I find the last paragraph particularly interesting...
Elmer & Evelyn (Klump)
LINDSTROM
Interviewed by Dee Williams & Marie Darlin
Evelyn: My maiden name was Evelyn Klump. I was called Opal when I was little as my sisters had trouble saying Evelyn and the rest of the relatives generally called me Opal, too. I hated the name and when I moved to Juneau I was called Evelyn.
I came to Alaska in September 1941 on the Steamship Aleutian with my older sister, Jo, whose husband was working in the mine. I had never been on a boat before, let alone a ship. I had never seen water except a little lake. My sister had a nine month old baby and she was really young and I wasn’t quite fifteen. She didn’t want to come by herself and I had never been anywhere. I liked Juneau when I first saw it. It was nice to see rain after the heat of Arizona. It wasn’t raining hard, just the fine misty rain. I have never been bothered by the rain.
I will be 80 in November 2006. Other than my sister, Emilie, there is no one else alive now that I know that remembers me when I was a little girl growing up in the Depression. We didn’t have much. We made do with what we had and we were never bored, asking our Mama what to do. There was always something. We didn’t have running water and electricity. It was pretty hot in Arizona–miserable now that I think back. I remember there were times we didn’t have enough to eat, that when I went to bed I wished I’d had a little bit more to eat. It was tough but we survived.
My grandmother got a pension of $40.00 a month from one of her husbands who had died in the military and she shared about half of that with us because my dad didn’t have any work. He always worked when there was work, but there weren’t any jobs available at that time.
Elmer and I met at Charlie Miller’s bar, known as the Capital Café on Front Street. It had a good dance floor. I wasn’t old enough to be there but I was anyway and I had a good time. Why it was called the Capital Café I don’t know, because it wasn’t a café, it was a bar. It was located between Seward and Main Street on Front Street where the Sealaska parking lot is now.
Elmer: It was on the corner of that lot. Years before Joe Stocker had a place where you could go in and play cards and he had popcorn, pop, hot dogs and so on. He didn’t sell drinks. Next to that was Gastineau Grocery owned by Sam Paul, then Charlie Miller’s Capital Café and then there was a garage; later that was owned by Bob Cowling.
Evelyn: Elmer and I were married in 1945. I was scared to death. We were married in the old Lutheran Church on Main Street by Pastor Hillerman. Elmer was home on leave from the Navy. We spent our honeymoon at Elmer’s mother’s cabin at Lena Beach. We lived in various places in Juneau. When we were first married we lived on Fourth Street right past the Episcopal Church where two identical houses are set back. We lived in one of those for about 10 years. That’s where our first child, Linda, was born.
Elmer: My sister Inga moved to Seattle around 1940 where she lived for the rest of her life. After my brother Bud graduated from high school he went down south to business school and then went to work for the Corps of Engineers on Annette Island just before the war. Then he joined the Coast Guard as a yeoman and served on the Cutter Aurora in the Aleutians, and then was transferred to a Coast Guard office in California.
Evelyn’s sister, Emilie, had moved to Juneau from Arizona in 1942 and was working for Pan American when she met Bud. Emilie went down to California and married Bud. They came back to Juneau in November 1945 and we all lived together, the two couples and Linda, at the Fourth Street house. We paid Louie Dyrdahl $40 a month rent. It wasn’t a bad house.
In 1948 Bud Bodding, who was with Ellis Airlines in Ketchikan, asked Bud to come down there and work for Ellis. They lived in Ketchikan until 1955. Their first daughter, Sandra, was born here in 1948, and their daughter, Jan, was born in Ketchikan in 1950.
Evelyn: Bud and Elmer fished together. Linda started going out on the boat with us when she was about three and a half. She loved fishing. She never minded how rough it got. I would be sitting down below, holding on to the seat, scared to death. One time we were coming around Point Retreat and it was really rough. She looked at me and said, “Mama, when are we going to eat?” Well, that was the last thing I wanted to do right then. I never got seasick, I was just nervous. I couldn’t have eaten anything or fixed anything. Elmer was always happy to catch a fish. It didn’t matter if it was a 60 pound King or a trout from the Salmon Creek Dam.
We moved to 622 Eleventh Street when Elmer Alan was born. We bought that house from Carl Wiedman. It was right between Edna and Cliff Swap’s and Verna and Roy Carrigan’s. We lived there for about 15 years. That place was bought by Pete Warner.
Elmer: I worked for Art McKinnon at Reliable Transfer in the winter for quite a while. I fished in the summers until 1955 and then Al Bloomquist and I bought Reliable Transfer from Art. We had four trucks, then we bought out Femmer Transfer and got a couple more trucks. In 1957 Al got out of it and my brother, Bud, bought into it. I had it for 15 years.
I retired in 1969 and sold my stock to Tony McCormick. Roger Calloway has Reliable Transfer now. That transfer company has been in business since 1914. Bud retired in 1980. After I retired from Reliable, I went to work at Marie Drake as a janitor for about four and a half years.
I won the Salmon Derby in 1967. I had a side deal going. I went around to all the guys I knew that fished the derby–about a hundred guys–and charged them $10 each. Whoever caught the biggest fish during the derby got all the money. Well, I won the first year!
Evelyn: It was funny that morning when he was going out in the derby. I asked him if he would give me money to take a trip to Arizona if he won. He said, “Oh, yeah!” And then our son Elmer said, “Dad, if you win would you give me $100.00 ?” He said, “Sure.” We made him pay off, too!
Our son Elmer is just now finishing 30 years with the State. He’s looking forward to retirement and buying a place down south where he can garden. He thinks we’re going to go with him. Only time will tell on that. He was looking at Washington, but now possibly Oregon. His stepdaughters are around Portland.
