Like a Mountain, She Creates Her Own Weather System: An Interview with Diane Carpenter, author of In the Winter of the Orange Snow

by Sandra Kleven

Diane Carpenter and I were working against a deadline. Cirque Press had to get her memoir into print and hard copies into our hands in time to manage a formal release at Bethel’s famous Cama-i Festival. Traveling from Alamos, Mexico, this would be her last trip to Bethel. A big deal for one with seventy years of history in Bethel and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Diane Carpenter, author of In the Winter of the Orange Snow, at her author and book signing table at the 2023 Cama-i Festival. Photo courtesy of Sandra Kleven

In the Winter of the Orange Snow covers the pranks and parties that took place in 1950’s Bethel when Diane and Bob (the new dentist) were in their ‘20s. More than this, Diane’s Bethel is a town that delights in connection and community coexisting with pre-statehood lawlessness. She writes, “Non-natives who moved to Bethel were independent and adventurous and liked its no-rules environment.”

I, too, have lived in Bethel, intermittently, from 1984 until 2004. My time in Bethel totals ten years if you piece each stint together. I knew a modern Bethel — one of commerce, technology and trouble. Diane tells an earlier story showing a rich history of cooperation and caring.

Diane gives this overview in the introduction to In the Winter of the Orange Snow.

Bethel was accepting, diverse, creative, and non-judgmental. Alaska was still a territory then with a total population of 180,000. [Bethel was] a remote town of 900 people that was only accessible by a 1-hour flight across the Alaska range… Our lives were enriched by the close interactions we had with the villagers in the surrounding Yup’ik and Athabascan settlements… We had no newspapers, TV, or telephones. Because of all this, “the town developed a culture of its own”. What made it unique was the way it combined the best of both the 50s and the 60s. We lived for the moment…

Last Trip to the Tundra

Cama-i is a late winter celebration of native dance held in March, while the river is frozen hard enough to bear traffic. Cars, trucks, and snow machines take the river route – the only route – to the hub town of Bethel, Alaska. Village dance groups take the stage in the high school gym until the school trembles with drumbeats and chants. This famous dance festival has been going on for 35 years. This event would provide a center to our Bethel trip.

With others on the Cirque Press production team, we had been working via Zoom for months. As we wrapped up credits for photos, PDF reviews, and corrections, Diane celebrated her 90th birthday in Alamos, Mexico. Reviewing her writing, I marveled at the grit shown in her adventures.

Because there are no roads between Bethel and the 54 outlying villages, commercial flights provide everyday transportation. Not cheap. Back in the ‘50’s, Diane confronted this transportation problem by buying a plane and getting a pilot’s license. Somehow that never occurred to me when met with similar circumstances in 1984. This kind of pragmatic daring leaves me shaking my head.

Unstoppable at Ninety

By mid-March, this hefty book was in our hands and the Bethel trip commenced. Friends drove Diane into Tucson, Arizona. From there she would fly to Alaska. Once in Anchorage, she told me, “There was a little mishap in Tucson.” When met at the Tucson drop off point by an attendant with a wheelchair, she was briefly left unattended. The wheelchair rolled backwards off the curb. “I fell to the street,” she told me, “and landed between the curb and the car.” Refusing a requisite 911 call just to be checked over, she directed her aide to roll her to the jet.

On arriving in Anchorage, after six hours in the air, she told me, “I’m kind of shaken up.” She spent the night in Anchorage then headed to Bethel for the pomp and celebration of launch events, media interviews and a last good-bye.

First up was a library reading where Diane was met by friends, some maintained for half a century. In the Winter of the Orange Snow was a hot commodity. Friday night, Diane met with a few fans and Rhonda McBride, a radio reporter.

Emergency

Later that night, we shared a light dinner at our AirBNB, conveniently located across the street from the organic farm run by her daughter Lisa and son-in-law, Tim Meyers. In this stormy, muddy town – they were our wheels.

Saturday morning, we were set to start book sales with a table, signage, and the author on hand. Dating from her arrival in the mid’50s, this was it – her final appearance. In the morning, sounding a bit alarmed, Diane told me, “I am having trouble breathing.” A portable oxygen concentrator had been left behind in Mexico. “I thought I could do without it for a few days.”

The wind was brutal hitting us with sideways needles of nearly frozen rain. Lisa and Tim came in a flash. Maneuvering into the gale, down the front stairs with a walker, we struggled to help Diane climb into Tim’s truck. Lisa and Tim took her to the hospital and left me at the festival to sell the books.

Corona Virus

They treated her breathing issues at the hospital and then sent me a text. “Mom tested positive for COVID.” Oh dear. I was absolutely exposed, too. Time to pack up book sales at the craft fair. Now what? 

The next day, we quarantined at Meyer’s Farm. Diane had no symptoms – never did get sick.  Neither did I. During that long Sunday, Tim and Lisa prepared soup and salads from their organic harvest. For an hour and a half, Diane and I talked. I recorded accounts from her early days as a pregnant and parenting music student to the ten years of homesteading at Stony River.

What has made Diane the unstoppable, unflappable, force of nature that she is? Some mountains create their own weather systems. Some people do, too. Diane is like that.

~~~

Sandy: What shaped you? How was it that you developed your tenacity?

Diane: I think part of it I was born with and then circumstances affected that. My father was a musician and we traveled around all over. We moved from state to state. I was a voracious reader. I never had other people that I was trying to fit in with. I was reading Mills and Hume when I was 11.

Sandy: Sound like this lifestyle freed you from the social pressures of public school.

Diane: True. I had an interesting life. I didn’t feel deprived. When my parents were divorced and the Second World War came, we moved in with our grandmother. There were four children and I had to help all the time. Then, my grandmother died, and my mother started working three jobs. As the oldest, I had to take care of the house and the children. That was from about ages 12 to 16.

Sandy: Early responsibility builds competence.

Diane: It does. I had skipped two grades and I got a full music scholarship to the University of Louisville. In 1949, after my junior year in high school, I entered the university. Nobody knew I was 16. I looked a lot older. Then Bob and I fell in love. He was trying to finish dental school before going into the service and so we got married. I unexpectedly got pregnant…

Diane: His parents paid his tuition but we worked two jobs all summer to make expense money for the winter. It just wouldn’t have occurred to either of us not to finish school.

Sandy: In the 1950s there were no programs for married or parenting undergrads.

Diane: Assistance had to be informal. Bob and I lived on $15 a week. Because of our shaky finances, the dean of the school found me a day job at an oil company. They gave me permission to sign up for classes, full-time, but I didn’t have to go to class. I would work all day and then leave the job at 5 pm to go out to the university.

Sandy: A demanding schedule when pregnant.

Diane: We made it work. At the stop where I changed buses, they would have a cheeseburger and a malt ready for me. I would run in with the correct change and transfer to the other bus. At school, other students kept class notes for me. My teachers would come out two nights a week to help me with practice and study.

Sandy: I can envision this. I, too, went to school while parenting. Requires lots of juggling and prioritizing. You had a lot of people pulling for you.

b They knew that I was determined to get an education. I played my junior recital seven months pregnant. After the baby was born, Bob’s mother babysat for the first six weeks after that I took the baby to school. My friends at the university found the biggest practice room. Everybody brought their old baby equipment and I took Kathy to school with me.

Sandy: At this point you entered your final year?

Diane: Yes, this is how I did it. On my left arm, I had my books, my music folio and my Viola. On my right arm, I had my purse, my diaper bag, and Kathy. I had to walk a block to the bus like that. I had to get on the bus sideways. I would have the correct change in my coat pocket and the bus driver would reach over and take it out.

Sandy: Amazing.

Diane: I managed to finish a bachelor’s in music education. College was one of the best experiences of my life. I was around people who I could feel comfortable talking about things that are important to me. This was the University of Louisville. Louisville School of Music.

Sandy: The support you got in school was unheard of, especially with the dean who set it up so you didn’t have to attend class.

Diane: That was amazing and that’s in 1951. I made four As and a B and got a good grade on my student recital… I learned fast.

Sandy: It seems uncommon for a guy of that age and era to be so accepting in a marriage to a resourceful woman – one with a mind of her own. What do you think made Bob the way he was?

Diane: Looking back, I would say he was so confident in his masculinity he did not have to be macho. We were just able to decide who is the best person to do this and who was the one to do that. I was an early feminist. I didn’t think I was ever going to even get married or have children. It was rare for a man of that age to be married to a feminist.

Sandy: This is well before the women’s movement of the 1970’s.

Diane: Our friends thought that we would never make it in marriage. We were just too different. They couldn’t think of anything we had in common. Bob was more of a nurturer than I was. Bob was raised completely differently. For instance, his parents had this envelope system. If they had a bill due in a year, they would take 1/12th out of their income each month and put it in an envelope so that when the bill came due, they had it. I mean it’s a wonderful idea but to me it seemed totally bizarre.

~~~

Bob died when Diane was 58 years old. Not long after, she had a stroke, and a prior stroke was discovered, then. To recover she went for six weeks to a spa in Mexico. At one point the instructor told her, “I’ve known a lot of people since I started working here and you have the strongest prana of anyone I’ve ever seen. Don’t worry Diane, you are going to get your health back.” These encouraging words had a tremendous impact on Diane. The unstoppable, Ms. Carpenter got better.

~~~

Sandy: As you began to think about writing this book what was your motivation?

Diane: It was such an amazing time. There were all these crazy people, interesting people, and events that happened that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else or at any other time. There are probably similar oddball characters everywhere. It’s just that you would never have had the chance to meet them. You might only know people who belong to your own church, or clubs, or your interest groups. At that time, community was everyone’s responsibility, and we had concern for others whether we knew them or not. Western culture’s priorities of acquiring money, status and power had not altered our world. I did not want these people to be forgotten.

~~~

Medical providers in Bethel move in and out in endless rotation. But Diane and Bob stayed. Until her move to Mexico at around age 70, the Bethel region was her home. Diane is now at work on a second memoir, covering the homestead years at Stony River. Diane and Bob would homestead in Stony River for ten years and set up a village there bringing in housing and electricity. They built an airport at Stony River and set up a school. During the first year at Stony River, she told me, “I had three kids under three in a one-room cabin. Every piece of cloth was put to service as a diaper.”

~~~

Diane: Every region had to set up an economic development plan. There were no organizations around to do it. I would have to write it. I was making it up, of course. Bob took time off and I moved out to a little guest cabin. It had a bed, a stove, a desk and a typewriter. I didn’t leave that building for two weeks and I wrote this economic development plan. It’s about an inch and a half thick.

Sandy: Bob knew you needed a room of your own.

Diane: Bob provided everything. Took care of the kids and he brought me meals. During the first five years in Alaska… I had absorbed a lot. I was asking questions and reading, so probably I knew more than I thought I did. We got the economic development plan in and qualified for all these federal programs. A year or two later the Alaska Federation of Natives hired an economist to prepare regional development plans and they built on what I had written.

~~~

Diane was an advocate for local jobs questioning the practice of outside developers bringing in lower 48 work crews. She fought effectively to give local people a say in matters concerning them. Returning to Bethel, Bob ran his practice for years until his passing. In the 1990’s Diane set up and ran a hotel and restaurant.

In the Winter of the Orange Snow covers a pre-statehood, Bethel. A frontier kind of place where laws were few and enforcement unwelcome. Diane and Bob were young, and the social mix included everyone – natives, non-native, old timers, newcomers. “Everyone helped each other. We depended on each other. We had to.” Also, as detailed in the book, they got away with everything short of murder.

Aside from many accounts of raucous and risky behavior, a deep warmth and mutual concern prevailed. Diane wants readers to know that this kind of supportive community once existed in Bethel because maybe the vision of how it was can make Bethel better today.

~~~

Diane Carpenter is dauntless. Everything physical is a challenge for her now; walking, seeing, hearing, breathing, but she carries on. Getting dumped to the street at the airport? No impediment. COVID impacting the Bethel victory tour was too bad, but we carried on. As noted, I didn’t get sick and Diane was never really symptomatic. She tested negative a few days later and flew alone to her hacienda in Alamos, Mexico. It was unceremonious but you take what you get and carry on. In the Winter of the Orange Snow is a top seller at Cirque Press. Readers can find a copy at the Southwest Alaska Art Group or on Amazon.