A cedar chest that came with the Hess family in 1935 and then went back with them to Wisconsin in 1936 now sits in the Colony House Museum in Palmer. The family heirloom spoke through generations about the Hess family's time in Alaska. The Hess family donated it to the museum. Colony House Museum maintains a "mug book" of the 203 families that settled in the area as part of a New Deal initiative.
We were a group of eight ladies sitting in a circle in the living room of the Colony House Museum, gathered for our annual docent meeting in May 2024. The Colony House Museum features all things relating to the 1935 United States government New Deal project that brought 203 families from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to the Matanuska Valley to create an agriculture community.
The phone rang during the middle of our brainstorming discussion about how to recruit desperately needed volunteers. For various reasons, we were extra short for the 2024 season. The Palmer Historical Society board president, Sheri, said to just let it ring. Most of the time, there is no one around and if important, the caller could leave a message. But Barb, the head docent, decided to answer the phone. We continued without her.
When she returned, she said that someone wanted to come see an item their family had donated and she had told them they could come in half an hour, as our meeting would be over by then. Sheri was a bit panicked, knowing sometimes finding a specific artifact (which might only be a piece of paper) could take some time. Sheri asked what the donation was and Barb said she didn't know. She said it had been hard to hear during the conversation with the male caller because he was at the Palmer Ale House (with a lot of background noise) and we were quite loud at her end, too.
We continued with our business meeting. In about half an hour (while Sheri was explaining how to accept credit cards to pay for items in our gift shop) we all heard the front entry door of the museum open. Whoever came in waited patiently until we adjourned. Then we all turned to see a man in his 50s walk in. (We later learned his name was Keith.) He was barely into the living room, when he said, "I can tell you a story about that trunk"...pointing to a cedar truck we use as a "coffee table" in front of the couch. He immediately launched into what turned out to be a fascinating story. Some of us were in a hurry to get on with our day, but all of us ended up lingering longer, the more he spoke.
Keith said he was familiar with the cedar trunk, because he had sat on it while putting on and taking off his shoes every day for six years. It belonged to his wife's family. When she offered it to the Colony House Museum (and we happily said yes), he was the one who packaged it, took it to a UPS store, and paid $900 to have it shipped to the Colony House Museum (actually to Sheri's house). Of course, Sheri well remembered the arrival of the cedar trunk at her home and at this point, told us that it belonged to the Hess family. The museum has a much-used three-ring binder, which contains a page of information (and photo if available) for every one of the 203 colonist families, including the Hess family of five. We call it the "mug" book.
It turned out that Keith's father-in-law (Richard) was a boy of four when his family came to Alaska in 1935. The family of five stayed only one year before returning to Wisconsin and the cedar trunk went back with them. (If a family decided to leave before the first year was up, the government paid their way back to Seattle. If they decided after the first year was up, the family had to pay their own travel expenses.) There was a long wait list of families willing to take the place of those who chose not to stay.
Their year in Alaska had a huge effect on the entire Hess family, especially Richard. He loved to talk about Alaska his whole life and had an entire bookcase of Alaska books in his home in California. The cedar trunk meant so much to him. Each colonist family could bring an amount of belongings not to exceed the weight set by their state. Some colonists were allowed to bring up to 2,000 pounds of belongings and others as little as 375 pounds. Keith's voice broke as he told us that the Hess family was so poor, all they brought with them was what fit inside the cedar trunk.
Richard moved to California as an adult. The trunk eventually went to California after his parents died. Richard told his children that the cedar trunk was NEVER to be given to Goodwill. He had three children and after he died, the trunk went to his daughter, Keith's wife. She was the one who came up with the idea of contacting the Colony House Museum to see if we were interested in acquiring it. Keith talked about how poor the family was only two generations ago...and how things turned around and that Richard's three children all have very successful careers.
We all had been standing there hanging on Keith's every word...touched by how much the trunk meant to him...not even a blood relative. Sheri asked him (half seriously) if he would like to be a docent at the museum. He replied that he would be working 70 hours a week for Holland America as a bus driver/tour guide until September. He planned to tell the story of the cedar trunk as he gave information about Alaska to the tourists on his bus. That is part of the reason he wanted to see the well-traveled trunk in its final home. He would tell how it traveled from Wisconsin to Alaska, back to Wisconsin, then on to California, and now sits in its final place of honor at the Colony House Museum. He said he planned to end his story by saying that if anyone desired to see the cedar trunk, they could do so by visiting the Colony House Museum in Palmer.
At that point, some of us did leave, but Barb and Sheri stayed to show Keith the page about the Hess family in the "mug" book, as well as a tract map and the location of the Hess house. His unexpectedly moving account of personal Colony House Museum history was the highlight of our day.
A week later, Sheri told this story to those who attended Palmer Historical Society's May History Night. Afterwards, three of us docents talked further about the rewarding result of Barb answering the phone call that disturbed our docent meeting, and agreed that Keith telling the story about the cedar trunk would help make good memories for many visitors to Alaska.
Maraley McMichael is a lifelong Alaskan now residing in Palmer. Email her at mara- leymcmichael@gmail.com.
