Pioneer moved back to her Valley home

Nov. 23, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - One of Susanne McCausland's earliest memories is walking down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway with her mother, who was selling subscriptions for phone service, and visiting with farm wives.

The road was &#8220crooked as a dog's hind leg” back then, said McCausland, who was born in Anchorage and moved to the Valley about 1946, when she was 2. Before she was old enough to go to school, McCausland went with her mother, Grace Black, who signed up subscribers to a private phone company for $50.

&#8220It was hard, harsh and lonely for women then,” McCausland said. &#8220We'd go into the kitchens and the women would have coffee and cigarettes.”

After chatting for a while, the farm wives usually would decide to subscribe, and come up with money they'd stashed away. For $50, a subscriber received an oak phone that hung on the wall, McCausland said, and the phone lines were strung between trees.

&#8220It was an opportunity for women to connect,” she said. &#8220It lasted a few years. Everyone learned their rings, like two longs and a short. How much joy that phone brought.”

Her parents' home in the Valley was an old Colony house, and although her family had indoor plumbing, most houses didn't, and they weren't insulated either, she said.

&#8220It was really fun growing up here,” she said. &#8220There was a rawness. You always felt like you were on the edge of the wilderness. It was wonderful, but isolating.”

McCausland went to school at the University of Washington, where she met her husband, Syd. He'd visited Alaska when he was 11, and wanted to return and experience rough, remote Alaska living.

&#8220I said, ‘OK, we'll have a great Alaska experience, and live in my parents' cabin,'” she said. &#8220But he commuted to Anchorage every day, and guess who was having the great Alaska experience? I got cabin fever.”

Only about four people lived on Finger Lake then, and McCausland had no electricity and no running water in the cabin. When fishermen came by, she made them stop in for pie and coffee to ease her loneliness.

&#8220I talked them crazy,” she said.

Another thing she did was get half the people of the Valley mad at her, she said. Determined to help Mike Gravel in his Senate bid because she didn't like his opposition, McCausland and a friend went to every bar from Palmer to Talkeetna, staking out Gravel headquarters in the Valley for the &#8220taxi driver from New York,” she said.

&#8220At the Democratic convention, he nominated himself for vice president,” McCausland said. &#8220And then he fell over drunk. Everyone said, ‘Thanks a lot for getting a drunk elected senator.'”

Very pregnant with her first child, McCausland moved to the Kenai with her husband, who had been hired by investors from California to bring an electric company on line.

McCausland found the hospital padlocked, the town doctor being investigated for drugs, and candles in the hotel room drawer instead of a Bible.

&#8220When I saw the candles, I knew we were in trouble,” she said.

Her husband got all the generators restored, but the investors never paid him.

&#8220It took all our savings to get out of Kenai,” she said. &#8220We decided we had enough of Alaska and moved to California with a brand new baby.”

For the next 30 years, McCausland lived in the Golden State while her husband worked for four different governors.

About a year and a half ago, they retired and moved back to the Valley, buying a home near what once was the back of her parents' farm.

McCausland relishes two things in particular that she didn't find in California.

&#8220Old and new friends,” she said. &#8220Alaskans are very welcoming. And sweet air, that's something I really missed.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.