For Wasilla waitress, customers are like family

HOUSTON -- When Jo Ann McMahill, her husband, Joe, and their three children moved to Alaska in 1986 their first experience was a tough one -- but one that brought the family closer and created a lasting love of the wilderness.

Moving from Illinois, where both Jo Ann and Joe were born and raised, Joe got a job at Joe Reddington's kennel in Petersville and the family later joined him.

"We'd never done anything like this. [Reddington] had this big pot of food for the dogs and we had to keep adding snow to the food and let it brew all day long," McMahill said.

The family had to learn to rough it, using snowmachines for transportation, melting snow for water and chopping wood for heat -- and had no communication with the outside world.

"It was wonderful though," McMahill said, adding that they neglected to bring a comb and ended up using a fork to comb their hair. "We'd never done anything like this -- it was my introduction to Alaska."

The Reddington kennels prepared the family for the home they bought in Houston, an original homestead they have been working on for 18 years as they raised their family. In Houston there was water, but again firewood had to be cut once a week. McMahill laughs remembering the first time she attempted to split a log.

"Joe was gone to Kenai and I could hardly pick up the mallet. I kept swinging it and hitting it until it was full of gashes -- but I never did get that darn log to split," she said.

The wood-cutting chore turned into a family affair, though, that each member of the family cherished.

"Joe would cut, my son, Myriah, would put it in the sled, and the girls, Larissa and Jennifer, would pull it to the deck and hand it to me and I'd stack it by the stove," McMahill said. "My children loved it."

Things weren't always easy, she said, but when times were tough Alaska's people always came through and showed their generosity. McMahill described their first Christmas in Houston, when they had little money and neighbors they barely knew stepped in to help them. One brought a tree from her yard in a bucket of rocks with a simple strand of lights and few ornaments. Another brought a turkey, homemade bread and the makings for a pumpkin pie. Some brought homemade presents. To this day, she said, it is the Christmas most talked about and cherished.

"They were giving from their heart, and that made it even more special," McMahill said.

It was the late 1980s, a time of economic depression, and though jobs were hard to find McMahill decided it was time to return to work. She said she started at one end of Wasilla -- which was much smaller in those days -- and worked her way to the other, putting in applications at every business along the way. By the time she made it home she had a call from Country Kitchen on the Parks Highway. She started working there as a hostess and met the man who would become her boss -- and part of her "Alaska family." George Karatzas was a cook at Country Kitchen when McMahill began working there. He later opened his own establishment, George's Family Restaurant, just a few miles down the road on the Parks Highway. In 1990, he asked McMahill to work for him as a waitress. She had never waistressed before in her life, but the job opened more opportunities to develop lasting friendships.

"Waitressing has provided me a family in Alaska, especially working in a family restaurant," McMahill said. "My customers are my family. And especially Debbie and George. They're family."

There are things about her job that get her irritated, though. Things people should understand and consider to make her job -- and their experience in a restaurant -- a better one.

"One thing is, we're servers, not servants," she said. "Like when a person orders, it would be so nice if when they have coffee they would say 'I'd like creamer and honey,' instead of ordering, then flagging us down for creamer, and again for honey. I try not to get upset about the small stuff though."

For the most part, McMahill loves her job and the people she sees each day.

"The people who are real here are real," she said. "When I lost my son [in 1993], they had a benefit at Red's [Bar and Grill] and at George's. They all came together for us. I never really said thank you, but everyone was great."

During a recent hospital stay, she said, regular customers visited her in the hospital as well.

McMahill says she has no intention of ever leaving Alaska. It can be a hard place to live, but the place -- and its people -- has taught her about herself, she says.

"Alaska's harsh; it shows no mercy," McMahill said. "But it forces you to realize who you are. At home [in Illinois], we're so absorbed in our family's lives we never take time to know who we are. When I come home and spend a lot of time with me, it has taught me to know me. I've gotten to where I know me well enough that I don't need anyone else. People at home tell me I'm different -- I say I'm better."