Classifieds
FOR SALE
COAL & wood, cast-iron heating
stove. A-l shape. Inq. Brown’s
Shop. c-dl5-2t
3-ROOM house trailer. Very good
interior. Inq. Gallant, Lester
court, evenings. c-dl5-tf
2-BEDROOM modern home with
apartment as rental unit. See
Matt Perkins at Hotel Coffee
Shop. c-dl5-tf
FOR QUICK SALE—2-oz. bottles
Carter’s Fountain Pen Ink, only
10c each. Matanuska Press.
44-PAGE stiff cover books, “Pic
turesque Washington”; going
fast. 75c each. Matanuska Press.
NEW 2-bedroom house practically
finished; approx. 3 mi. from
town; completely plumbed;
plenty water; comp, w/bath,
oil furnace, hot water. Arrange
your own terms. Inq. Bill Rem
pel, Palmer Drug Store, (ufn)
SPELLING BOOKS, only 5c each.
Matanuska Press.
FOR RENT
SANDER and edger. Inq. Co-Op
Warehouse, (ufn)
NOTICE
FOR POWER OFF after office
hours, Sundays and holidays,
call either Vernon Fridley or
Ralph Moore. Remember, of
fice closes at noon on Satur
days. Matanuska Electric As
sociation, Inc.
LOCAL SHOE REPAIR service.
Loberg Variety.
Merry \
Christmas |
I
W 8
*
M. D. Snodgrass *
IXXkfckXkkkkkkkkkkkkXkkkli
Christmas
Dance
for
Maianuska Hotel
Basketball
Fund
Sponsored by
Dale Roetman
SATURDAY NIGHT
December 23
at Gym
Ladies 75c Men $1.25
Couples $2
CHRISTMAS DANCE
TO BENEFIT HOTEL
BASKEBALL TEAM
Christmas week end festivities
planned for the Valley include a
dance Saturday for the benefit of
the Matanuska hotel basketball
fund. The dance to raise money
for the basketball team is spon
sored by Dale Roetman, Coach
for the team. It will be held at
the gym from 9:30 p.m.
Everyone is invited to attend
the party with price of admission
for the ladies set at 75 cents; $1.25
for men, and $2 for couples.
In announcing the dance Coach
Roetman said that the hotel team
plans to have games once or twice
weekly this season. The Rockets,
Palmer women’s basketball team,
will also hold practice sessions
along with the hotel team, the
coach added.
IRWIN FAMILY—
Continued From Page One
in the Valley with more than 200
families making plans for Christ
mas celebrations in the new land.
Many of them, homesick for old
ties and old homes, went to extra
lengths to make it a wonderful
Christmas here.
Construction on the present
gymnasium was barely completed
in time for the big Valley Christ
mas party that everybody got
together and planned. A Christ
mas tree that stood as high as
the balcony was decorated with a
myriad of lights, ornaments and
tinsel. A Red Cross worker who
had accompanied the Colonists to
the Valley supervised the decora
tions of the gymnasium, which
were elaborate and beautiful.
Lights twinkled everywhere and
Alaskan evergreens were com
bined with tinsel for beautiful
decorative effects on the walls.
There was music, Santa Claus
had a gift for every child, and
everybody was turned out in his
best “bib and tucker.”
It was a beautiful party. The
traditional, the old and well-loved
customs once again lighted the
hearts of young and old and in
i them they found courage to go
i on and wrest homes from this
new, magnificent, forbidding land.
Handsome Uniforms for
School Band Are Now
On Order From N. Y.
By the time Fur Rendezvous
time at Anchorage rolls around,
the Palmer school band should
have the handsomest of uniforms
to wear when participating in the
annual Alaskan event. The uni
forms have been ordered from
New York for the 32 school band
members and should be here
within the next six weeks, Wil
liam Zahradnicek, superintendent
of the school, announced this
week.
The uniforms are of royal blue
with snappy San Browne belts
in white leather. White braic
and shoulder cords with golc
buttons complete the trim uni
forms, which have been orderec
for both girls and boys of the
school band.
Valley oi'ganizations who have
made contributions toward the
purchase of the uniforms include
the Kiwanis club’s donation o:
$250: the Palmer Moose Lodge
and Women of the Moose; the
American Legion Auxiliary; Min
ers Union at Jonesville; Butte
: and Cheechako Homemaker:
Clubs and the Lutheran Church
The uniforms should be here
in time, at least, for the band’
' annual spring concert. Superin
tendent Zahradnicek said. The?
are of excellent quality and wit!
the proper care should last fo
ten years, he added. The schoo
band is uner the direction of Pau
Coffey Insures Everything—
Remember?
John J. Gallivan Shares Caribou '
With Lonely Finns on By-Gone Christmas! j
There is no cold, not even of
the Arctic, like the cold that
pierces a man’s heart when in the
stillness and whiteness of that
Arctic the calendar tells him that
it is Christmas and he knows that
he is all alone. On Christmas
mornin of 1929, John J. Gallivan
stepped to the door o£ his trap
per’s cabin on Tazlina lake to
look out on that unbroken Arctic
whiteness and stillness and to
wish that someone, anyone, might
come along that he could wish a
Merry Christmas and with whom
he could share his Christmas din
ner even though it might be only
beans. It couldn’t be much else,
John reflected, as grub was get
j ting low. He had been on his
! trapline since September and re
maining supplies would have to
be carefully rationed to last until
. it was time to hit the trail for
civilization again.
John had no more than made
! his wish when he spotted the
huge figure of a man making his
way to his cabin and as he came
closer John saw that he was a
white man. His visitors told him
that he was one of three Finns
who had a trapline some eight
miles above John’s line on Lake
Tazlina. John doesn’t even re
member the Finn’s name, but “I’ll
never forget how starved he was,”
he said.
As John prepared food for the
visiting Finn, he told his story.
He and his two companions had
gone in to their trapline at Taz
lina by plane and had been flown
there by Merrill, one of the
first bush pilots in this country.
Merrill had got them in all right,
flying them and their steel traps
and camping equipment in in two
trips. He was to return on a
third trip with the winter’s grub
but Merrill never made that trip.
There were no radios in trapper’s
cabins in those days and neither
John nor the Finns had any way
of knowing what had happened to
Merrill but they knew that what
ever it was it was “bad” as he
wouldn’t fail on his promise to
bring grub to men out on trap
lines.
| John later learned mar ivierrm
! never started that third trip as
i when he got back to Anchorage
! he made an in-between flight to
! Flat, which was his last journey.
: On his return trip from the Kus
kokwim village he was lost over
the Inlet and no trace has ever
been found of him or his plane
to this day.- -Merrill, who had
formed a small company with
two planes at Anchorage, was
“one of the best bush pilots this
country has ever seen,” John re
calls. Merrill field at Anchorage
is named for him.
But the Finns, waiting desper
ately for the grub that never
i came didn’t know that Merrill
i was lost and John’s visitor had
j set out to try and find out what
| the trouble was when he came
I across the trapper’s cabin. John
had hauled his supplies and
! freight to his traplines some 14C
j miles from here, by dogsled. He
! made his headquartex-s at the
| mouth of Eureka creek for his
1 | eight-mile trapline that extended
' | also to Big and Little Nilchinc
; j rivers. It took him nine days tc
■ | make a round-trip on his trap
1 ; line.
: ' But to go back to the Finr
' j and that Christmas morning o'
; 1 1929, John gladly shared his food
’ and gave him all that he coulc
possibly spare to take back tc
; i his companions so they migh
5 have Christmas dinner. Tha
' Christmas dinner was a foui'th o
a caribou which the Finn threw
I I over his shouldei', waved a Mern
■ Christmas to John and set out or
; the trail to his camp. “That wa:
II all the Christmas they had too, a:
there was not another bite of fooc
in their camp,” John later learned
They were a plucky lot, though
and John saw nothing more o
S them until January 1 when the
three of them came to his cabin
on their trek toward Anchorage.
They had stuck the lean winter
out until then. They had man
aged to live on the catch from
their traplines and counted off
the animals they had eaten. John
remembers well that there were
seven foxs, six wolverines, one
coyote and one lynx. They were
ravenous when they arrived at
John’s cabin and “they cleaned
me out. They ate up everything
I had. One ate so much that when
they struck out for the trail, he
couldn’t make it. He had to come
back to the cabin and rest for a
while as he just couldn’t walk.”
John, old-timer here, first came
to Alaska in the latter part of
May, 1922, and he has never been
Outside since. “This country is !
good enough for me,” is his re- j
joiner when asked why he has j
never returned to the states. He |
was born at Bolivar, Missouri, j
January 10, 1884.
“Probably for gold,” is his terse i
comment when asked what
brought him to the territory. He
started his trapline in 1923 in the
Tazlina and Nilchino district in
1923 and kept at it until 1929,
which was the last year he
trapped “and that was the last
| good year for trapping in that
country as there hadn’t been any- !
i thing there since,” John says. For
the first two summers that he was
here he did some placer mining
and in 1929 went into partnership
with George Belanzer in a gold
mine at Albert Creek in the Nil
chino district.
When Johin was trapping he
used to get his dog team in the
early fall at Chickaloon to go on j
to his Tazlina and Nilchino trap- j
lines. "That’s the coldest country '
in Alaska,” John recalls, adding
that at Glenallen the tempera-!
ture drops to 75 below zero.
At the end of the season John
\ would load up his furs on his dog- :
j sled and return to Chickaloon, i
j where there was a railroad until
j 1932 when it was pulled oift.
II i
To Our
Many Friends:
A Joyous Holiday
Season
Capitol Beauty Shop
it >.a.s.>.Si % 2. 2.2. % », s.i-,^ 3,
2 NEW EMPLOYES START
WORK AT CO-OP OFFICE
Two new recent employes in the
Co-Op office are Mrs. Isabelle
Severns and Mrs. Mary O’Don
nell. Mrs. Severns, formerly with
the Matanuska Electric Associa
tion, is replacing Mrs. Dorothy
Graham in the Co-Op office. Mrs.
Graham recently started to work
for the Bureau of Reclamation
here. Mrs. O’Donnell is replacing
Mrs. Marge Mielke, who has re
signed her position with the Co
Op to devote her time to her
home.
MRS. SULLIVAN TO
ENTERTAIN AT TEA
Included among the many holi
day parties planned for next week
in the Valley is a tea to be given
by Mrs. John L. Sullivan of the
Matanuska hotel. Mrs. Sullivan
will entertain on December 27th
with houi's for the tea to be from
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Among her
guests will be ladies of the Bu
reau of Reclamation staff.
There was a train there once a
week then. When John first came
to Palmer in those early days there
“was no Palmer.” There was a
little freight came in on the rail
road and that’s all there was,”
John reminisced from the hotel
lobby as he looked out on Pal
mer’s busy preparations for
Christmas. John won’t need a
calendar this year to tell him that
it’s Christmas.
I I
HOLIDAY
HAPPINESS
FILL YOUR
HOMES.
*
CASLER & LOYER
REWARD
$50.00
. j For any information leading to recovery of Chain
Saw-Wood Boss Make. Serial number D13361.
;! Delivered to Koslosky's Store August 18, 1950,
1 and picked up by party in error. Contact Yukon
Equipment, Inc., Box 1539, Anchorage, or phone
Anchorage 25101.