Valdez Women

Close to forty-five years ago now, Margaret Wagnon, a friend of mine in Mt. Edgecumbe told me of meeting a couple she and her husband later became great friends with in Dillingham, out at Bristol Bay around 15 years before.

Katie had been raised in Valdez as something of a feminine project. Her mother died when she was a baby and her father didn't remarry. So the women of the town took care of her, providing etiquette lessons, party invitations, clothing advice, and general mothering.

She did notice when she became a teen-ager various women were extremely strict about her contacts with boys. She had to be home from a movie or other evening out at a very reasonable time. When she had a date, it had to be with other couples. The 

restrictions were many and we expect she resented some, but that was the way it was. It wasn't until some years later, when she was safely married, Katie discovered her mentors and chaperones had been dance hall girls themselves before they wed

 respectable men, so they knew all about the terrible things that could happen to an attractive young woman.