END OF AN ERA AS TWO OLDTIMERS FROM FLAT GO TO PIONEER HOME
By Heldn Gillette
• Reprinted from the Anchorage Tiniest
It’s the end of an era in Flat,
Alaska, now that Mattie (Toot
sie) Crosby has resigned her
self and gone to the Pioneers’
Home at Sitka.
Tootsie and an old-timer friend.
Mike Burns, recently paused in An
chorage on their way to the south
east, and fellow pioneers flocked
to see them.
Now unable to walk. Tootsie sat
in a wheel chair and held daily
court at Providence Hospital for \
her friends in the Anchorage area, j
The gentle old lady has lived in !
Alaska for 61 years and as she says:
“Everybody in Alaska love Toot
sie!”
She was so pleased to see old
friends. “Great day in the morning,"
she declared, “I was never so happy
in my life, this is one of the great
est meetings I ever had!”
Tootsie is well known as an ex- 1
ceptional cook. Through the years
she supported herself by preparing I
frontier banquets as well as ordi
nary meals, both in her shining lit
tle home in Flat and in other fami
lies' kitchens.
She grubstaked many a miner in
the gold fever days. She made good
money on many of her investments; j
other miners just went out and
drank up the grubstake. And she
bought furs from trappers, and was j
a shrewd judge' of furs, oldtimers
say.
But even though a lot of money I
came into her hands, she has nothing
left now. She did not fritter it
away. “I never drank or smoked,” j
said Tootsie.
Helped Many
But she helped so many down
and outers that nothing was left'
top her. Tootsie would not have it |
any other way; she simply was born j
with a generous heart. So says a
close friend of the old days. Mrs.
Lois Paderson, who now resides in
Anchorage.
Mrs. Padersen’s husband, Fred,
now dead, was dredgemaster in the
Flat area for a total of 34 years.
“In Flat those years we were like !
one big happy family — that's the
kind of friends we were." remem
bered Mrs. Padersen, holding Toot
sie's hand.
“Ainlt that the truth!” exclaimed I
Tootsie, “and the Lord surely
blessed us!”
“Well Tootsie, how'd they ever '
get you out of Flat?" asked another ;
old friend.
Legs Gave Way
“Well,” she recalled,, “they tried
to set me to go winter before last,
but I said no, 1 wanted to stay in
my own home. But then last fall I
just started going all to pieces. My
legs give way and I couldn't hardly
walk any more.
“And then it got so cold—I’ve
been up in the Arctic winters and I
never suffered like I did this winter.
Nobody to cut wood. Except there
was one or two men would come
by, but I tell you there were times
Mike and I were down to one little
stick, no bigger than your arm and
almost freezing. I tell you I never
suffered like that! And then I
couldn’t keep house any more, so
I said I’d go.”
Friends kept telling her that the
pioneer’s home is a nice place, just
like a hotel.
“Well," Tootsie said reasonably.
“I'll see now.”
Cared for Oldtimer
She has taken care of oldtimer
Mike Burns for some time. He is
totally blind and in a more pre
carious position physically than
Tootsie.
He spends a lot of time dreaming
of the trail and of the old mining
ventures.
“You wouldn't believe it, I got
$2,000 in an hour, ran into a pocket
—but then it was all gone.”
“Yes," interjected Mrs. Padersen,
“but when a pocket goes, it all
goes.”
Arrived in 1900
Tootsie was brought to Alaska
by a white family in 1900. “I had
the finest education. They treated
me just like a queen,” she said.
One of 27 children. Tootsie was
taken by the family which knew
and loved her mother. Of the 27,
Tootsie has met only four. Two of
them live in Cleveland and occa
sionally write their sister. But
Tootsie said she never answers
them. They are so far away, the
years so many, what is there to say?
Tootsie’s family are all Alaskans.
She went back Outside in 1909 but
returned in 1911 to set up “the finest
bath house in Alaska.”
It was too, confirms Mia. Pader
sen. It was made with a pile of
rock^ which would be heated with
a ftj-e.
Water was poured on these hot
rocks to create a frontier steam
bath.
Wonderful Housekeeper
“Tootsie always was a wonder
ful housekeeper. Her things were
! neat as a pin,” said Mrs. Padersen.
The great disappointment of
Tootsie’s life lies in the book she
wrote. Slowly over the years, in
odd moments, she wrote her memo
ries of the days that were, complete
with hundreds of colorful anecdotes,
all handwritten in pencil. So when
a school teacher passing through
said his wife would be glad to type
it for $150 she gladly gave him
the money, also paid airline tickets
for him.
But time went on and on and. at
last, the man told Tootsie his wife
didn’t have time. After prodding
he finally gave her back a small
part of the manuscript.
“Dirty, tattered, like the chickens
had been on them!” recounts the
old woman scornfully.
Meant Much
“It was a terrible thing,” said
Mrs. Padersen. That book meant so
much to her and she had written a
stack of papers so high—and it
came to nothing.”
Undaunted, the frontier woman
says she will begin writing another
book.
A lot of the people who came to
see Tootsie were the children of
old Flat families. She beamed on ;
Mrs. Leonard Zaiser, Mrs. Tony
Gularte and Elsie Orcutt.
“I remember when you were all
babies crawling on the floor!” she
exclaimed.
In all these years in Alaska,
Tootsie has seldom seen another
colored person.
“Once I went 17 years without
seeing anybody of my race. Ans
when I came into the hospital ther.3
was a colored girl, and I said,
“Come here and let me look at you,
it's been /nore than 10 years.'
Looked In Mirror
“Most of these years, Tootsia
said, “if I wanted to see another
dark face I just looked in the mir
ror!"’
When Tootsie and Mike Burn?
came to Anchorage on a Northern
Consolidated Airlines plane, the;/
were met by Jim Dodson and Ray
Petersen, company officials.
“My, I like to have a sped when
I see them'.” exclaimed Tootsie.
“All these years, and they said,
‘Tootsie, can you still fry por.<
chops like you did?'
(Continued on Page Gt
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