Letters to Mother

1 Letters to Mother When Grandma Engelson passed away she left one box of photographs and letters. Mom, Dad, Brian and I looked at the photos first, put some in albums, and sent some pictures away to others in the family. The letters in the box were those that she had received over the years and must have meant something to her. These letters were not read by us until much later. Here are a few of them placed in order by date. I will put explanations of some of them in italics for those of you that don’t remember much of the 30’s and 40’s My dad, Harold, had joined the British Columbia Provincial Police a few years before. He was posted to Alert Bay on the British Columbia Coast. In 1934, he married mom, who was Aunty Anna to most of you. These letters begin shortly afterwards. 2 Aug 30th 1935, Alert Bay, BC Dearest Mother: Received your dear letter about two weeks ago on or when we got back from our Holidays. I guess you will think us pigs for not coming to see you. I must explain and tell you all we did do. First we did not go home to Fraser Lake as we planned as it would cost us too much to rent a car. So we stayed in Vancouver and rented an apartment for ten days and just went and saw a lot of shows. I bought Harold some new clothes which he sure needed. A new top coat and some shoes, slacks, shirts and a tie and socks and he also got some new Radio stuff and then he bought me a new stove with an oil burner in it. I got a new hat and blouse. By that time we were ready to go home to Alert Bay. I am sure happy with my new stove as its so clean. It’s all enamel, cream and black. I hope you won’t be mad at us for not coming over seeing we were so close but the time went so fast and we slept every day until twelve. Harold had a real good rest and he looks great. When we got back they all said he looked like a Million. I sure wish you could come and see us sometime soon. Bobby promised me that as soon as he worked for awhile he would give you the fare up here. I hope he hasn’t forgot that. Gee, I’d love to have you, no-fooling. How is every one and everything. Please write soon. 3 I am knitting Harold a white sweater with long sleeves for his Birthday. I tried to keep it a secret from him but it did not work. He was sleeping late one day after a late night and I was sneaking in the bedroom for some more wool and he sat up in bed and said, You are knitting a white sweater, Eh?. I hope it has long sleeves in it. Can you feature that! Well I must say good-night now and go to bed. I don’t know if I will sleep as the fog horns and boats are making an awful racked outside. It’s just thick. I hope Harold is safely tied up someplace. Lots of Love and Kisses, Anna and Harold At this time there were no cars in Alert Bay. Almost everyone there was an Indian. Travel was done by foot or boat. Pic above is of Dad’s Police boat. Pic below is Alert Bay’s cemetery 4 June 21st 1936, Aboard the Princess Louise en route to Skagway from Alert Bay Dear Mom, Anna and I have been transferred to Atlin and are now on the way. We were told about it last Wednesday and had to leave this morning. I will be in charge of the District which is a promotion. We are both very pleased about going up into that country as everyone seems to think it is a swell place except those that have never been there. One thing about it is that you will be getting a lot more letters from as as I do not expect to be so busy. I will be sending you some pictures of the place and our dog team etc. I bet Pop would like to be up there and maybe he will be one of these days. The picture is of Anna on the “Louise” on the trip to Skagway. They gave us a big party last night and everyone was down to see us away at 10 AM this morning. They sure were nice to us. We are on the tourist boat and there are 306 passengers. 9PM the orchestra is going to start up. Uncle Bert said he could have had the job on here if he had wanted to. It sure would have been swell if he had... (pretty music now) Anna has not been at all well until the last week and then all this excitement about moving came along. I think the change will do her good. We will be having a nice rest on the boat anyhow. We arrive in Skagway next Wednesday PM and Atlin on Saturday. We bought enough groceries to last us till the end of September. Then we will have to get our Winter Supplies in. Eggs are 85 cents per doz up there and I suppose everything else is in comparison but we expect to make more money. 5 They are expecting us all to sing now so I suppose I will have to quit writing. Anna says she is going to put a page or two in here too so I will say goodbye for now Mom and be looking forward to seeing you when I get down on escort which will be by plane I believe. Your loving son Harold. Uncle Bert is Bert Cartwright who has a regular job playing piano with the house orchestra in the Empress Hotel in Victoria. Dearest Mom: I am trying to write and sing Happy Days Are Here Again at the same time so I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. It’s such a long time since I wrote too that I am almost ashamed to write now. I hope you will forgive us. Its not that we don’t think about you every day as we do. I haven’t been feeling very well for a long time. But hope the change of climate will fix me up again. I am so proud of Harold I could just about eat him up as so many Constables have tried to get up there and we didn’t even try and we got it. Harold has told you all about it in his letter so I wont repeat it. We will sure love to write often now. We have our cats and dog Sarge with us too and all our furniture of course. This is the first time Harold has sat down with me to write letters for ever so long, about two years. Can you beat that. The picture above is of Skagway about the time mom and dad moved to Atlin. 6 Vancouver to Atlin 1934- Take the White Pass Railway from Skaqway to Carcross - Paddlewheeler south on Tagish Lake to Taku Landing - Taku Railway (all of 2 miles to Scotia Bay on Atlin Lake - MV Tarahne 4 miles across the lake to Atlin. July 18th 1936, Atlin BC Dearest Mom: Received your dear letter yesterday and thanks alot We are settled as far as it goes now tho we have a lot of painting to do. Gee, the man that was here before, he sure didn’t know a thing about keeping a house clean. Harold and Sergeant Clinton were disgusted when they saw it. I didn’t say a lot but I thought plenty. I’ve scrubbed continually for three weeks now and I have the first layer off but that’s all. I’ve never seen dirt that was so rubbed in. But Atlin itself makes up for all that as it’s just beautiful up here and the people are grand. Harold likes his work here. He sure has plenty of it too as there is a strike at one of the mines and he is out there in the daytime and does his office work at night. We have a nice motor boat and a Tennis Court right across the street and wooden side walks and a picture show (Globe) The only thing is the groceries are so high. 22 cents for a tin of milk and everything accordingly. 10 small old potatoes 50 cents, not bad Eh. Of course our house, fuel and gasoline is gratis. We buy our water at 6 cents a bucket from a man that comes around 3 times a week. Next year we are sure going to have a large garden. Eggs are 85 cents a dozen. We brought with us $75.00 worth of groceries. I wish we had got a 7 lot more. We could have paid for it later on and the freight would have paid for itself. I mean the Gov would have paid for it with our furniture. Harold is going to get a Motor Bike. I don’t want him to, but he has to pay $5 a trip if he goes out to the mines and he figures if he gets a bike it will pay for itself in no time.

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