Remembering the Mat Maid cooperative

PALMER — “I was completely devastated,” said Arlene Fox, “when I heard the Co-op Warehouse had burned to the ground.” Like most residents of the era – the 1930s through the 1970s – Arlene’s life revolved around the Co-op. In addition to running the farm, her dad was the first Co-Op warehouse manager, and the first colonist to join the Farmers’ Co-op. Her mom candled eggs for the Co-op and later managed the Trading Post; she then bought out the dry goods selection and opened “Benson’s Department Store” across the street in the original Trading Post/’Rec’ Hall.

Young Arlene enjoyed "free run" of the Matanuska Maid creamery and Co-op warehouse. She remembers riding the lift in the warehouse and running along the underground halls where the laundry and butchering areas were located. “I remember the odors”, she says, “each unique and strong.” Last autumn, in a tour arranged for her of the abandoned warehouse she was struck by “how small and narrow seemed the spaces which I remembered as cavernous and intriguing.” The two buildings offered a playground of sights, scents and sounds to explore, among the familiar and caring ‘village’ who watched out for her.

Her parents, newlyweds Irene and Henning Benson left Carlton County, Minnesota in April 1935 on a delayed, but extended honeymoon, with the faintest inkling of what awaited them. They were newly minted “colonists” heading to Alaska with no return date anticipated.

“Only honest-to-God, hardy, pioneer-type farmers” were considered for the Matanuska Colony project. Preference was given to couples between 25 and 40 years old, with Scandinavian backgrounds. The Bensons were a good fit.

Fortunately, the Bensons had four months of marriage under their belts, as the voyage was less than romantic. The couple shared quarters with seven other Carlton County families on the train to San Francisco. They sailed six days on the St. Mihiel from San Francisco to Seward, allocated bunks in separate hatches. The final leg, by train, debarked into the rain-soaked early evening on horse-and-vehicle-churned grounds of the newly erected tent city of Palmer.

Transient workers built their new house among eight similar tracts along Scott Road. Its plan included three bedrooms, kitchen and dining room, a living room, but no bathroom. There was no running water. A pump house covered the well, and water was hauled in for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. There was no electricity until December 1941, no phone until the mid-1950s, and no heating source other than wood or coal until the 1970s.

Daughter Arlene was born in November 1936. Their first crop! From an early age, she loved playing with the farm animals - horses, pigs (especially the baby pigs), and cows, when she wasn’t exploring the Co-op buildings.

Arlene attended all 12 grades in Central School (now the Mat-Su Borough Building), a member of Central’s last senior class in 1954. Subsequently, she completed secretarial school at the University of Washington, Seattle, and returned home to work for lawyer John Shaw. A brief first marriage produced a son, Jim, now living in Washington.

She met Charlie Fox while he was in the military at Fort Richardson where she worked as an accounts manager. They married in 1963 and had a son, Roger, also of Washington.

Charlie retired from the military, then later Alaska Sales and Service and finally from his own auto shop and U-Haul dealership on their home site on Bailey Hill. Arlene's love for baking and decorating cakes became a 20-year business creating wedding, birthday and special occasion cakes.

Arlene’s passion for her Swedish heritage led to a fondly remembered visit to Sweden where, with her mother, she explored where her grandparents had lived, walked the farms they had worked and met many relatives.

Today Arlene serves as Docent in the Colony House Museum, in the home of her godparents and longtime neighbors, Oscar and Irene Beylund. She stands among artifacts of her childhood: her baby crib tucked by the parent’s bed, her Scottie Dog toy watching over the children’s bedroom. The single metal cot was hers, too, after crib days. It was originally her parents’ colony tent bed. Her father hung the living room curtains on the day of her birth.

Years later, her family would facilitate donation of the Beylund House to the Palmer Historical Society. A committee formed for its new site and renovation to become Palmer’s focus for visualizing the domesticity of Matanuska Colonists.

“My family knew practically everyone from day one: homesteaders, settlers, colonists, replacements, Dena’ina, and newcomers,” Jim said. “Grandpa had a great sense of humor and Gramma was a great storyteller. Mom has both. People visited Gramma when they returned to Palmer to seek out their history. Now they come to my mother. We grew up in a house of connections and keeping up with our past. No wonder I fell in love with history.”

In 2011 Charlie died, leaving Arlene with poignant memories, her family, a global network of friends and relations, a heritage of the frontier spirit, and a desire to help others remake their own connections.

Barbara Hecker is a local writer and longtime teacher who writes Inky Visits, a regular history column for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. Send suggestions for places, events, and persons to visit and write about to InkyVisits@gmail.com.