The Alpine Obituary by Mary Daheim Read Free Book Online Page A

relax.
    “Later, maybe,” I finally murmured.
    Vida nodded. “Of course.” She paused. “I’ve finally gotten through the early issues of the
Blabber
. They’re very gossipy, you know.”
    “You’ve read them before,” I noted, sounding more normal.
    “Oh, yes, but years ago.” Vida straightened her red bowler. The color was so bright and shiny that it looked as if she were wearing a Chinese cachepot on her head. “Have you a moment? I’ll bring some of them in here.”
    “Sure,” I said. I had a feeling that the rest of the day wasn’t going to be very productive. After Spence’s visit, I felt intellectually as well as emotionally depleted.
    The Alpine Blabber
had been printed on cheap stock, though it wasn’t newsprint. Ginny had carefully slipped each copy into a plastic sleeve for the sake of preservation. Still, the issues—which usually were made up of four six-by-eight pages—had suffered neglect. Some had been patched, many had been taped, and all were yellow with age.
    “The
Blabber
is not to be confused with the Alpine Lumber Company’s yearbook,” Vida cautioned. “Those are all in a bound volume. Of course the original name was the Nippon Lumber Company, which Carl Clemans kept until the end of World War One.”
    “I know,” I replied. The town’s early name was Nippon. Carl had changed that, too, but much earlier. “I went through the books a few months ago when I was doing research for an article on early logging.”
    “What I should have said,” Vida amended, “is that the yearbooks are strictly factual. Plenty of news in the sense that they relate all the births, deaths, marriages, moves, and so forth, along with the social and cultural life of the town.”
    “I know,” I repeated, hoping that Vida hadn’t embarked on a lecture. “Features, too, like the article on the Dawson sisters who were born a year or so apart but graduated from high school at the same time. ‘Alpine’s fairest flowers,’ or something like that.”
    “Yes,” Vida replied. “Frank and Mary’s girls. The Dawsons had six children, you know. The eldest, Monica—who was nicknamed Babe—returned to Alpine in the Twenties as a bride. I suppose she just couldn’t stay away.”
    I couldn’t resist the question: “I take it she remained here for the rest of her life?”
    “Well . . . no,” Vida admitted. “Her husband was a seagoing man. He got a job on a ship and they moved back to Seattle. Babe was born there, so I suppose she was used to the city.” Vida all but shuddered at the notion. “Her father, Frank, was an Englishman, and he had some very queer ideas. When Babe and . . . Katharine, I believe, graduated, he thought they should return to Seattle and go to secretarial school. He was afraid that they might have too much time on their hands in Alpine and get into trouble. Imagine!”
    An image of Babe and Katharine standing outside the pool hall with rolled stockings and beaded bags raced through my mind’s eye. But all I said was, “That was before your time, right?”
    “Considerably,” Vida agreed. “Oh, here’s an early mention of the Iversens—that’s with an
e
—in the
Blabber
from May, 1914 ‘Trygve and Olga Iversen arrived at camp April 30. Trygve will be the new assistant superintendent of the mill. The Iversens bring with them their four children, Per, Karen, Jonas, and Lars. Per, who is a sturdy lad of twenty-two, will work in the mill as a loader.’ ” Vida picked up a pencil and made some notes on a white ruled tablet. “A family tree,” she said with satisfaction. “We’ll be able to see how Marsha might be related. Not to mention”—she winced—“Jack Froland.”
    I found the next Iversen reference in the second edition of the
Blabber
. “Per, that sturdy young lad, takes a bride in the September issue. Susan Wicks of Seattle. They were married at a Lutheran church in Ballard, like any good Scandinavian of the era.”
    “Ballard,” Vida murmured.