Homesickness is Real

After steady 10 to 12 hour days of driving for over a week, I finally arrived in Anchorage.  After three days I was hit right in the pit of my stomach with the most horrid pains.  I was down right homesick and it was physical.  Who would have known that it could be a physical pain as well as an emotional pain. I didn't know one living soul in Anchorage and hadn't spoken to anyone for three days. Mom had given me the names of two cousins who lived there and said that I should look them up.  

Anchorage, Alaska

I found my Edwards cousin's house but he was not home.  Next out of desperation,  I looked up the Ottley's and drove to their home. I talked their ears off, I was so lonely. They were so kind to me and asked me to stay with them until I found a job. It took me a month but I finally found a job as a receptionist bookkeeper in a general practitioner's office with two doctors. I moved into a four-plex with a roommate.  My roommate Linda was from Kenai, Alaska.  She was part Russian and part Eskimo. Two of her sisters lived upstairs. 

My roommate and her two sisters are in this photo with Linda in the middle. Linda taught me many things from the Alaskan culture such as eating fiddle head ferns and how to cook fresh picked cranberries, and took me to a gigantic salmon feast at Kenai. There are two types of cranberries (high bush and low bush). I had my first taste of moose which if you compared it with deer meat - no contest - moose is very good and deer meat is much too wild tasting.

I found out that my Edwards cousin was in the hospital so Donna Ottley took me to see him. He was bandaged over most of his head and face.  His wife had had an affair with another guy and this guy was so jealous that he hired a man from Elmendorf Air Force Base to torture them. This assailant came into their home at gunpoint and tied my cousin and his wife together back to back. Then he proceeded to pour acid over their heads. They both survived but lost their hair completely and both of their faces were scarred for life.