Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Shook family at home in Alaska

This has to be late in 1951 or early in 1952. We were living in a log cabin on a country road around a large hill called "The Butte." In this photo, I'm 11, Tootie is 9/10, Dad is 40, and Mom is 35. Butch, the dog, is 5 (or 35)? This was for some occasion or other, since I am dressed up in my complete boy scout regalia, complete with flashlight. Mom is in her favorite outfit: sweater and slacks. Dad is wearing engineer boots, which is pretty much all he wore except on Sunday. Tootie's dress I don't remember all that well. She will, it is to be hoped, fill y'all in on it.

1 comment:

Liz Adair said...

We didn't have much furniture in that house. We moved to Alaska in a 1949 Hudson. Mother drove it from Hot Springs, NM to Edmonton, Alberta where Dad met us and drove the rest of the way. The back seat was packed clear up to the top of the back seat, the trunk was full, and we had things stacked on top. Bikes and an extra tire? I remember the tire, and we got our bikes in Wyoming, so they were probably up there, too. We had a couple sets of books that Mother took everywhere, and we had them in Alaska, so they must have been in the back seat. Anyway, I imagine we got our furniture out of the Bureau warehouse until we moved into our newly-built Bureau of Reclamation housing and Mother bought new furniture.

By the way, my dress was chartreuse taffeta, made by my mother. I was sure a round little thing, wasn't I? I got so tired of people saying, "She's not fat. She's just pleasingly plump," chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. They would chuckle. I didn't think it was clever after about the fourteenth person who said it.

However, at about the eighth grade I grew taller and the fat redistributed, and one of the upper classmen signed in my yearbook that I was 'the best-built girl in school.' (The whole school was in the same building. Grade school on the top floor, jr. high and high on main floor and basement.