Gladys L. Meacock: I Am Going to Grow up and Live Here Forever!

I was born at Wood River Cannery, five miles from Dillingham, Alaska, on July 20, 1937. My mother, Marie (Osterhaus), was half Aleut and half German, and my father, Bill Andrews, was a Caucasian from California. He first saw my mother at age 17 when he followed his mother to Bristol Bay to work in the canneries. He vowed to marry her, was promptly sent back to California by his mother, and returned at age 21 to wed the love of his life: beautiful “half-breed” Marie. Their marriage lasted 68 years.

I passed through Anchorage as a baby in 1938 to spend the winter in San Francisco, where my brother Pat was born. My parents were not happy and returned to Dillingham in the spring. I spent winters up the Mulchatna River with my grandparents, Red and Gladys Vail, and summers in Dillingham until I reached school age. In first grade, it was discovered I was extremely nearsighted and would have to go to Anchorage the following summer to be fitted for glasses. My grandmother Gladys was delegated to take me. This was an exciting adventure to look forward to. We had only a few cars in Dillingham; walking and dog team travel were the usual modes of transportation. The airstrip could only accommodate small planes, so in the summer, passengers were carried by someone in hip boots to a larger pontoon plane waiting in Nushagak Bay.

Taking off on the choppy bay was exciting, and at first being in a bumpy six-passenger plane was fun, but the excitement soon wore off. It was a long, tiresome four-hour trip.

It was so noisy you had to yell to talk to anyone. The pilot had headphones on, so he couldn’t hear you. I was so small that I could barely see out of the window and saw mostly clouds. At some point there were mountains next to the window, and it was scary. Also, there was no bathroom. I wanted to be done with this part of the adventure.

Finally, after a long time, I could see lots of buildings and of all things, mountains. (Dillingham has mountains way in the distance but I was used to the flat tundra stretching for miles.) We had arrived in Anchorage! We circled and landed on a big pond (Lake Hood). The first thing everyone did was run to the outhouse. There was a car waiting, and we got in. I was again excited about my adventure. We drove and drove, finally stopping at a store called Schweum’s located on Spenard Road. My Grandmother got me a bottled Coke. Not just a Coke, a cold Coke out of a machine. I had never had anything so good and drank it all.

We got back in the car and drove and drove, but it was still fun. We finally stopped, got out of the car, and there was no gravel or mud on the ground! It was a hard surface and not dusty to walk on. I didn’t know what to make of this, but I liked it. We were staying in the Anchorage Hotel on the third floor. I had never been so high in a building before. More wonders were soon to be seen. There was a bathtub and a toilet, both with running water. The bathtub had hot and cold water, and the water drained out somewhere without having to be hauled out by the bucketful. Instead of just nails on the wall to hang your clothes, there was a small room called a closet. There was a big mirror on the wall. I am not sure if I had ever seen myself before and was totally fascinated. I could have amused myself all day looking in the mirror, smiling and making all types of faces.

The next morning is seared into my memory. My grandmother was meeting friends at the Anchorage Grill on 4th Avenue for breakfast, so we walked over from the hotel. Cars were whizzing by, it was sunny, and my grandmother had bought me patent leather shoes; life was as good as it gets for a seven-year-old village girl used to wearing just rubber boots. I knew at that very moment that I was going to grow up and live here forever!

I was holding onto my grandmother’s hand, had skipped up two or three steps to the restaurant door, and was suddenly eye-level with a sign: NO NATIVES OR HALF BREEDS ALLOWED. I had just seen myself in a big mirror; my skin was a different color than my Mom’s. I knew she was a “half-breed,” a Native with black hair and eyes and dark skin. My grandmother was a gussak (white), so she could go in, I was pretty sure; my skin color was the same as my grandmother’s, and I had blue eyes. But I was not sure how I fit into this situation. I didn’t know if I would be allowed in, and I was hungry. My grandmother dragged me—now reluctant—into the restaurant. I was afraid to tell her why because someone might hear me and throw me out. I could not even eat my breakfast.

Despite my confusing experience at the restaurant, I loved Anchorage. When I got my glasses, it was a new world for me. When we had to go back to Dillingham, I was anxious to see my family and friends but knew that I would return to live in Anchorage someday.

I graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1959, took my first teaching job in Anchorage that same year, and retired in 1982. I still live here and don’t have any plans for leaving my favorite city. Anchorage has changed a lot, and I still love it.

 

 

 

Gladys Meacock flew in to Anchorage from Dillingham to get glasses in 1944, when she declared she was going to grow up and live here forever. She graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1959, got a contract to teach school on Elmendorf Air Force Base and—except for six years in Texas, three years in Haines, and snow-birding—she has lived in Anchorage ever since.