Dawn Phelps
Columnist
It is difficult to accurately describe my little sister Joanie. She lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, for over forty years, and she loved it there. She died unexpectedly in 2021, and our family still misses her terribly. She was one of a kind, and our family is blessed with fond memories and some of her Alaska stories which I will share.
Even at birth, Joanie had a sunny personality and a big smile. She had deep dimples, a sense of humor, and she was a prankster. One of my favorite stories is about her first day at school. But here is a little background.
As kids in Tennessee, we learned to watch for rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water moccasins, if we were swimming. We knew what a rattlesnake rattle sounded like. And we knew how to make a “fake” rattlesnake sound using an envelope, a rubber band, and a button. We would twist the button round-and-round on the rubber band until it was very tight, then put it in an envelope before it “went off.”
On her first day of school, Joanie prepared a “surprise” for her first-grade teacher. She gave her teacher an envelope, then patiently stood watching, grinning from ear to ear, as the teacher opened it. And, of course, the teacher was startled, but she did not get mad! How could the teacher get mad with that sweet little face looking up at her? But more than likely, she never forgot it either!
After Joan’s death, many friends and family contributed memories, and I put them in a memory book. There were stories about moose hunts, salmon fishing, clamming, and bears. Joan also wrote a detailed story about an Alaska native’s funeral that she attended—I have kept it for years. And she told me how the natives dig graves during the winter when the ground is frozen deep down due to minus 40 temperatures!
After she retired as a radiology technologist, she raised chickens and wrote about them. Chickens, like people, have personalities! I put her chicken stories in a book entitled Chicken Tales, and I plan to share them in this column. My favorite story is about Peggy.
Recently I was wondering how to describe Joanie; she was brave and capable. And I thought about the movie “David” that my husband and I attended recently. Joan may have thought she was “just a little country girl from Tennessee.” But I think she had similarities to David in the movie who began as “just as a little shepherd boy” who took care of sheep.
David wrote Psalms, and Joanie wrote chicken tales. David played a harp, and Joanie learned to play accordions at 70. And they both encountered bears! David killed them, and Joan was prepared to shoot a bear with her “big gun on her hip” while wearing her bear bell to warn the bears she was coming into their territory! And she knew how to shoot! Both Joanie and David lived their lives fully and impacted the world positively!
She grew a large raspberry patch, picked gallons of wild blueberries, grew a beautiful garden and flowers. She was a master hostess for visitors in her home or on camping trips or hunts. She knew how to gut a moose, quarter it, and help lug it out of the bush.
She was usually mild-mannered, but she could also be direct. After packing tents, utensils and food for a camping trip with my oldest sister, Joan cooked a massive breakfast complete with coffee on a camp stove. And when Joy asked her if she had any cream for the coffee, Joan asked Joy, “What do you think this is—the Hilton?”
You see, my little sister was special even though she did not realize her own worth. Kind of like David, that little shepherd boy, she did not see herself as special, yet we saw her as a powerhouse of intelligence, determination, graciousness, and kindness—I emphasize kindness, kindness to everyone! And she loved Alaska.
Her daughter Lori described her mom like this. “My momma always thought of herself as kind of ordinary and would even refer to herself as “Just Joan.” But in fact, she was quite extraordinary in many ways. Momma was little. She stood 5’ 2” tall, wore size 5 shoes and had little toes.
In great contrast to her petite self was the great big, beautiful smile she wore all the time, and her big personality. Throughout her whole life she was handed some hard circumstances (poverty, religiosity, and an extremely difficult marriage) but somehow, she was always able to find things to smile and laugh about.
She was often found teasing and pranking people. I remember her laughing and loving to tell the stories of her and her younger brother Gary putting garter snakes down their sisters’ backs for laughs or dressing up their pet goat and then scaring it so badly that it would faint and fall over, looking dead.
She was always a joker and loved to make people laugh. I remember a funny expression she had when my brother Ben came in so filthy from playing or had dirt covering his whole face. With a strong southern drawl and a twinkle in her eyes, she would say, “Why Ben, you look like you’ve been sucking pigs!”
Stay tuned. I plan to share a two-part story about the Alaskan funeral written by Joanie. Her writing is a treasure, and my little sister Joanie was extraordinary!
