stefansson-wrangel-09-15-044

- 6 -

Alaska with her cousin - but she decided against that. Then she thought of a hotel or restaurant in Nome as her sister was a good cook and she could wait on the table. If hefm her mother would come to southeast Alaska, she would go because she had heard they got bigger prices for skin boots there, $5., $10, $15. - and very few people who made them. She would rather work she said, but now she had no skins. I thought I might find something in some movie studio where they used fur clothes for their northern pictures. She might make the coats - however we will see how that goes. If Larry is not back from Mexico I don't just know what I will do with her until I can get her to the ranch, as I am expected to go to work the day after I get to Hollywood, but I'll find some way. Mr. McMicken wanted to take her picture to-day but she ran away - she said she didn't want it. I think whatever Mrs. Gore told her frightened her. She said to me to-day that she didn't want to tell her story but "she said to herself" that she had better tell it or they would murder her. I laughed her out of that idea and tried to explain how they always kept the records of all expeditions for history - and since she was on Wrangell expedition her story was a part of true history. I said among her people there were story-tellers who kept telling the history of the tribes one to the other, but white people had a written history, and that was what this was for. She said "Oh! is that it" and seemed satisfied. I think she understands things very well.

She said to-day she forgot to show you the letters she had from Mr. Noice and the one about the money - when she was there. She doesn't seem to ask for anything - said she knew she had to watch her money closely and could only spend about $20, a month or she wouldn't have enough to go back to Nome - that she didn't want to touch anything that was in the Nome bank - that was for Bennett - only she had written some man in Nome to let her mother

-7 0

have "grub" and she would pay for it when she got back.

I wish you were on this trip. You could probably get her to talk of everything. I have discovered that she does not talk to more than one person at a time with any freedom - more people, even if she knows them all, seem to confuse her. Where we made a mistake in Seattle is that you did not try talking to her alone. I am sure she would have given you any information you sought. She has told me a number of times that all the "boys" were good to her - and a number of times she has spoken of Maurer as a good rustler and hunter - "if they were all like him" or they had native hunters they would have had more grub. These letters to you are the only notes I am making in detail. I come in as soon as I talk to her and write you the important or interesting things. People on the boat who know about her -five or six of them - are kind to her and the little boy is so cunning that people stop to talk to him. I hope it is not too late for Fannie Hurst to write her story. Let me know about this. Tomorrow we will be in San Francisco.

San Francisco. February 10, 1924

Dear V.S.

Reporters were on the deck. Ada would not be photographed! Just sent you a wire to the Harvard Club to say that Ada, Bennett and I were this far on the trip - safely and improving every minute. Ada finally got over being seasick yesterday and came out on deck in time to see the mountains and wish she were in Nome - homesick for ice and snow and wanted to walk miles into the mountains. She told me that the great dipper was "The caribou" and said her mother always said to her, "Ada look at it a long time and see if you can't see a caribou, but I never could." She seems more and more content and today she was very happy. When we went on a drive thru Golden Gate Park she sat with her hands clasped in her lap, saying Oh, Oh! - almost

- 8 -

under her breath. Finally she said, "If my mother could see this, I don't know what she would say. Maybe she would say nothing, just like I do." Later she expressed her feeling by saying "I do not know why white people want to come to Nome where there is ice and snow when they have everything so beautiful like this." Every flower engaged her attention, every bit of color.

My friends, the Keatings, met me at the boat. They expected to take me over to their home in Piedmont until to-morrow after but I did not like to leave Ada on the boat without me. So I went over for lunch, then they drove back over and we picked up Ada and Bennett at the ship and went out to the Cliff House and beach and thru the parks. Ada said she had never been on such a beautiful ride in all her life. I think the little boy saw everything. Mr. Keating was so fascinated by him that he hated to let him go. Bennett was busy teaching Mr. Keating Eskimo.

Ada is talking more and more freely to people. She told me to-night there were so many nice people. She talked quite a bit to Mrs. Keating - told her little things about the Island, how there were many polar bears, one or more every week, when she was there alone - and many walrus out on the broken ice the first year - "thousands by the noise they made." She always says "all the boys were good to her." She liked them all. I wonder what she did put into her story she dictated in Seattle. I was very sorry Marshall Jordon missed getting a copy of it to me for I could have supplemented the story by asking questions and getting her to enlarge on it. He said he would have a copy in L.A. for me, but if he doesn't please have one made. I don't want her to keep repeating to me if there is anything new to be found.

If there is anything you want me to ask her please send me the list of questions. Sometimes I think she I'll ask her about Noice' stories - but not until I know whether she has told it in the Seattle dictation. There is no use in going over it again if it has been done once.

- 9 -

I bought her a bunch of violets to-night. We walked up to the ferry building to send the wire to you and she saw the florists window. She could hardly be moved away from it, so I gave her some. "Are they for me?" she asked so surprised. There is something quite childlike and pathetic about the way she takes little things like that, while larger things she takes for granted.

I think what she said about her mother, "not being able to express herself", just sit still and say nothing" - expressed Ada very well. She seems to sit still and absorb. Last night I brought her on deck to see a masquerade dance and when the maskers came marching down the deck she stood just as close to me as she could stand until I explained what it all meant. She watched a girl in an Oriental costume, very thin (georgette and beads). Finally she said smiling "if I have a dress like that on Wrangell Island, I think I freeze to death very quick."

10 P.M.

I have just come up from Ada's cabin and I told her I was going to write to you and asked if she had any message for you. She said "please tell him I think him for trip."

I don't know whether you will think any of the things I write you about her of any value. Still out of them you may get something you want. This I know, the whole feeling toward you is changing, you are quite real to her now and a different person than the man she imagined sometime ago. Perhaps that is enough and if she stays out here until May and you talk to her yourself it will be the thing.

However, I have told her that whenever she wants to go back to Seattle she can go - and if she knows that, she can do as she pleases.

February 12.

It grows warmer and warmer and the calmest laziest sea

- 10 -

I have ever been on. We get in at 5:30 this evening, an hour and a half late. I don't know just what the trip will bring forth. I hope the foundation is laid for a good deal more confidence in you, and in other people.

I believe I have a new lead. I am beginning to think that her suspicion comes from talking to people who came down on the boat from Nome, who warned her against newspapers, photographers, explorers, and the human race in general. A very poor piece of business, I think. It came to my attention this way. In S.F. the photographers were there for papers - and reporters - she at once fled to her stateroom and locked the door and "refused to be interviewed." A photographer later got Bennett in the sandpile (a good picture at that) and as we walked up the street to the Ferry Bldg. there was the paper on the stand. Not knowing there was a story in it I bought the paper.

I had talked a few minutes to Mr. Dreyer, who was on the Seattle Times and now on the S.F. Herald, told him her destination and that you had given her the trip on account of Bennett's illness. For that he, without seeing Ada made up a two-column story. When Ada discovered this she said, "Here is my name. If I had known there would be all time papers to get story I would stay in Seattle." Then she followed it with, "if they tell things not true I'll give them hell." This being unanswerable I kept quiet.

After she had been angy a while, I told her that if she wanted to go back to Seattle she could just stay on the boat and ride back, as it made the round trip. That you had given her the trip down for Bennett, but you wouldn't want her to do anything she didn't enjoy. If she wanted to stay only a week in California that was all right, too, just as she wished. This she didn't answer. After a long time she said Marshall Jordan had read her a letter from Stefansson saying she could stay a month or two in LA. if she wanted to. I said that would be all right if she liked it and it did Bennett good.

She was still in silent mood when I went off at lunch time