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Mom and dad got married on May 17, 1941 and rented a small house on Second Avenue (which incidentally turned out to be the same house the four of us rented when we returned to Seward 10 years later). Their intention was to eventually homestead a plot of land and live permanently in Alaska, but meantime they didn’t like the idea of paying the high rents so they decided to buy two lots on which they did build a house. This is the receipt for the two lots, dated August 21, 1941:
Dad did some crude drawings of what they called a “2 room house with a bathroom”. These are the two drawings, the second of which is not dated (which makes me nuts):
The most interesting thing about these drawings is how crude they are. That is atypical for Alvin, as I’ve pointed out other places. I didn’t find any formal plans that one would expect the town planners would have required, but given the fact that this was 1941 and the territory was a wild territory, these drawings may have sufficed.
In any event, the house was built on the two lots which were located right at the foot of Mt. Marathon as can be seen in this photo to the left. You can see the tree stumps behind the house but I don’t know whether o
r not dad had to log the lots. In any event, logging was done and the house was built.
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This next image is taken looking east, across the bay to Mt. Alice, probably on the same day. When you doubleclick to see the larger image, you will see the icicles hanging from the roof behind mom. There were fewer than I had expected, suggesting that they used a fair amount of insulation.
When we lived in Seward in 1951, we took walks and went past this little house. It was in good repair. Dad never talked about the construction so I don’t klnow how much of the construction he did alone and how much he hired out. I know he hated electrical work so expect that he hired a real electrician, or reasonable facsimile thereof, to install the service and wire the house. Plumbing he was familiar with as he was with woodworking so he may hve done most of the rest.
He didn’t have much time to get the house built. If he bought it in August, he had only 3 months. Mom sailed out of Seward a few days before Thanksgiving so we know it was finished in 3 months.
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