When I arrived in Tucson, however, they said, “get your things in order, you’re going to Alaska for three months.” This gave me draft clearance and provided travel vouchers. I ended up in Seattle, and when I got on the boat to Alaska from Seattle, I found Grant Pearson transferring from Yosemite up to what was then Mount McKinley National Park. I was headed for Soldovia, Alaska, but I got as far as Sward. I had to report back to Juneau since the Bureau established a district office there. I worked in that office, handling travel for the Bureau of Mines crews as well as the accounting and so on. About that time some National Park Service employees I had known in the Southwest (Alfred C. Kuehl, Leo Diedrick, and a girl called “Gussie”) came with “Steamer” Bursley to do a survey of the Alaska Territory. I was able to help them with orientation, obtaining office space, and travel. When the administrative officer, Charles Peterson, transferred from Mount McKinley National Park, the opportunity arose for my transfer from the U.S. Bureau of Mines back to the National Park Service at Mount McKinley in 1949.
About a year and a half later, we (Matilda and I) were burned out. A little log cabin, with celotex walls and sawdust insulation caught fire in the basement and everything went up in smoke. We had a youngster who was ready for school and I didn’t want to buy new furniture and everything, so the folks that I knew in the Park Service offered me a transfer to the regional office in Omaha, Nebraska. Well, that went pretty well but I had hay fever in the valley there. After a year or so, they asked, “We’ve got an opening at Crater Lake National Park. How would you like to go out there?” That was the beginning of the Crater Lake deal.
Who in the regional office helped you?
Well, Jimmy Lloyd was one of them. A lot of folks I knew boosted me along the way. The job in Omaha was with the river basin studies. It was sort of wishy washy in a way. I think it was mostly the fellows in the regional office in San Francisco that wanted me at Crater Lake. So anyway, I arrived out there. At that time we had a superintendent who had a home here in Medford. It was on Queen Anne (4). I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or not.
