Last week I blogged about the little red house my family lived in when my sister was born. I've been searching for addresses where we lived and found one in a newspaper article: 412 Craig Avenue in the Hamilton Acres development in Fairbanks. So I went to Google Earth to see what I could find!
I remember that, when we lived there, it was close to a major highway, which can be seen running from the upper left to the lower right on this image:
The house we lived in had front steps that I fell on once. Left a scar on my knee that didn't disappear for years. It's also where my dad built a sheet metal "swimming" pool for us. Looks like they have done some remodeling, at the very least...
There was a fire station directly across the street but it doesn't look like it's being used anymore!
And there was a grocery store (a Piggly-Wiggly, I think) next to the fire station.
Not sure it's still a market...looks like things have changed a lot since the early '60s!
Beulah Belle (Yawman) Spurlock and
Jennifer Jeannine Spurlock, October 1958.
Digital image. Original in possession of Denise Spurlock,
[ADDRESS WITHHELD FOR PRIVACY], 2011.
Affectionately known as the "little red house," this is one of the houses in which we lived in Fairbanks, Alaska. The street address was 424 First Street. I have a few pictures of the interior of the house. It was only one bedroom, and the family story is that Jennifer slept in a drawer at the foot of my bed when she was a baby.
I tried to find the house using Google Earth, but was unsuccessful. The image that comes up is a multi-story building which appears to be in the downtown area, so I suspect the street name has been changed or the "little red house" no longer exists.
Sometime in 1957 or early 1958, my family moved from California to Fairbanks, Alaska; I think perhaps my father had been there before, maybe as early as 1953.
My sister's birth certificate states that my father, Jasper Jackson "Jack" Spurlock, was employed by Greer Sheet Metal in Fairbanks. I tried a Google search and came up with a hit for Greer Tank and Welding in business since the early '50s. I emailed their Fairbanks location inquiring whether it was the same company, and if so, whether they would have any employment records for my dad. I wasn't sure I would get a reply, but I did; unfortunately, it was not the same company.
I recall hearing that Daddy had been to both Nome and Point Barrow, Alaska, and also that he worked on the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line. The DEW line was a series of radar stations in the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland built during the Cold War to provide advance warning of enemy air or missile attacks over the North Pole. President Eisenhower authorized U.S. participation in construction in 1954; it was completed and deemed operational in July 1957. This map shows the location of the radar stations:
Map from Wikimedia Commons.
Drawn by federal employee, and in the public domain.
I also found several YouTube videos about the DEW line. Here is a short one, just over two minutes, which was uploaded by the National Archives:
Work on the DEW line would have accounted for Daddy being in Point Barrow, but I'm not sure how he came to be in Nome. He did tell us he had looked across the Bering Strait on a clear day and was able to see Russia. It's not likely that experience was a comfortable one, given the state of U.S.-Russia relations at that time!
