SOCIAL NOTES
— Homemaking —
Happenings About Town
— Gardening —
OF THIS AND THAT By Betha Digree
It is always a pleasure to wel
come Barbara Dimock, who lives
in Anchorage, to Kodiak. Barbara,
who is a member of the “Mile Post”
staff, arrived Sunday. She is cur
rently touring the state in con
nection with her work for the well
known travel guide. Barbara, who
has made frequent trips to this
area, always gives us a lift with
her ready wit and warm smile.
She brings us a breath of the out
side world that takes us out of the
constrictive routine of island liv
ing ... At least for a few days
. . . We wish that Barbara, who
left for the mainland Thursday
afternoon, would come here much
more often . . .
We have been poring over a
jumbo folder of pictures sent by
the Roland Vickery family show
ing the beauties of Florida . . .
Sandy beaches, blue skies, pretty
girls in sunsuits picking oranges,
macaws, pelicans, graceful pink
flamingos and flowering poinciana
trees . . . After gazing at the pic
tures a few minutes we almost felt
the warm sunshine . . . Then we
happened to look out of our office
windows and rapidly returned to
cold reality . . . When we saw the
grey, lowering clouds and the rain
falling, our imagination no longer
ran riot . . . We sadly returned to
the world of chilly dampness. It
was fun dreaming for awhile, tho.
We had a most enjoyable lunch
at the home of Justine Hinckle
Thursday. The other guests, Bar
bara Dimock and Fostina Johnson,
showed much more restraint than
this writer, who couldn’t resist a
large second serving . . . Just one
of the greedy people . . . Must
get Justine’s recipe, tho, for that
delicious casserole dish . . .
Book Review
The Good Years, by Walter Lord.
Published by Harper & Brothers.
Walter Lord became fascinated
with the whole turn-of-the-century
period while engaged in research
for A Night to Remember. It was
this book, a Book of the Month
Club Alternate Selection in 1956,
that made Lord’s reputation as a
unique historian-narrator. In it he
described in detail that fateful
night in April, 1912, when the
White Star liner Titanic hit an
iceberg in the North Atlantic and
sank, with a loss of over 1500 of
her 2000 passengers.
It occurred to Lord as he col
lected material from contemporary
accounts and from personal inter
views with the few survivors still
living in the 1950s that, quite
apart from the Titanic tragedy,
the people of the 1900-1914 era
had had the best of everything.
They had enjoyed the Good Years.
As Lord expresses it:
“Good, not because rich men
rode in private railroad cars and
Society gave magnificent parties.
Most people rarely traveled, and
many went to no parties at all.
“Good, not just because the
world was at peace. Millions of
so-called ‘little brown brothers’
took violent exception to America’s
fumbling (if well-intentioned) im
perialism.
“Good, not even because a shirt
cost only 23 cents. The child who
often made the shirt got only $3.54
a week.
“These years were good because,
whatever the trouble, people were
sure they could fix it. The solu
tions differed, of course—'Theodore
Roosevelt had his Square Deal,
Carry Nation her hatchet — but
everyone at least had a bold plan,
and could hardly wait to try it.”
But before Lord could get start
ed on a book highlighting the
events, personalities and tone of
those buoyant and exuberant days,
he was asked by a national maga
zine to dramatize what had hap
pened at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The resultant book was Day of
Infamy, the title having been sug
gested, as many will recall, by
President Roosevelt’s famous six
minute address before a Joint Ses
sion of Congress, beginning, ‘‘Yes
terday, December 7, 1941, a day
which will live in infamy . .
Then, in the spring of 1958, Lord
was asked to write a magazine
piece on his research technique.
When he went back to check his
files on the Titanic disaster, he
realized he had that turn-of-the
century fever again. He says: “I
found it was simply impossible to
be exposed to those gigantic ladies’
hats, those huge brass headlights,
those flashing teeth of Teddy Roos
evelt, without wanting to write
some more about those days. There
was so much that delighted me I
couldn't decide upon any particu
lar phase, and the idea suddenly
occurred to me to write about
them all.” The result was The
Good Years.
To gather his material he studied
newspapers and books by the hun
dred, as well as unpublished let
ters, diaries, even Pinkerton re
ports, filled with fascinating, hith
erto unknown detail. Especially
valuable were the interviews he
was able to obtain with people
who had figured prominently in
the 1900-1914 period and who were
now living quietly on the sidelines.
The Good Years is a vivid cornu
copian book ranging in time and
place from the Boxer Rebellion in
China in 1900 to the Panic of 1907,
from Peary’s dash for the North
Pole in 1909 to the struggle for
woman’s suffrage which reached
a climax (if not a resolution) in
1912. The assassination of Arch
duke Franz Ferdinand and his
wife in July of 1914 marked the
end of the era; the good old days
were gone, never to return.
Benefit Dance
Slated Sept. 4
A benefit dance, sponsored by
the Ladies Auxiliary to the Vet
erans of Foreign Wars, will be
held at the National Guard Armory
on Sunday, September 4. Music
will be furnished by the “Twi
Lights” under the direction of
Larry Adair.
All proceeds will be donated to
the Health and Welfare Center to
be used for eye and dental care
of needy children. Tickets at $1.00
each may be obtained from mem
bers of Boy Scout Troop No. 625.
Dr. and Mrs. Johnson Lead Busy Life
Despite Retirement-Recall Early Days
By Miriam J. Angell
Among many areas of beauty on
Kodiak Island, one of the most
beautiful we have seen is an eight
acre tract of handsome spruce
lying between the northern shore
of Shahaska Bay and an unnamed
lake, all a part of the home of
Dr. and Mrs. A. Holmes Johnson.
We drove through a shaded grove
to the house and thought of the
foi'est primeval, and of European
hunting lodges in deep, dim woods.
Mrs. Johnson gave us a pleasant
welcome and ushered us into a
living room of marvelous propor
tions; a high beamed ceiling and
walls of polished spruce logs cast
cemetery. There was no hospital
at first, not for about two years.
We did kitchen table surgery and
I sterilized instruments in a pres
sure cooker. Especially during the
war it was hard to keep nurses
and I sometimes helped out in that
capacity. The Grey Nuns took over
the running of the hospital after
the war.”
Dr. Johnson told us that ships
came in at less frequent intervals
then and sometimes in winter,
only every six weeks or two
months. “No, there was no plane
service then. The Coast Guard
cutters took patients from the
islands into Seward before we
DR. and MRS. A. HOLMES JOHNSON
a warm patina and reflected light
from a fire in a fireplace that
covered most of one wall. Mrs.
Johnson told us that the stone of
the fireplace was native to this
area, as were the spruce logs and
the cedar window frames.
“Our hearth is a piece of reef
weighing half a ton; underneath
it is rough and uneven so we had
it set in and built the floor around
it. Almost everything here is made
of native materials.”
Dr. Johnson joined us and traced
the history of their home and their
coming to the island. “We came up
in ’38 and that first year I hiked
all around a five mile radius of the
town, found this point of land and
put in a homestead claim, only to
learn that it was already under
claim to someone else. He deeded
it to the mission; we bought the
eight acres from them and started
to build right after that. We had
been building for six months when
Pearl Harbor was bombed. All
together it took two years to com
plete the house.
“As to why we came here, I took
a vacation in Alaska one summer
from my surgery practice in Port
land, Oregon, and thought we
might like to live here where life
would not be so organized and
there would be more leisure time.
I stopped in Juneau on the way
home and asked the possibilities
of locating in Alaska. A year later
Dr. Council, Commissioner of
Health, wrote and told me there
was no surgeon to the Westward
and if I wanted the job we might
come to Kodiak. Later I was asked
to practice surgery in Anchorage
but we prefer Kodiak.”
Mrs. Johnson added some mem
orabilia of their early days in
Kodiak. “When we came in 1938
there were only about five hun
dred and fifty people here. We
had the fourth vehicle in town of
which ours was one of two still
running. The other was an oil
truck owned by Erich Mueller.
Whenever there was a funeral
he took out the tanks and used
the truck as a hearse, and mourn
ers walked along behind to the
came and it was a long eighteen
hours or more enroute. By the
time they got to medical care
they were either dead or in a bad
way. Having a doctor on Kodiak
made quite a difference.”
Dr. Johnson was born in Maple
ton, Iowa; his wife is from Long
Isfland. He served on the Mexican
border with the National Guard in
1916 and then resigned to join his
father, a Bishop of the Methodist
Church who was at that time in
Central Africa. When the United
States declared war on Germany
he rejoined the service as a lieu
tenant in a tank corps of the AEF.
By 1929 he had gotten his MD and
had had five years post graduate
study at Oxford University. Be
tween 1929 and 1938, when he
came to Kodiak as the only sur
geon west of Seward, Dr. Johnson
spent years of study and medical
and surgical practice in the Brit
ish Isles and in Oregon. He has
compiled an impressive list of
memberships in various medical
organizations as well as authorship
of a number of articles devoted
to his special interest, diseases of
the chest. In Kodiak, Dr. Johnson’s
contributions to the community
have been far more than medical
alone; he has givein time and
effort to many civic organizations
and to the inspiration and incep
tion of the Kodiak and Aleutian
Islands Historical Society.
“There were originally seventy
eight charter members; we made
a small beginning because our
funds were, and are, limited. Dr.
Ted Banks, an anthropologist from
the University of Michigan, felt
that Kodiak should be the nucleus
of scientific research and develop
ment for the islands area, all of
which is rich in history and anthro
pology, but though we approached
several foundations, we were never
successful in raising funds to fi
nance our best ideas. Meanwhile
the Society is collecting artifacts
and historical data and doing a
nice job of preserving what would
otherwise be lost to posterity.”
Both Dr. and Mrs. Johnson be
long to many other civic clubs
and organizations. Although he
still does surgery, his son, Dr. R.
Holmes Johnson, took over his
active medical practice five years
ago. Dr. Bruce Keers joined him
two years ago. “That is probably
the most gratifying thing of our
whole Alaskan experience, that
Bob wanted to become a doctor
and wanted to come here. Those
two younig men would rather be
(Continued on Page 9)
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