Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Information
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Glossary of Terms
About the Author
Contact Information
The Rose Sisters’ Island Adventure
© 2018 by Linda R. Mills
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-62020-798-7
eISBN: 978-1-62020-796-3
Cover Design and Page Layout by Hannah Nichols
Ebook Conversion by Anna Riebe Raats
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Dedication
This book is dedicated in loving memory of
My parents, Jack and Evelyn Rosengren,
who made every tour of duty an adventure,
and to
My sisters, Mary and Judy,
with whom I share a lifetime of treasured memories.
CHAPTER ONE
The Adventure Begins
June 1958
I LOOKED UP FROM MY puzzle spread out on the living room floor. Carol was adding bird seed to the feeder in Jimmy’s parakeet cage. Her curly dark brown hair dropped over the sides of her face as she leaned forward and carefully poured in the seed. Susie sat at the kitchen table cutting out paper dresses for her paper doll. It was like looking at Carol’s twin. She had the same curly brown hair, the same look of concentration on her tanned face. Everyone thought they were twins. Not only did they look alike, but they were the same height which was taller than me. Even though Susie was a year younger than me and Carol was three years younger than me.
Mom and Daddy had dark curly hair, too. I am the only blondie in the bunch.
“I’m bored. It’s too hot to play outside. What can we do?” I asked my sisters.
“Why don’t you go stand on your head, Annie?” Dad asked me with a chuckle as he entered the living room still wearing his khaki Navy uniform.
“Daddy! You’re home,” my sisters and I shouted together as we rushed to give him hugs.
“How are my girls today? Ready for some big news?” he asked as he removed his officer’s hat.
“What? Tell us, tell us,” we begged.
“I got my new orders today, and my new duty is not here in San Diego.”
“Are you going on another ship?” Carol wanted to know.
“How long will you be gone?” Susie chimed in.
“I hate it when you are at sea so long,” I added.
“Well,” he glanced up at Mother with a twinkle in his eye. “This time you are all going to get to go with me.”
“Oh, John. How wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful, girls?” exclaimed Mom.
“Yippee, Yippee!” yelled Susie, throwing her arms up.
“Where . . . where?” I was so excited, jumping up and down, that my blonde ponytail was swinging crazily back and forth.
“Calm down, everyone.” Dad sat down in the nearest chair. “Let me look at the name again to make sure I get it right.” He unfolded the papers, read for a second and then looked up at us. “Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.”
“Where’s that?” Mom asked. She walked up behind Dad and leaned over his shoulder to get a closer look at the papers.
“I am not entirely sure. I know it is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean,” he replied.
“Let’s look on the globe and see if we can spot it,” I shouted.
Susie ran and got the globe. The five of us circled around and stared intently. But no luck. We could not find Kwajalein.
“Are you sure that’s the right name?” Susie asked.
“Yes, my orders say Kwajalein, Marshall Islands,” replied Dad.
Mom put up her hand to get our attention. “I know, let’s look in the encyclopedia.”
I rushed to the bookshelf that housed our brand new set of World Book encyclopedias. “Do I get the K or the M volume?”
“Better grab both,” Mom said.
I grabbed both and handed the K volume to Susie, who had just finished fourth grade and was a pretty good reader. I kept the M volume for me. We had done a lot of work with encyclopedias this year in fifth grade so I felt pretty sure I could find what we are looking for.
Mom leaned over Susie as she flipped slowly through the pages. “KA . . . KE . . . KI . . . KO . . . KU . . . Mom, there’s no KW in here.”
“You are right. That’s odd.”
I interrupted. “I think I have it . . . Marshall Islands.” I read what I found to them. “Marshall Islands. A coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Eight degrees above the equator and approximately two thousand miles beyond the Hawaiian Islands. Currently a United States Trust Territory. Once held by the Japanese as a naval base, the base was taken over by US forces at the Battle of Kwajalein in 1944. The island is about two and one half miles long and one half mile wide at its widest point. A US Naval base is located on one half of the island and an airstrip on the other half.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Mom. “That doesn’t sound very big. How do we get there?”
Dad glanced at the papers again and pulled out a schedule. “We sail out of San Francisco on a Navy transport ship on August the eighth. It will take us eleven days at sea to get there,” he replied.
“Oh my, we have a lot to do in the next two months. Will we be able to go back to Minnesota to say goodbye to our folks?” Mother asked as she glanced around the room and looked at all the furniture and toys scattered everywhere.
“Yes, I will be through here at the San Diego base on June the thirtieth so if we can get everything packed, stored, and squared away here, we can use July to drive to Minnesota, see everyone and make it back to San Francisco before the ship sails on August the eighth.”
For the next month, it was a whirlwind of activity at our house. Dad put the house up for sale and found a buyer. Mom found out that all our furniture had to be put in storage because the high humidity on the island would ruin the cloth on the couches and chairs. We were going to be living on the base in Navy housing, and the houses already had rattan furniture (whatever that was). We had a limit of how many crates for household items we could take and suitcases, too. We were going to get to take our bikes because Dad was told that was the main way people got around on the island.
“But I don’t have a bike,” Carol wailed when she heard that. In our family, we get a bike on our eighth birthday, and she wouldn’t be eight until November.
“Don’t worry, I think we can make an exception in this case,” said Dad.
And that week, he brought home a new bike for her. “That is not fair,” Susie and I whispered to each other.
We began the tough task of deciding what to take and what to store or give away. Every time one of us would ask Mom if we could take another item, like my fuzzy doggie puppet or my Black Beauty horse statue, she would say, “If it will fit in your suitcase.”
All three of us got really good at packing a suitcase. Finally everything was packed, either for storage or to be taken with us on the ship. We were as ready as
we could be.
Now the long drive to Minnesota to say our goodbyes to the relatives.
CHAPTER TWO
The Minnesota Goodbye
July 1958
“ARE WE THERE YET,” CAROL asked from the backseat. She sat between Susie and me. She was fidgety and bored and kept bumping into me while I was trying to read my Nancy Drew mystery book.
“Goodness, honey. We have been on the road only a few hours,” Mom replied from the front passenger seat.
“I’m hungry. When can we eat our lunch?” Susie asked as she closed her paper doll book and leaned forward.
“Well, I guess it is almost lunch time. Evie, why don’t you go ahead and make our sandwiches and I’ll keep driving,” Dad suggested.
Mom reached into the bag at her feet and pulled out a wooden cutting board, and then opened the glove compartment and placed the board on the flap that hinged down.
“This board is a perfect fit, John. You did a great job making it.”
Next Mom pulled out a loaf of bread, cheese, mustard, and a cutting knife from the bag. She cut slices of cheese on the board and made sandwiches for us. After placing them on napkins, she passed them to each of us. Then she put away the bread, cheese, and knife and poured us cups of milk from one thermos and coffee for Daddy and her from another thermos.
“Just like uptown, only closer to home,” Daddy declared. “Evie, you’re a wonder.”
“Oh, John.” Mom blushed.
My parents were so cute together. A little mushy sometimes, but still cute. We contentedly munched on our sandwiches as we watched the scenery flash by. When we finished our lunch, we played the alphabet game, pressing our faces against the windows to be the first to spot a word on the billboards that started with the next letter we were looking for. I hated it when I got to Q. That was a tough one.
“Can we swing by a hospital for a minute?” I asked.
“What’s wrong, are you sick?” Mom asked anxiously.
“No, I need a Q and maybe they will have a sign in front that says ‘quiet, hospital zone’.”
Susie chirped in. “Good idea, I need a X. Maybe they will have a sign about X-rays.”
“You girls are too much,” Daddy laughed.
Our trip took a few days, each one a repeat of the day before. Only the scenery changed. From winding steep roads through the Rocky Mountains to the long flat stretches of corn and wheat fields of the Kansas and Nebraska farmland there were numerous reminders from Dad to look for the Texaco star because it was time to get gas.
The nights were spent in roadside motels where Mom would remake one of the two double beds so that the sheet on the top, bottom and one side were tucked in and one long side were open where we could slide in. The three of us girls laid horizontally on the bed with our toes at one long side and our heads at the other long side.
Finally, we arrived in Long Lake, Minnesota. We came to Thies Crossroads where Highway 6 and Willow Drive met. Dad made a left turn onto Willow Drive. On the corner to our left stood the brown stucco farmhouse where my Mom was born and raised. Behind that was the weathered barn where Grandpa’s two teams of Belgian workhorses stayed. Scattered about the property were various outbuildings for pigs, chickens, tractors, plows, and other equipment. A tall silo stood to the right of the barn holding silage to feed the livestock next winter.
Further down the road on the left was a pasture and a pond. Straight across from that on our right was Grandma and Grandpa’s new house. They had built it a few years back when they moved out of the farmhouse and sold all their dairy cows. As we pulled into the gravel drive, we passed the row of weeping willows edging the drive on the right. Grandma was already standing on the kitchen stoop, waving and smiling, her white hair pinned back loosely in a bun. My sisters and I started waving and shouting at the same time. As soon as the car came to a stop, we piled out of the back seat and rushed up to Grandma.
“We’re here. We’re here.”
“Where’s Grandpa?”
“Are the cousins here yet?”
“Can we ride the horses?”
“Did you bake today?”
“Girls, give your Grandma some room. Hi, Mom. How are you? It’s so wonderful to see you,” Mom said as she reached out to give Grandma a hug.
“You are finally here. You must be so tired from the long drive. I baked fresh bread this morning and a double batch of cinnamon rolls. I knew you and your mother would ask,” she said with a smile. “Grandpa is out in the fields helping Great Uncle Frank, but he will be here when it is supper time. Let’s go in the house and have a glass of nectar and sample some of those rolls.”
We went to bed early that first night because we were all tired from our traveling. Grandpa wasn’t even in from the barn yet. Carol, Susie, and I got to sleep upstairs in the attic in Mom’s old iron bed. The mattress was soft, and there were several homemade quilts piled on it, even in the summer time. You could lay in the bed, all nestled in, and look out the window and count the stars. The stars always seemed brighter when we were out at the farm.
The next morning, we woke up at eight o’clock and rushed down to breakfast. Grandpa greeted us as he sat down at the kitchen table. In front of him, his plate was loaded with eggs, bacon, pancakes, and toasted homemade white bread covered with homemade strawberry jam. Grandma filled his cup with steaming hot coffee and placed a plate with a big slice of apple pie down next to his cup.
“Pie for breakfast?” I asked amazed.
“Your Grandpa has been at the barn doing chores since five this morning throwing down bales of hay from the loft for the horses, feeding the pigs and chickens and giving them all water, then cleaning out all the stalls. He has worked up an appetite,” Gram told us.
Boy, I wish I could have dessert for breakfast. But I know Mom will never let me get away with that. A girl can dream though, I thought.
That month in Minnesota was full of action-packed days. We rode on the tractor with my Grandpa and picked strawberries in Grandma’s strawberry patch.
“Ann, you are supposed to be putting them in the basket, not eating them all,” Susie had chided.
“I am. I have a system. One for the basket . . . two for me,” I smirked as I popped another juicy berry in my mouth.
Susie, Carol, and I spent a lot of time at our Aunt Trudy and Uncle Joe’s house playing with our cousins. There were six of them. The two oldest boys, Will and Bobby, had to help our uncle in the fields and with the milking and the oldest girl, Joan, helped her mom in the house fixing meals for the family and help. But Maggie, Cecile, and Marie were near our ages so we played King on the Mountain in the hay loft, helped pick the vegetables, pulled weeds in the garden, fed the baby pigs, and even got to collect eggs from the chicken coop.
Our cousins couldn’t understand why we thought doing chores were so much fun. Some days, we would play in the fields or walk down to the lake in the far pasture. In the evenings, my Uncle Sy and Aunt Sonya would come over after the milking was done. The grownups would visit or sometimes we would all play cards or a board game together. Then at night about nine-thirty, Aunt Trudy, Aunt Sonya, and Mom would put out cold cuts, bread, potato salad, pickles, and desserts. We would eat before we headed back to Grandma’s.
Finally, Dad said, “Evie, we need to get these girls in bed. Come on, girls, say thank you and let’s get in the car.”
Our family always said the longest goodbyes. I call it the Minnesota Goodbye. We hugged and thanked everyone and went out the back door to the sidewalk that led to the driveway. Mom, Dad, and the aunts and uncles stood on the stoop just outside the kitchen door and kept chatting.
“They’ll be talking a while,” my cousin Maggie said. “Let’s catch fireflies.”
We six girls ran around the driveway cupping our hands to capture a firefly, and then peeked inside our hands to watch it blink on and off.
About ten minutes later, Dad called out, “Girls. We are going. Get in the car.”
We hopped in the car
and my aunts and uncles slowly walked my parents down the sidewalk and stood by the car door chatting as Mom and Dad got in the car.
Dad rolled down the window and said, “Well, this was great. We enjoyed it. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
Finally, he put the car in gear and started around the circular drive to go out to the main road. I looked back and waved to my relatives. They stood there in the driveway and waved until we were out of sight.
Nobody does a Minnesota Goodbye like my family, I grinned and thought to myself.
Other days, we visited our other grandparents at their house in North Minneapolis and slept on the sofa bed in the sun room when we spent the night. Grandma Rose baked us crisp paper-thin sugar cookies that would melt in your mouth. We played gin rummy and watched the grown-ups play bridge. We visited all of Mom and Dad’s cousins and waited patiently each time we got ready to leave and they went through the Minnesota Goodbye.
The month passed quickly and soon it was time to say our final goodbye. Dad arranged to store our car in one of Grandpa’s buildings, and Uncle Sy drove us to the Minneapolis airport where we boarded our flight. I took turns sharing the window seat with Susie and Carol so we could get a last glimpses of what all five of us always referred to as home.
I looked to my Mom, who brushed away a tear quickly before she said, “Now, when we land in San Francisco girls, we will check in at the base and try to get a good night’s sleep. We will have to be up very early to go down to the pier and board the ship for Kwajalein.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Voyage
August 1958
I THOUGHT I WOULD NEVER fall asleep from the excitement, but I must have because suddenly Daddy’s voice awoke me.
“Reveille, Girls. Time to get up. We need to get to the ship.”
I jumped out of bed wide awake for the first time in my life, and started putting on the clothes that Mom had laid out for me the night before. I joined Susie and Carol at the bathroom sink where they were brushing their teeth.
“Mmmmphph,” Carol sputtered.
“Huh?” I replied.
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