The Suntanned Farm Girl

26 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Alaska, Kansas, The Bush Doctor's Wife, Uncategorized

No matter how small the task, farming is physically demanding and families rely heavily on producing sons to help with the work. In the absence of older boys, Ruby’s father recruited her to help with the fieldwork. She was short, strong, and had a mechanical bent. He called her his “Handy Andy” and “Grease Monkey.” The smells of grease, oil, gas, and diesel were familiar to her.

Ruby Leppke’s family farmhouse outside
Peabody, Kansas

In the blacksmith shop, she turned the forge wheels so the coals would heat and the plowshares would glow red-hot. Her father hammered the huge share until it was sharp, and could more easily cut through the prairie sod. If interviewed at that time in her life, she would have burst out bitterly, “I know more about pouring Babbitt, grinding valves, and working on radiators than making an apple pie.”

Harvest time kept Ruby extra busy. Given her size, she could slip easily into spots where a grown man would have to squeeze. She could wiggle inside a threshing machine and hold rivets, while her father made repairs on the outside.

July temperatures easily hit 100ºF and the labor-intensive workdays extended twelve hours or more. Before the day was half through, Ruby was streaked with salty sweat, itching from bits of straw sticking to any damp skin, and uncomfortable with matted hair beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Her arms, tanned from daily outdoor exposure, grew smooth and taut from pulling, climbing, and lifting. One spring, she plowed for six days straight on the orange Allis-Chalmers tractor. Her boyfriend didn’t understand the lack of attention he received, and informed her, “My mother never does that kind of work.” The comment smacked on her already sunburnt face. She wiped her perspiring palms on her overalls and turned the tractor around.

Although Ruby resented toiling in the fields, she preferred to be outdoors than inside. She took pleasure in feeling the dirt between her fingers – and toes, driving a tractor with the rhythmic putt-putt-putt, and hearing and identifying the bird songs in the quiet of a golden wheat field. She read the sky for weather reports: stormy skies with lightening ripping across it, winds snorting, clouds swirling – or the sudden stillness where nary a tassel of corn swayed.

Even if Ruby was an outdoor girl, she longed to feel pretty and womanly. When she would go inside, covered with oil smears on her legs, she would see her sisters embroidering, crimping pastry edges, baking, and canning peaches. They were prepared to go out into the world. Ruby was not.

In that day, when girls turned age sixteen they were expected to find paying jobs outside the home, such as cleaning or cooking for wealthy people in the city, helping women who had just had a baby, and so on. When Ruby took on such jobs, she faced anxious and embarrassing moments. Her first pie was a disaster. The crust wouldn’t roll out. The meringue pooled instead of whipping into peaks.

As an adult, people would both tease and admire her ability to make or mend anything with baling wire or fishing line. Guests and family would describe her as an excellent cook, who adeptly, and without a hint of anxiety, served ten to fourteen people every Sunday noon after church. She would even cook outdoors under plastic tenting for children’s Bible camps in Alaska.

Ruby “farming” on the Gaede-80 (acre) homestead outside Soldotna, Alaska

The man she married loved the suntanned farm girl.

Farm boy, Elmer Gaede, farm girl, Ruby Leppke

Kansas farm girls make good Alaska homesteaders. Ruby followed her farm-boy-husband-turned-medical-doctor to Alaska, where she used all those childhood skills to their benefit.

To read more about the Suntanned Farm Girl, find “The Bush Doctor’s Wife,” on amazon or at http://www.prescriptionforadventure.com.

Bread and Life

31 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Alaska - Tanana, The Bush Doctor's Wife, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Ruby pulled open the oven door and lifted out golden-topped crescent rolls. The yeasty aroma filled the kitchen, and the burst of hot air fogged her glasses. She set the pan on top the stove and wiped her glasses with her well-worn apron.

At the table, Naomi and Ruth, her grade-school daughters, sat ready with small plates, a knife, oleo-margarine, and grape jelly. “I’m glad we’re having company tonight,” said Naomi, not that Ruby only baked when there were dinner guests.

Baking bread was in Ruby’s DNA. Her Mennonite ancestors had migrated across the ocean from South Russia with zwieback, double-decker rolls, packed into trunks. The zwieback, translated as “twice baked,” had been toasted, and the crisp, crunchy pieces had endured the days of travel, without molding. Even after her family had settled in to farm life in Central Kansas, and didn’t need to preserve food for such long-term sustenance, they would toast zwieback and crush the crispy crumbs them into a cup of milk, or hot Postum, a roasted-grain coffee substitute, created by Post Cereal founder C.W. Post in 1895.

Ruby also baked raisin, rye-graham, and molasses breads in two-pound Fleischmann’s yeast cans. The soft circular slices had no crust. Decades later, Naomi would treasure those same cans, and make cinnamon bread as well.

When Ruby’s physician husband, Elmer Gaede, accepted a position with Public Health Services in Tanana, Alaska, a remote Athabascan Indian village, she learned about Sailor Boy Pilot Bread, a 3-inch-round, thick cracker, which had come over with sailing ships in the mid-1800s. The flat, dry, saltless cracker became a staple in the Alaskan villages and continues to be so today. Whether zwieback or Pilot Boy Bread, the concept was the same: long shelf-life and basic nourishment.

In March 2020, flour and yeast flew off the shelves. What instigated the buying frenzy? What need was acute? What did “bread” mean on an emotional or physical level? Did it remind people of sitting as a child, in the safety and warmth of grandma’s kitchen, watching her knead dough on a floury pastry cloth, and anticipating the mouthwatering outcome? Or, did the first-time making of bread offer a sense of confidence that the newbie baker could take care and provide for him or herself? Was it touch therapy of massaging the pliable dough? Was it a womb-like experience of protection in a world where predictability of everyday life had been shattered? Whatever the reason, homemade bread took on a significant, primal meaning – and the ingredients flew off the store shelves.

Sally and Naomi baking in Tanana, Alaska

Every culture has a “bread,” whether tortillas, Naan, fry bread, Challah, baguettes, cornbread, flatbread, pita, lavash, pandesal, or injera. The Bible often speaks of bread. God sent bread down from heaven so the wandering Israelites would be fed. Jesus fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread. Jesus broke bread with his disciples. In John 6:35, Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me shall never hunger…” He understands our basic needs. He is our comfort and hope. He is good therapy. He is good bread. He is the warmth of grandma’s kitchen.

Ruby Takes up Hunting

21 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in The Bush Doctor's Wife, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

(Draft of “Ruby Takes up Hunting,” in the upcoming book, The Bush Doctor’s Wife.)

Dishwater gray skies with thin drizzle dimmed the memory of the high summer sun. Berry foliage darkened daily, from bright red to crimson and purple-burgundy. The grass around the lakes and swamps was rusty-orange. Chainsaws buzzed by woodpiles. A sense of urgency filled the air. Urgency to prepare for the swiftly approaching winter; even though it as only the middle of September. Urgency of bull moose to fight other bulls to mate the cow moose that were not certain they wanted the wild, dramatic seasonal attention of the bulls. Urgent hunters needing to provide for their families. Adrenalin. Testosterone. Nervousness. Excitement.

Elmer loved nothing better than hunting, unless it was flying – or practicing medicine. Now he was ready for moose hunting. He had cleaned his .300 magnum and 30.06 rifles. His hunting knife was sharpened. His gear was sorted and ready. And, unlike most of the other people in the village, he had an airplane, which greatly increases the hunter’s success.

The Natives depended on moose meat for their winter grocery supply and hunting wasn’t for the thrill of the kill or for a trophy. In most cases, they had to walk into the woods to see what they could scare up. Elmer recognized their plight and was generous with his time and aviation gas to assist whenever he could.

First, he took out Pete Miller, the hospital maintenance man. It had been a terrible day with heavy rain and wind. “Can’t you wait to see if it will clear up tomorrow?” Ruby had asked, kneading the palms of her hands together and trying to catch his eye. “No,” he had replied without looking at her. “This is moose hunting season. They like this weather. They won’t be as cautious as usual. They will be out challenging each other and following the cows.”

Pete and Elmer brought back a moose before the day was over. Both men were soaked to the bone. Both men were as thrilled as little boys catching their first fish or shooting their first rabbit.

Next up was Roy Gronning. They took off into an unsettled, restless sky with low-hanging clouds and an undefined horizon. As soon as the Family Cruiser was in the air, clouds bunched against the windows with only fleeting patches of visibility below. At only several hundred feet above the ground, Elmer circled back to the airstrip to land, meanwhile getting a dim bird’s eye view of everything beneath him. As he did, he spotted a moose three-fourth a mile off the end of the airstrip and near the road to the village dump. “Hey, Roy!” He yelled. “This could be easier than we expected.”

The men traded the airplane for the hospital dump truck and Ruby told the rest of the story in her family letter:

“They drove the truck as far as they could go and then hiked into the woods and after awhile they listened and heard the moose come towards them, the wind in their favor when the moose got real close Rev. G plunked him with one shot, it was a 900 lb. bull. It took them all day to get it in and of course I did not know where they really were and so I always wonder if every thing is alright. This is the 3^rdone he has helped get.”

In quick succession, there was another hunt and Ruby reported, “Elmer just informed me that he and Leonard Lane, the Eskimo who helped him get the polar bear, shot another moose.”

*****

Elmer never spared details of his adventures, which were often shared over a bedtime snack with the children, who listened as they ate chocolate pudding, homemade ice cream, or a bowl of cold cereal at the table beside him. Ruby felt proud of her husband’s successes and that he helped other men. He was the hunter. She was the gatherer of wild berries and the vegetable garden.

Her hunter husband did what he could to get her to go with him, not only to accompany him, bur to shoot a moose herself. He dried dishes after supper. He tried to reason with her, reminding her what a strong farm girl she was. He solved the problem of what to do with the children if they flew out after work to hunt. “The new Mennonite nurse, Olga Neufeld, can watch Mark and Mishal, and then Anna and Harriet can come over after school is out and the girls come home.”

Finally, he wore down his wife with his good deeds, solutions to her obstacles, and his confidence in her ability to actually shoot a moose.

“Okay,” she said wearily one evening, following another pep talk by him. “I’ll go with you. Perhaps we should do some target shooting first.”

That they did after work the next day. She was a good shot. She kept her eyes open even though the tremendous boom of the rifle jarred her entire body. She braced herself well for the recoil and did not fall backward. After each shot, she inhaled the acrid smell of the gunpowder and observed the warmth of the gun barrel. Her husband cleared his throat, patted her on the shoulder, and said, “You’re ready.”

By this time, Ruby was quite a savvy Alaskan woman and knew how to dress for the outdoors, which was really not that much different than for her chilly-day hot dog roasts or berry-picking. In this case, however, she needed better footgear. Between the two of them, they found boots that were waterproof and tall enough to manage at least some marshy terrain. Just like her husband, she had an army surplus coat, albeit a size too large. A green wool scarf, or muffler as she called it, was added to the assembly, not for fashion, but to keep the chill from traveling down her neck. The rosy pink lipstick? Well, that was standard for her, no matter the circumstance.

As could be expected, her letters home documented this new experience in the Last Frontier.

“We have been out nearly every night this week moose hunting. Last night we spotted two bulls l with large racks so we landed on a sand bar and started hiking through the woods. It got dark on us and we got a bit confused as to direction but the Lord brought us out near the same place we had entered the woods. When we get to heaven I will ask the Lord why we did not get to the moose. I feel it was devine guidance, as Elmer has never gotten confused in the woods before. It scared me a bit and I hardly have the nerve to hunt moose again until I can get one on the sand bar, which is impossible.”

Remarkably, this initiation did not completely ground her from taking off for another hunt. Elmer most likely was amazed himself. He didn’t even have to dry more suppertime dishes. She just dried out her wet clothes and looked at him expectantly. Away they went.

“Last Wednesday night he took me out and we spotted a bull just across the river from this village so we landed on a sandbar and found ourselves in a bit of soup as the sand was not dry enough but we ignored that and hiked to find the moose and to our dismay we could not cross a small stream of water so back to the plane we go and we pus it out of the soft sand on higher ground and take off to spot something better along the Yukon. 35 miles down river we spotted one on a sand bar, we flew low and sure enough he has a small rack, we landed and started firing, I always shoot first and Elmer after mine, I was so excited the gun did not even hurt my shoulder but my ears stopped up from all the noise, we hurt the mooses back leg and he took off faster than we would follow. We hunted for a while but couldn’t find a thing. Back to the plane we go, it is now 5:50 and as we started back for home and decided to see if the first bull was still in the original spot and he was! Elmer looked for a better place to land so that we could cross the stream, he found a strip of sandbar that was good but it was such a long way to hike but hike we must! After I thought m legs would come off with woods to go through, high meadow grass (always hoping a bear was there taking a nap), swamp to cross, we finally got close to where we thought he should be, we smelled moose, Elmer called him by rubbing a small (piece of moose) rack across some trees and sure enough we hear the same type of noise a bit farther away (bulls act that way during rutting (mating) season) so we crept along the low brush along the meadow around another bend and then Elmer backed up (he always is the trail blazer) and says there he is and there he was all 900 lbs of him slowly meandering our way to see who was calling him. I says “Hope he doesn’t charge”, Elmer says “SHOOT, I was so tired I could not fully appreciate it all and it thrills me more as I recall the incident as I write this. There the monster was sprawled out. Elmer looked at his watch and it was 5:00 and not long till sunset. We not skin him since it was so late but Elmer just gutted him and left him on him on the ground for the nite in the freezing temperatures.

Then we marked our trail back to the plane with toilet paper and we took a short cut from the way we came I and we had a 45 minute hike back to the plane and got home by 6:30. Boy, how hot coffee hit the spot. I wished I could do it over again when I wasn’t so tired.

The next morning Elmer got up at 6:00 and Rev. Gronning helped him skin, pack out and fly in the meat. It took them till 1:00 noon. The Leonard and Elmer went back to get the head and rack and if it is possible, we will have it mounted! Of all things, while they were working, what did they see but two more bulls so Leonard plunked one and they had to pack that one out, they scared the other one away as we just can not use any more moose meat. We plan to share some with the school teachers and probably furnish some for the Village Potlach at Christmas time.

The Huntress

She had done it. Moose hunting season was over for her. Well, all except picking hair off the raw moose quarters, cutting up the meat, and determining what would be roasts, little minute steaks, or hamburger. She knew the process. In Anchorage, after Elmer’s first moose hunt, she had learned about packaging the meat tightly in slick, white freezer paper. The packages were labeled for an easy selection later. Was this process difficult? No. Tedious? A bit. However, it came with the satisfaction of standing beside her husband and working as a team; it was a rare and special occasion where her husband wasn’t off tending medical emergencies or pushing the limits of his curiosity. She had him to herself. They recounted the hunt. They laughed. They wondered aloud what their families would think when they received her letter describing the event. Her emotional reservoir was filled with happiness.

After all was said and done, the meal provisions of her moose were stacked in the large hospital freezer, along with her husband’s. Soon after, and many times after that, she would pull out a package of steaks, pound them for supper, dip them in flour, sprinkle on salt and pepper, fry them in oil until the outsides were crispy and the insides tender, and marvel at her amazing accomplishment. Her husband had been right: the bush doctor’s wife could shoot a moose.

*****

The Northern Lights newspaper credited her husband for his successes but said nothing of hers. His write up demonstrated his virility as the bush doctor.

HOSPITAL NEWS

After shooting a moose and spending 4 hours packing the meat to a sandbar on which his plane was resting, Dr. Gaede spent the night in a sleeping bag only to get up the next morning and fly the meat to the airport and then haul it back and forth to the hospital. But the exercise didn’t hurt him for the next day he was to be found playing basketball.

Perhaps a write-up about the doctor’s wife would have been something like this:

HOMEFRONT NEWS

After following her husband and wandering around in the woods, pushing through tall grass, stumbling across soggy marshes, surviving frightening landings and takeoffs on sandbars, and being overcome with fatigue, Ruby Gaede held her ground against a charging 900-pound bull moose, which she downed with her first shot. This was her first moose hunt. But the experience didn’t hurt her. The next week she was found making Christmas gifts of aluminum trays with Alaskan scenes sketched on them and the edges uniformly bent up and crimpled like a piecrust; as well as melting, tinting, and forming candles, complete with white whipped wax and adorned with sparkling sequins.

*****

Following this initial moose hunt, she did not volunteer to go hunting again in Tanana, by airplane; however, several years later, when the family relocated to another part of Alaska that was on the road system, she was more than willing to get up early or drive at dusk, with two guns between her husband and herself.

*****

The Incredible Journey of the Moose Head

In the fall of 1959, the moose head mount was sent to Ruby’s parents, Solomon and Bertha (Litke) Leppke’s in Peabody, Kansas. Later, it was transferred to Elmer’s parents in Reedley, California. In a third move, it resided at Elmer’s brother, Harold Gaede’s, in Fresno, California.

Several years after Harold died (2011), his wife, Marianna, decided to move to a retirement community. The moose would not be moving with her. She and her family decided it should be returned to the Elmer and Ruby Gaede family on the Gaede-80 Homestead, outside Soldotna, Alaska.

The re-transplantation could not happen with a quick trip to UPS, a Large Priority mailing box, or Fed Ex; in fact, nothing about this reloction would be easy. The moose head was put into a custom-made wood box 57-inches wide, 65-inches tall, and 61-inches high, and took up space equivalent to one-and-a-half pallets. This Alaska-size box was loaded onto Wanda and Dan Doerksen’s 18-wheeler fruit truck, which for many summers had been driven up the Alaska-Canada (Alcan) Highway, with driving times of four to five days, to provide California fresh fruit to Alaskans, in particular, peaches.

On June 29, 2015, the truck headed north with Ruby’s moose head, surrounded by cherries, berries, oranges, and other fruit. On July 6, 2015, Elmer and Ruby’s son, Mark, met the truck in Anchorage, Alaska, loaded the crate onto his utility trailer, and hauled the moose two-and-a-half hours back to the Gaede homestead, outside Soldotna. Fifty-seven years later, the moose was back in its natural habitat, most likely needing to reacclimatize after being in warmer climes for decades.

(Do you have questions, comments, or suggestions for a rewrite of this chapter? Let me know. Thank you.)

The New Year Starts with a Bang

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Mark, The Bush Doctor's Wife, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

(Adapted from the Naomi Gaede Penner’s new book manuscript,

“The Bush Doctor’s Wife.”)

The year was winding down, as were the many holiday festivities for which Ruby had planned and prepared. She had energetically entertained people, dealt with long dark nights with mere glimpses of sun during the day, and so far kept her children warm in the frozen Interior of Alaska. Last on the list was Mark’s second birthday, December 27.

The little kid was grumpy and for good enough reasons. He walked around crying and rubbing his ears, all the while coughing with a hacking croup. Ruby could not keep up with his runny nose. She herself was not feeling at her top mothering capability and was suffering from a head cold. Both mother and son felt miserable.

Ruby would have preferred to be in bed rather than preparing supper, and more so with Mark underfoot and whining. She could not take a step forward or backward without bumping into him. All the same, the macaroni and cheese casserole with toasted, buttered breadcrumbs on top needed to go into the oven. She shooed him back as she pulled down the oven door to lite the pilot light, which required turning on the gas and touching a lit match to the igniter. What happened next terrified them both. She wrote home:

“…as I was making supper I lite the oven and Mark was right there and shut it (gas) off so I reached down to light it right away again and we had an explosion. I think of the song, ‘some through the water some through the fire some through the blood.’ Well the Lord did help me through the fire. I was in the middle of the explosion it all happens so fast, Mark was beside me blown down on the floor and he was frightened and I felt as though I was on fire, I felt my hair and it was singed badly my face burned so badly, I’m glad the girls were at the table playing and I screamed for Naomi to run to the hospital for Elmer. He came and brought salve, Furacin (a topical cream for second and third degree burns), and we put it on all the burned places, my nose hurt so and my right hand. Elmer did such a good job of treating me, and the pain was gone the next day. I wore a glove over the Band-Aids on my right hand. This is the second of Jan. and my hand has nearly pealed, and my nose has a new layer of skin, my chin and neck are in the process and I have no scars, the burns weren’t deep. So we have much to be thankful for.

Who knows if the casserole got baked or if she put it into the refrigerator for the following night’s supper; or if the scare shocked the croup out of Mark; or if Ruby figured the oven explosion was enough use of matches and didn’t want to light even two candles for Mark’s birthday, which would not actually be noticed since his “cake” was a cookie Christmas Tree she had made earlier. With Mark improvising his own, there was no need for fireworks or firecrackers to start the New Year.

xxxxx

No doubt, Mark kept her on her toes and she could never let down her guard. A few days into the New Year, Ruby was stacking freshly washed towels in the bathroom linen closet when she heard the scratchy sound of a match being lit. She opened the bathroom door to find Mark sitting on the rug in the hallway with a tiny blaze in his hand. Seeing his mother and hearing her yell his name, he dropped the match on the rug. Ruby stomped out the small flame and shook her son by the shoulders until his teeth chattered. Over to his room she marched him and up went the gate. She thanked the good Lord she had been nearby and not down in the basement, and that she had managed to keep him alive for the first two years of his life.

Mark — when he was not setting fires inside the house. Mark with moose antlers

Tucked in for Winter

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by Naomi Gaede Penner in Alaska, The Bush Doctor's Wife

≈ 4 Comments

(Adapted from Naomi’s upcoming book, “The Bush Doctor’s Wife.”)

Tanana, Alaska 1957

The bright colors on the hillsides had faded, and the sun rose lower and crept to the south. Ice cakes hurried down the Yukon River. Ruby had never seen the like. In the early stages of freeze-up, the river reminded her of thick, lumpy sherbet punch she made for ladies’ fancy events. Living adjacent a broad and turbulent waterway had been an adjustment for the Kansas prairie-land farm girl.

A month prior, the river barges had docked for the last time, bringing groceries, household goods, heating oil, mechanical supplies, and so on. They would not return until June.

barge docked one Yukon

Temperatures dipped consistently below freezing and daylight receded by more than six minutes per day. The fall foliage had dulled to a palette of pale cocoa, cloves, and maple frosting. Ruby no longer saw villagers picking cranberries and blueberries, or digging potatoes, carrots, or turnips from their gardens; neither were they fishing, or sitting on board benches along the riverbank.

Airplanes encountered increasingly bad weather and mail service became inconsistent. All in all, the village felt smaller with the absence of river barges, limited air traffic, and compressed days.

Ruby felt uneasy about the approaching winter. Certainly she had made it through two Alaska winters in Anchorage, yet there she’d had actual grocery stores, kids’ winter hand-me-down clothes from friends at church, a department store, and even the Army Surplus store. But here she was in an isolated village with meager and expensive supplies at the Northern Commercial store.

Part of preparing for winter meant tucking in things. If Ruby had lived in town, that could have meant cleaning a lawn mower, hanging up shovels, raking leaves, mulching outdoor shrubbery, and putting studded tires on a car. Here, she had none of those. Here, the item to tuck in was her husband, Elmer’s, J-3 airplane, which was still on floats by the river, with ice clustering around its bottom surfaces. He needed to put the plane on wheels and fly it to the village landing strip. J-3 sunset Yukon

(Once there was enough snow on the airstrip, he would change over to skis.)

On a cloudy Saturday afternoon, he found Ruby in the sewing room, mending corduroy jeans. Gradeschoolers, Ruth and Naomi, sat cross-legged on the heavy wood comforter trunk and played with buttons in a round tin box. Mark, almost age two, crawled at his mother’s feet, attempting to manipulate the sewing machine foot-pedal. Ruby alternated between pulling her persistent son out from beneath her legs and pushing the fabric underneath the moving needle.

Elmer rounded the doorway. Buttons grated beneath his shoe soles. He looked at Ruby. Her eyes didn’t leave her task and the sewing machine hummed steadily. Elmer cleared his throat. “Ruby, I thought you might like to get some fresh air.”

“Just a minute,” she mumbled.

“I need to get the plane off the river.”

“Children, go find your coats,” she said, removing the straight pins from between her lips.

When the family stepped out the door, Ruby noticed the uncanny silence. Leaves no longer crackled beneath her footsteps, but were frozen together in layered mud-clumps. The sky was dull. Clouds were strewn like quilt batting. No sound of a motorboat running full pitch against the river current. At 4:15 p.m., the sun would soon slip behind the horizon.

The girls interrupted the stillness with their chatter. They were intrigued by the ice growing along the river’s edge and stamped on the thin shelves that were filled with water bubbles.

Ruby helped Elmer half carry and half drag the two-seater aircraft up and out of the reach of the river’s icy fingers. The metal floats pulled across the gravel screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. Mark wanted to climb into his Daddy’s airplane and interfere with the work.

“Mark, come make the ice crack.” Ruth showed him where to place his stubby booted feet. As roly-poly as he looked, he wasn’t heavy enough and nothing happened. “Jump,” she instructed. He finally accomplished the task. The children laughed hysterically. Their noise sounded extra loud in the otherwise quiet afternoon.

Yukon freeze up with N and R .jpg

Within a week, Ruby would write her parents, “Changing Elmer’s plane from floats to wheels is no more effort than changing a tire.” True. All he needed was someone to lift a wing so the axle could be placed on a block.

The bush doctor’s wife had gained a new skill. Seasonal demands were different from those in Kansas. The plane was tucked in. She was a hardy farm girl. She would keep her family secure and tucked in for the winter.