running the fox farm and his 1923 Fur Farm Report included information about the business. This included that they had brought in two male and seven female fox the past year, an addition to the 30-40 male and female fox they already had on the islands.  For some reason they hadn’t sold any.  Obviously, they were pretty busy, because they had built another house worth $400, added three more feed houses at a total of $100 and brought over one more gas boat, worth $500, for a total of $1,000 in additional assets.

The following year, 1924, they added five more pair foxes, and didn’t sell any this year either. They had built a dock valued at $400, a fish house at $200, and also had a scow this year, worth $400.  Wow! Impressive.
When the Forest Service did the appraisal in 1925, the examiner followed the original permit, which registered the size of the fox farm as 612 acres.  He included an interesting item in the report about the acreage: because he was told the farm was not over 350 acres, he noted that the islands in this area had been resurveyed by the Coast Guard, and the Forest Service folks were hoping to get a copy of that blueprint in the spring.

Of course the most important variable, with the heaviest impact on the appraisal, was how good the denning grounds were. They weren’t very good on Torsa because the soil wasn’t deep along the beach line. The ground was steep and covered with large rocks, so the foxes created dens on top of the ridges.  Also, on the smallest island under this permit, there was about one quarter mile of beach with reefs that went under at high tide. After evaluating that item and all the fox farm variables, the annual rate increased by $54 for a total lease amount of $79!

(Editor’s note: The late Al Brookman, Sr., in his book Sitka Man (Alaska Northwest Books, 1984), tells about working on the Torsar Island fur farm the winter of 1926-1927. Al was 21 years old, and was paid $5 for a 14-hour day skinning fox. He reports that Jack’s boat was named the Torsar. “John Davis and his young wife Julia were steady employees at the fox farm, with John doing most of the feeding of the stock, and Julia doing the housework for Mrs. Clausen, who was an invalid with two small children.”

He describes the process of catching the fox using a trap door in the feed houses. They would then go at night and catch individual fox in the trap area using special wooden tongs. They branded each fox’s ear with ink, and cut the tip of the tail square to show it was marked. Each fox to be killed was put in a gunny sack and taken to the skinning shed. The “smart” fox would avoid the feed houses after the trap was set, and he says they had to move the “dumb” ones to another island then set snares and traps for the rest.

The work included skinning and fleshing the skins. He says “I never got used to the offensive odor that these foxes emit from scent glands when they are excited or scared. I was glad when it was time to go to town and get away from the foxes, for while working with them I developed an intense dislike for these savage little beasts.”

He says they pelted 80 fox, for which he was paid $95 by Dr. Dawes. By the time the 21-year-old Brookman got his pay, though, he owed it all, for new clothes and a haircut, and a quart of bootleg whiskey for a party, and was looking forward to king salmon fishing season. Sitka Man is out of print but easy to find. It is highly recommended for tales and yarns about Sitka, now part of local lore.

The 80 pelts he says they sold doesn’t match with the 30 pelts in the farm report, which could be due to memory or to the scarcity of oversight in this era. Sarah Isto, in her book The Fur Farms of Alaska: Two Centuries of History and a Forgotten Stampede (University of Alaska Press, 2012) tells how in 1929, many fur farms mentioned in newspapers or labeled on maps were not listed anywhere in official records. She found some official record of 622 fur farms but estimates there were easily over 700 in the Territory of Alaska.)

The 1927 report was sent to the Ketchikan Forest Service office in July, and like the majority of fox farms, there were several changes from the numbers previously submitted.  This year they had about 50 pair of fox, worth $7,500 ($150 each), but they sold 30 pelts for $931.78, so this year they got about $30 for each of them. Obviously they were taking a big hit because their annual operating expense was $4,551.09!

Five years later, in 1932, Dr. Dawes decided he wasn’t going to keep raising foxes and stopped making payments. Even though rent had been cut in half, and he only owed $39.50, he did not think the fox farm business was worth the investment any longer.

 In 1932, Regional Forester Wellman Holbrook put a note in the Torsa fox farm file about Jack Clausen coming in to his office on March 5th and introducing himself as a partner with Dr. Dawes. He was the one who had been managing and working the fox farm for the previous ten years, and was headed for Seattle until April. In order to take over the special use permit they had him file a copy of his contract and told him to let them know his plans. Grampa had worked for Dr. Dawes in the past, and had good references, so he would be the one running the fox farm.

On May 5th, 1933, Christ Jackson (Grampa) became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Since he had come to America with his family he had been working on the fox farms, operating them just like they were his own. Now, as a citizen, he really could be a property owner.  Another thing that was really awesome was that it was “derivative”.  When he became a citizen, all his children did too. In 1933 the kids were George, 13; JoAnn, 12; Gertie, 7; Polly, 6; and Chris, 3 years of age.  The certificate of citizenship was a corrected and updated certificate which officially changed his name to Christ Jackson from Kristoffer Knubedal, his name on the original family passport.

Fox Farm neighbors on Elovoi Island, Don Huff’s mom and dad, went into town one night in September 1933 and so their son Don came over to spend the night at the Jacksons. Cool. He remembered that he sure had fun - “we drank up to three quarts of root beer.” We were shocked when we read that. Can you believe they actually had that much to drink? One of their favorite things to do was to create sails for their skiffs, using all kinds of different materials, and have races. Good thing no adults were watching because they were boating while “under the influence” – being root beer intoxicated.

In December that year, when Uncle Sig was staying with them, it got REALLY cold-only four degrees above zero! He and Grampa went over to Elovoi Island to get a drum stove from the Narrows, and paid Claude Huff with a skate of gear.  Almost a month after Christmas (that’s how long it took packages to come from Norway), in January of 1934, the Jackson kids finally got the really nice pair of mittens they had asked their grandmother to knit for their best friend Don.

At the end of February, 1934, a letter their cousin Thurman wrote from Kansas asked them, if he came up, could he get a job.  Nanny wrote back and told him “If you want to come up and stay for a vacation you are welcome to stay here.  Since we live 14 miles from Sitka it would be hard for us to find you any work because everyone else is looking for work.

“Chris’s boat is so small, there’s only room for one man.  In the fishing season there is a cannery near here and you might get a job there, I can’t be sure.  You had asked how it was at trapping season and since there are so many Indians trapping around here, they only open the season for one month.”  It’s a good thing Thurman didn’t jump on the boat and come on up for a fishing trip because the salmon trollers had a strike that summer, all the way to the 10th of August. Grampa told him they lost all the best trolling.  In May, when they got salmon trolling outside Biorka, they sold them for $1.23. Claude Huff bought 10 black bass from George for 25 cents!

June 1st 1934 Don Huff wrote in his diary that his dad dressed one big bear on Jackson’s island- wow- so there was bear! (See Part 6 for a photo of Don Huff standing next to a bear hide.)

Another excitement that summer was July 25th when JoAnn and George went to town with Claude and Don Huff. It was the first time they ever went without someone in their family! 

October 29th Grampa and our Uncle Sig met with Claude to ask if Sig could live at the Narrows for the 1934 winter. Mrs. Huff said the answer was NO! What is absolutely amazing is that she didn’t like him at all. Unless of course she thought he was too “wild” and would bring in lady friends and start a distillery so he could have parties at the cabin. One thing for sure is he did have a totally different personality from his brother, our Grampa.  He was very positive, always happy, loved playing his ukulele and was totally carefree and upbeat.

When cousin Thurman sent them a note in 1934 to find out how they liked Alaska now that they had been here that long, Nanny wrote “my husband says it’s the only country he would like to live in because it is free.” She also said, “I sure would like to see your Grampa up here because it is so much like Norway.”   When he asked her about traveling to see them, she explained that first he’d have to take a steamer from Seattle to Juneau.  Then he’d take the MS Northland to Sitka which would cost him $50 for the round trip in first class. She recommended he travel in steerage because it was so much cheaper and she said, even though they give you a bed, they didn’t provide blankets, and you better bring some because it was pretty damn cold in steerage. (Well, she didn’t actually say damn.)

(Editor's note: the Jackson family moved to Sitka in April 1935.)

At the end of March, 1936, L.T. Peterson asked to remove improvements from Torsa but was told Dr. Dawes still held the Special Use Fur Farm permit, so he had to be in charge. Dr. Dawes got another late payment note. He said he was going to have to give it up, but suggested they get in touch with his partner, Jack Clausen, because he might want to keep it but he didn’t think so.  

They did send Jack a letter to tell him if he wanted to take over the lease, the reduced rate and the late fee would cost $156. If he decided he didn’t want to, they were thinking they might have to sell the improvements in order to get the rent due to the government.

Jack Clausen told them even though Dr. Dawes had turned it over to him to run by himself four years ago (1932), he had abandoned it two years ago (1934), and actually was the last one on the island the previous March (1935) when he went out to check on it.

There was still a house in good shape and a large work shed. He left some personal things like a hoist, a large boiling pot, and other items, which he offered to a man living on an island close by for only $200. However, he never heard from the guy. One of the rangers who went to check it out in September 1936 verified everything Jack said. Since the island was abandoned, his recommendation was to cancel the permit. It was L.T. Peterson and a Mr. Baggen on Legma who were interested in buying the improvements.

In March of the next year, 1937, Mr. Peterson, who held the permit for Legma Island, decided to pass this island over to Mr. Mills, who was running Maid and Tava Islands, because he decided there wasn’t anything he was interested in buying on Torsa.

Next post: The stories of Uncle Ole and Uncle Happy

This is Chart 17326 from NOAA. Click on the image or click here for a pdf of the chart. You can also get any chart from the NOAA website (www.charts.noaa.gov/ChartCatalog/Alaska). Sitka is at the top, and Goddard and the Necker Islands are a bit lower than the center.

Here is a close up of the Goddard area from the same chart.

Above is a satellite image from Google Earth, with a label for Goddard added. A higher quality image, but without labels, can be accessed from the Bing search engine.

Chris Jackson Family at Fox Farm #3—Elovoi Island  (April 1931-March 1932)
 
On April 17th, 1931, the Jackson family packed all their “stuff” into their Norwegian trunks and moved from Tava over to a house on Elovoi (Russian word for spruce) Island at Dorothy Narrows.   If and when fox farmer Claude Huff needed help with maintenance and operations, or anything from branding his fox “MP1”  or preparing pelts to send to the market, Grampa was on call, available 24/7 all 365 days a year.   

The Huffs had moved out to Elovoi a year and a half before our family (the Jacksons) came from Norway and moved to the fox farm on Legma.

A really good way to hear what was going on at the time that the Jacksons moved over to Elovoi Fox Farm is Claude Huff’s diary. Here are highlights, April 1931 to March 1932. This diary is in the collection of the Sitka Historical Society Museum.
 
Note: I’m not sure this is right- Don said their boat was named Ironsides cause it was a steel hulled life boat, and that it was 204 (really?) foot with a cabin and powered with a mighty 6 horse engine! His dad would tow the row boat right behind him as he went fishing and he’d drop you off, and you would troll out of the row boat.
 
April 17th: Claude helped Jacksons move from Tava to house at Narrows!
Saw deer on the way over
 
April 19th frosty and fair with a breeze for Mabelle’s (Mrs. Huff’s) birthday.
Went to lagoon to cut 6 yellow cedars for trulking poles.
 
April 23rd rough water but fair skies. Molded, leaded and spaded garden;
then planted peas, beets and carrots— (Wow--in April!)
 
April 24th NW wind, very rough water and fair skies. It was so rough Mabelle and I carried feed to the North end.  There was a big movement of geese going north, and it was hard for them to go against the wind.  We planted more carrots.
 
April 25th: Very warm at noon today-- 73 degrees! and fair skies.  Begin rigging up poles and lines on I.S.  Brought box trap home from Narrows and a few hand trollers working Big Bay and Windy Passage
 
April 26th: 67 as Mabelle cooked and planted dahlias. I worked on Ironsides and took her off the beach.  We also polished spoons.
 
April 27th: Cloudy with East wind. Trolled Big Bay,Windy Passage, BNH- About 30 hand trollers working; a few getting salmon.
 
April 29th  Breezy and saw 2 deer on No. 2 beach while feeding. Mabelle saw two across on the beach at the Indian shack.
 
First plane of season went over towards Sitka!
 
April 30th  1931:  SE wind and rain, kept Donald home; sick with flu.  I went out of range on east half island trying to locate grouse and lost sense of direction. It was so bushy I was lost for an hour before I got to beach. I came out South Narrows and went for mail. Mrs. Goddard sent eggs and lemons with oranges for Don’s cold.
 
May 1st   SE wind with rain. Mabelle down with flu too in P.M. Don still out of school

May 2nd   mist and quiet. I’m getting it too

May 3rd   mist and quiet- Mrs. got up and did housework; really too sick. Don is better with a bad cough!  Deer at No. 3
 
May 8th: SW breeze swells and showers. Saw 2 deer at No. 3 and 6 geese landed on the beach near head of bight B- A gun went off and then there were five!
 
May 9th :  42 SE wind and Bear—Jackson stopped and gave us nice king salmon to eat.
Mabelle sighted a bear on the beach at Indian Cove. We saw it walking along and took Ironsides and ran over to the Narrows but it had gone!
 
May 10th was more SE wind and hard rain. The peas and spuds were beginning to show. We think there must be pups now. Sunday rains will be hard on them.

May 11th Another SE breeze shower; then sun. We got up about 6 am and around 6:30 saw bear in beach at Indian Cove again. In a few minutes it went out of sight in brush!

May 14th   Don and I fished for bass at Halibut rock and caught 17 in 1-2 hrs!

May 15th We took Ironsides to town for gas. and were home at 6 p.m. We got mail for CJ Mills and sack lettuce for the Goddards!

May 18th Started trolling at Biorka and got a few fish.

May 19th North breeze and fair.  We came home at noon to cook fox feed.
Prices for fish:  10 cents large, 5 or 6 small and 3 white,

May 22nd Got windy at noon and we heard the first fox puppies on the point.

May 23rd: rain.  Saw 2 puppies at No 6D and I started for Sitka at 1:20 pm, sold fish and got a few heads, gas and groceries then got home at 9 pm.

May 26th—saw 4 pups at 6 and were off again at 3 pm

May 27th:  Mrs. and Don saw bear again at Narrows, at same place. I trolled in the morning, then to Lazaria to sell fish. It was too rough so I followed fish buyer back

 May 29th:  I came home at noon to help feed and took fish to Narrows for Jacksons.

June 1st Fair and rough seas. Trolled till 8 AM only 1 bass then went to Lazaria. Overweight. Saw 79 trolling boats at one time from the deck of I.S.

June 6th: South wind, showers, mist and fog. We fished at Biorka till 3 PM then went to town and got heads.  We anchored cross channel from town overnight. Heard talking of having a strike over cut in price of salmon.
 
June 7th: We got home at 6:30 A.M.  Canned SIX Pts. Rhubarb (wow) and we all went to Jack Knife I.  for some tar paper(?)

June 8th: Off to troll early at Biorka – A big boat came and told us of the strike and to quit. We came home at 11 AM to help feed then went back to troll in the evening. We did see 5 pups at No.6. and believe a litter has been moved to No. 5.

June 10th The fishing was Very Poor and we were home at noon; cooked and canned 20 cans salmon.

June 12th A bit of breeze but quiet so I got up at 2:30 AM and went to troll first at Biorka then to Lazaria, got 6 fish, over weight.

June 23rd—Jackson children at Springs for supper and saw 3 or 4 pups at No. 2

June 24th: Went out on island and CJ Mills got one bear on Tava.

July 6th Went to Biorka to troll; got 3 salmon and 30 bass and were home at 8:30 pm.

July 7th Picked blueberries. Yum!

July 19th: Good News: The fish strike was over!

July 25th Plane landed at Springs

Aug 3rd: Fish were found near Biorka - 110 coho were sold for $45

Aug 9th Mrs. Jackson was here with children this afternoon to pick 4.2 gallons of huckleberries.

Sept. 4th Miss Dickson accepted the offer to teach school next year!

Sept. 5th—Claude and son Don went to Sitka to do trading and got some groceries for our Jackson family. Our Grampa had been out of town for trolling and was due to return home that evening from Icy Straits.

Sept.7th Jacksons stopped by in the evening and Claude gave them a ham.

Sept. 30th Claude took 2 Jacksons and his son to and from school. The Mills couldn’t come in this particular storm because the water was too rough and it was raining too hard.  

October 31st was another day of very windy and stormy rain in 38 degrees. George and Hannah (also known as our JoAnn) stayed with them overnight!  It was Halloween. Not a whole bunch of houses to do trick or treating- Darn!

November 4th—Chris and George Jackson took the MV Star out to West Crawfish for wood logs with Don and Claude Huff on the Ironsides anchored at the head of the bay.

November 26th—Thanksgiving Day—Claude wrote in his diary “spent day at Jacksons. Home by moonlight”

December 19th Chris and Mrs. Jackson had visited the Huffs in evening.

December 21st George and Hannah Jackson (our mom, aka JoAnn) were helped to get a pine for Christmas tree.

January 1st, 1932—Even though it was cloudy and 32 degrees the Jackson family was at the Huff’s place for dinner! 
 
January 3rd Our Grampa Chris Jackson and Claude set 3 skates gear in Windy Passage. They got 4 nice halibut and 2 rock cod. 

Jan. 16th Claude Huff gave the Jacksons meat.

Jan. 27th, George and Hannah (aka JoAnn) were at the Huffs to visit and on February 3rd, George was visiting again with Don to sail boats.

February 15th—George and Hannah visited for ice and to sail boats--

February 19th Don spent the day at Jacksons for George’s birthday and his mom and dad went over for lunch.

February 21st Mrs. Jackson (Anna, my gramma) went over to Huffs for lunch even though snow was about 12 or 14 inches deep again and my Grampa Chris brought mail.

Feb. 22nd Jackson let his MV Star loose too quick and it dropped on its side, which caused a hole in the hull and filled with water—Don and Dad helped put her back on even keel and bail out. They put a patch over the hole in the evening and he took her off the cradle in the evening. 

George was visiting for supper the 24th

Feb. 28th Mrs. Anna Jackson and all the children went to the Huffs’ for lunch and Grampa was still in town.

March 6th 1932: Major event: Jacksons moved to Torsar!
 
Life on Elovoi Fox Farm
My Aunt Gertie says that wasn’t really a lazy way of life because most of the time in the winter our family didn’t get up till it got light. Most folks used kerosene lamps and needed to be “fuel conservative” since it wasn’t really cheap, so that made sense.

One of the jobs on Don Huff’s other list of “things to do” whenever there was free time was to gather clam shells to cover ground in the pig pen. Sometimes it would rain so much and got so muddy you couldn’t move around in it to feed.  Usually in September or October, when they butchered their pork, they would share a ham with our family. That was very generous and appreciated. Gertie remembers Nanny would make it last as long as possible with things like split pea soup, casseroles and maybe just one slice of ham for a sandwich.

There’s an entry in Huff’s diary about shooting a dolphin one day (he was always looking for ways to make some extra money!). It started to sink in the deep water before he could get it out. Fortunately, at the same time, there was a sea lion checking out this dead dolphin and Claude was able to shoot in the right place. So they made some good money with this “water treasure!”  Just imagine if he had killed only one of those sea mammals today, he could have been fined $20,000!

When our Jackson family moved over to Elovoi in 1931, George and JoAnn were really happy too because now they could drive their own “school bus” instead of having to wait for a “ride”. They and Don only had to row a little ways to get to the school at Goddard. Don Huff said the school was right across from the cove he lived in and, actually his dad had the contract to run the school bus route out to the different islands where the other students lived.

George and JoAnn also loved living on this island because Don was their best friend and now he lived in the next cove--a lot closer than when they were living on Legma and Tava so they got to spend a lot more time hanging out with him.

Plus they were probably the best rowers in the world because when they took anybody anywhere, it was a really fast boat ride even if it was rough water. (Well, geeze, they had enough practice and would row whenever and wherever they wanted to.) If they could have found the money to pay for a trip to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympic Games they would have won the gold medal for the double sculls. JoAnn would have had to tuck all her hair into a hat and wear guy clothes because only men were allowed to enter the rowing competitions. But no doubt, with her daily rowing in that environment, she would have been better than any of the guys in that competition.

Grampa had left his boat (FV Star) over at Huff’s in December. On Elovoi, most of the streams and small ponds were ice-free all year and there were a lot of them. That was very nice because Grampa found a small bay on the south shore which happened to be a great spawning place for herring in the spring. Definitely, a good way to “start the season”. When the Forest Service did their appraisal they also rated it high because it was located in the center of the good fishing grounds and only 16½ miles south of Sitka where you could get to a cold storage, cannery and curing plants which were a great resource for free fox food.

In the spring, fox farmers on any of these Goddard Hot Springs Islands could see bear coming out of hibernation and messing around on the beach.  In June one was digging in the fox caves in Indian Cove and found a den of pups. Claude had already found a total mess where they were wrecking his fox trap houses on the north end of the island. Obviously these bear definitely liked to break in the trap house and devour the fox food.

In October when he was hunting near the lakes at North Lagoon, a bear came running out of the woods and he shot it from about 45 yards. That bullet broke its neck; then the cub ran 20 feet up a pine tree and he shot and killed it too from about 80 yards. When he skinned and took both of them home, his wife and son were impressed because these bear were so fat and had really nice fur coats. Uncle George was really glad he could help when he went over a couple of days later to help flesh the bear hides.

Everybody was glad to hear CJ Mills had killed one on Tava, and Grampa saw two, and killed one, at Crawfish as well.

Note: In the Huff photo album they donated to the Museum in Sitka, there is a really cool picture with Don and the bear hide hanging on the island shop. In a 1993 interview he said, “indeed occasionally bear came to the island and died of lead poisoning.”  

A lot of fox farmers were fishing but not to just feed their fox. They also made some good money selling fish from around these islands as well. An extra challenge to deal with happened the first week of June in 1931, when there were 79 trolling boats at one time at Lazaria.  Because of the cut in the price of salmon, there was serious need for a strike.  Grampa and all the others were told to stop selling fish.  The following six weeks were not an easy time. The fish strike was finally over on July 19th.  Our family didn’t have a freezer and had borrowed Huff’s.  It was sent back stocked full. It was the only way they could pay back and was definitely appreciated.

October 7th was another major calendar event that year-- Nanny had asked Mrs. Huff to cut her hair because she was going to Juneau to visit the family and wanted to “look nice”!  Indeed. Very important because sometimes she never got off the islands for an entire year. For sure, this time off was very exciting because her daily list of things to do was never-ending.

Fox Farm wife (and mother) sample job description:  At least three times a week she helped prepare the fox food, cooking oats and barley and extra “fish specials.”  She always had to get water from a creek or river for drinking, cooking, baths and laundry. They had “outside” plumbing and probably some toilet seats which she kept really sanitized (but she didn’t have to worry about keeping a toilet bowl clean.)  She also had babies who were not potty trained so she had a whole bunch of diapers to wash along with every-day play clothes. Daughter Gertie remembers she was always keeping everything mended and spotless. (They didn’t have money to order new clothes whenever needed.)

Probably most important was cooking three meals a day, plus making lunches for her students to take to school- good grief!- dealing with growing children who needed snacks, too. Unbelievable! I bet they had some awesome dinners over at the Goddard Resort - which they couldn’t afford - and she couldn’t even order a pizza delivery. Wow! Every once in a while, she’d even help the kids pack wood. Amazing!

When the Huff family was invited over for Thanksgiving dinner, Don said that his mom was not really “social” but they did accept the invitation, had fun, and were served an awesome dinner.  As part of a thank-you, four days before Christmas Don helped them cut and drag a Christmas tree home to decorate. It wasn’t too hard to find a nice one because Elovoi (like all the islands in Southeast) had a whole bunch of beautiful spruce growing all over.