The Letter
The bird hurtled through our open window on the same day the letter arrived. The letter that would hurtle us into the unknown. Like a treasure map, it lured us into a world of peril and adventure and changed my life forever. Given the import of the occasion, one might have expected a more auspicious omen. Perhaps a messenger pigeon, a mourning dove, a quail, or a pheasant. But no, it was a simple city pigeon. We ate it anyway. When you’re hungry, everything looks like fair game.
Cincinnati, in the fall of 1953, was languishing through a record hot Indian Summer as our family gathered around the red Formica-topped kitchen table midday on Saturday. Mom, in a blue checked apron and floral print dress, propped open the kitchen window. The breeze, listless and laden with scorched asphalt and diesel exhaust, scarcely cooled our sweltering, second-floor apartment, but did usher in the roar of engines and the honking of horns. Tufts of brilliant fall foliage rose beyond our weathered backyard fence, a wobbly barricade against the chaos of the inner city. Within our meager haven, parched and cracked hard pack sprouted clumps of thistles and withered grass, and shards of broken beer bottles glistened, courtesy of our next-door neighbor. Though Mom always tried to cover our ears during his tirades, I once heard her whisper to Dad that she was pretty sure he was swearing in German.
As was our custom, we paused, heads bowed, for Dad’s blessing on our lunch. “Our Dear Heavenly Father…”
Squawk! Interrupting the blessing (which turned out to be its last rites), a young pigeon skimmed the table, flapped, and darted down the hallway. Dad’s chrome-legged chair clattered to the linoleum. Leaning across the table, he slammed the window shut and turned for the hall.
“Andrew!” Mom slid her chair back. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Catching that pigeon,” he called. My four-year-old brother, golden eyes alight and a grin splitting his freckles, raced after Dad.
Fingertips braced on the table, Mom stood. “James, where are you going? You haven’t been excused.”
“‘Scuse me. I gotta help Dad.” He skidded around the corner.
Flustered but fearful of missing out, I slid off my chair and edged for the door.
“You too, huh?” She glowered over her wire-rim glasses. “I hoped you at least might show a smidgen of raising but go ahead, chase after that bunch of barbarians.”
Good manners were important to Mom, a child of the deep South. At three and a half, I wasn’t clear on the meaning of barbarian, and though her tone implied I might not want to be one, I was unable to resist the ruckus. Breaking free of her glare, I trotted down the hall to peek through the doorway of our parents’ bedroom. My brother bounced on their bed, shrieking and grabbing for the hysterical bird while Dad clapped and shouted encouragement. Iridescent feathers blurred as the plump pigeon ruffled my hair and whizzed into the bathroom. From the safety of the hallway, I watched Dad trap the hapless creature in the tub. With comforting coos, he returned to the kitchen, his trembling prey enfolded gently in both hands.
Arms akimbo and brown eyes blazing, Mom planted herself in the middle of the kitchen, looking a lot bigger than her five feet three inches. “What are you doing with that bird?”
Dad’s crooked teeth showed in a grin. “We’re gonna eat it.”
“Are you kidding me? Whatever gets into you, Andrew?” She rolled her eyes. “We’re no longer country folk. You’ve trained to be a minister. Why do you insist on acting like a hayseed?”
“Aw, hon.” He sidled close around her to the kitchen sink. “God provided us with this perfectly good meal, and we don’t want to seem unappreciative.” He snapped the bird’s neck.
I stared. My knees shook, and I wobbled to my seat. James scooted his chair to the sink and climbed up. “Can I help?” He reached for the bird.
“Of course.” Dad turned to me. “How ‘bout you, Roy?”
I shook my head. He turned, selected a paring knife from the drawer, and focused on my brother. “I’ll teach you how to skin it.” They set about their bloody business.
Mom sat and studied me for a moment, her dark chocolate eyes solemn. “You okay, Roy?” she murmured. “Sometimes, I simply don’t know what to think about your father.”
I hiccupped and squirmed. Dad liked James better. James, the first born. The brave son.
Reading my mind, Mom hugged me, shoulder-length black curls tickling my neck. “You know your dad loves you just as much as he does James. Only, he and James somehow understand each other. Trust me, I know how it feels.”
“All done.” James jumped off the chair and waved the raw meat in my face before tossing it to Dad.
I screeched and nearly tumbled backward.
James caught my chair from tipping. “Sorry, Roy. I forget you’re such a fraidy-cat.” Bloody hands and all, he hugged me.
That evening we dined on pigeon and dumplings, which Mom insisted on calling squab. Whatever city pigeons live on—scraps of garbage, stale bakery bread, pecks of asphalt, inhaled exhaust fumes—infused an exotic flavor, far tastier than plain chicken-and-dumplings, and which endures as one of the memorable meals of my life.
Swallowing her last bite, Mom smiled. “Well, at least nobody got hurt, if you don’t count the pigeon. With all the excitement today, I forgot the mail.” She stood. “Be right back.”
She returned holding an envelope aloft. “What do you know? A letter from the Steins. Last I heard, he finished his seminary degree and was talking about planting a church. Only, this is from Alaska.”
Though I couldn’t remember the Steins, I knew they were friends of my parents at John Brown University, and that Mr. Stein had been best man at their wedding.
She slit the envelope, unfolded the pages, and as she read, her eyes narrowed.
“What is it, hon?” Dad eased up beside her.
“Better take a look.” She handed him the letter.
“Well. Well. Well.” His smile broadened with each ‘well.’
“What’s it say?” James hopped from toe to toe.
“The Steins are organizing a Free Methodist congregation in Valdez, Alaska,” Mom said. “They’re asking if we’ll help them build a log church.”
By now, Dad’s grin was about to crack his face wide open. “What do you think, Louela?”
Lower lip trapped between her teeth, she paused. “I’m not sure what to think.” She reread the letter. “So-o-o. Alaska. The last frontier.” Refolding the blue-lined sheets, she tapped them against the envelope. “Probably the last place I would ever consider living. Still, it would be good to get out of Cincinnati.”
“Hooray!” My brother danced and clapped. “Alaska!”
My middle tightened. I looked up at Mom. The little I knew of Alaska came from Jack London’s Gold Rush stories, tales of daring and danger that Mom had read to us. Terrifying stories of desperate men drowning while attempting to shoot Miles Canyon and the Whitehorse Rapids in homemade boats. Or people freezing to death. Or being eaten by wolves. Or both. Of course, James loved it all, but Alaska struck me as a place best experienced in books.
Mom stuffed the letter into the envelope and tossed it on the table. “Unlikely for a number of reasons, but Dad and I will discuss it.” Her forehead crinkled. “I have to wonder, though, if this might be an answer to prayer. What if,” she paused, “what if this is God’s call to Andrew for ministry?”
Any concerns I had remained my own since I didn’t start talking until I was four.
Why we still lived in Cincinnati a half year after Dad graduated with his theology degree from God’s Bible School is unclear. Maybe my parents couldn’t agree on what to do next. Perhaps they were waiting for a sign from God or, like many young couples in the post-war years, were simply too busy surviving to plot their future. Cincinnati, a thriving metropolis on the Ohio River, had grown rapidly over the previous century, thanks to an influx of Irish and German immigrants and freed slaves from Kentucky. Corporations such as Kroger and Macy’s invested heavily in the architecture and culture of downtown, creating a sharp contrast to the packed slums, densest in the nation, where most of the city’s residents struggled to survive on low wage jobs. Whatever his memories may have been, though, for all his life Dad spoke fondly of Cincinnati. “Like Rome,” he would say, “a city built on seven hills.”
On weekdays Dad polished his black wingtips to a mirror shine, donned a pinstripe suit that matched his gray eyes, and sold Fuller Brush and Mason shoes door-to-door. Although much of that time my brother and I entertained ourselves in the back seat of our blue Plymouth sedan, on occasion we were lucky enough to be invited inside. We watched, fascinated, as Dad scrubbed floors, couches and dishes, anything to convince the lady of the house she couldn’t live without a Fuller Brush product. Mom, meanwhile, dodged molten lead operating a Linotype machine for a newspaper, then rushed home, cooked supper, and tucked us boys in bed before Dad left to work the night shift as an orderly in a mental hospital. Work, it seemed, was easy to find, but getting ahead remained a distant dream.
I don’t know how long we might have sustained that lifestyle if it hadn’t been for the letter. The awaited sign, Dad said, the answer to their prayers. A nudge from God, Mom conceded. In the end, they both responded with a resounding Yes! Mom heard Dad’s call to ministry. Dad heard the call of the wild.
The fourth of twelve children, he was birthed at home on a hardscrabble farm in the Mississippi hills, Dad had honed his outdoor skills before he needed to shave. His father and grandfather had been renowned for their strength, but his father’s weakness for moonshine and gambling resulted in the loss of three farms at the card table. Each time, Dad’s family packed their meager possessions in mule drawn wagons and migrated farther west to start afresh. His mother was the granddaughter of a Confederate Army doctor who was murdered at the end of the war. She ran her household with an iron hand, unwavering love, and daily prayer. Born during the influenza pandemic, Dad was not only the runt of the four boys but nearly deaf from measles as a newborn. Though a significant disability, it was unrecognized until he dropped out of eleventh grade at age twenty-one to join the Army Air Corps. Tours of duty in Egypt and India during World War II stirred an inborn curiosity and awakened a dream of homesteading on a distant frontier, either in Brazil or Alaska.
Mom put her size-five foot down on moving to Brazil. But her desire for Dad to commence his career as a minister must have quelled her concerns about Alaska and his lack of ordination. In addition, the lure of ministering with Free Methodists, Mom’s childhood church, was particularly attractive. A conservative branch of the Methodists, The Free Methodists had separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1860, seeking freedom from slavery and pew taxes, freedom of worship, and equality of women. Her tangled family roots ran deep on Big Island, Louisiana, where nearly everyone was related by blood or marriage. Her father was big and loud, the son of a minister, and had been born with six toes and fingers. A subsistence farmer in the summer, he fished trotlines through the flooded bayous during the winter. He was an elder in his church, a frequent topic of conversation and family pride, while secretly nurturing a skeleton in the closet--a forbidden subjuct. Mom’s mother, petite and quiet, had descended from the Cajuns of south Louisiana. Her long white hair was always pulled tight in a bun which failed to disguise the lines between her eyes that belied her soft smile. Though her thoughts remained private, she was in constant motion: farming, cooking, sewing, serving and preserving.
The only overland route to The Territory of Alaska was the Alcan Highway, a newly constructed gravel road traversing the untamed Canadian wilderness. My parents spent the winter preparing for the arduous trek, selling their shiny new sedan and purchasing a 1949 ton-and-a-half flatbed Chevy truck which Dad transformed into our 20th-century covered wagon. He built wooden sidewalls as tall as my head and stretched army green canvas over curved metal slats to create an enclosure high enough for him to stand upright.
Our truck’s split windshield swept down to a sloping triangular hood. Horizontal grill bars resembling rows of teeth and round turn signals bulging like orange eyes from the front fenders conjured an image of a giant blue beetle with a green canvas back. Dad tuned the engine and relined the brakes but ran out of money before he could replace the dual tires, a decision he would regret. Haste, however, was of the essence if we were to make the journey in time to build the church before winter.
In May of 1954, when I was four and my brother was five, we drove out of Cincinnati, rolling through urban sprawl, industrial wasteland, rolling hills, and farmland toward freedom and adventure. Everything we owned was crammed under the canvas in the back—clothes, plates, glasses, silverware, sleeper couch, bureaus, chrome-legged kitchen table with matching chairs, refrigerator, Christmas ornaments, spices, all twenty-four volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Mom’s accordion. A twin bed for us boys sat across from our parents’ double bed with barely enough room between to crawl in at night.
Before heading north, we visited Dad’s family in Arkansas, then said our goodbyes to Mom’s parents and six siblings in central Louisiana. No one imagined that seven years would pass before we saw them again.
