Book review: A new memoir by Diane Carpenter titled “In the Winter of the Orange Snow” is rich with anecdotes remembering Bethel in the 1950s.
Older Alaskans will remember Diane Carpenter, who was — as a longtime resident of Bethel, educator, public servant and social activist — a significant shaper of Alaska beginning in its late-territorial days. In her new memoir, Carpenter, now 90 years old and living in Mexico, presents her early Alaska years with a deep appreciation for the communities and cultures of which she became a part.
When Carpenter’s husband, Bob, returned from service in Korea, the couple had joined the U.S. Public Health Service and asked to be sent to Alaska for a two-year assignment. The first year, in Ketchikan, was filled with adventures, including Carpenter being arrested for illegal fishing when the seiner she was cooking on started fishing well before an opening.
“In the Winter of the Orange Snow” collects Carpenter’s remembrances of her early years in Bethel. The 31 chapters, each built around a topic, are rich in anecdotal stories about specific events, many of them humorous. Many names and references will be familiar to older Alaskans. Carpenter is a superb storyteller, and reading her work is much like it must be to listen to her reminisce.The stories, thus, are mostly personal and mostly of a positive nature.
One chapter, “Lives Lost, Lives Saved,” tells the story of tuberculosis in the region. In the early 1950s, the “unsung hero of modern medicine” Dr. Beryl Michaelson initiated in Bethel a tuberculosis drug and prevention program that people could follow at home — as opposed to being sent to distant sanatoriums, the usual treatment at the time.
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