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By Root 336 0

from the land, second-generation practical thrower of flings, emotionally skittish of opening himself up like a suitcase, delver into details to the point of pedantry, dreamweaver on a professional basis—some of me is indisputably my father and my grandmother, and some I picked up along the way. But another main side of myself, I recognize with wonder in the reflection of my mother's letters. It turns out that the chosen world where I strive to live full slam—earth of alphabet, the Twenty-Six country—had this earlier family inhabitant who wordworked, played seriously at phrase, cast a sly eye at the human herd; said onto paper her loves and her fears and her endurance in between; most of all, from somewhere drew up out of herself the half hunch, half habit—the have-to—of eternally keeping score on life, trying to coax out its patterns in regular report, making her words persevere for her. Berneta Augusta Maggie Ringer Doig, as distinct as the clashes of her name.

Ivan is fine, growing like a weed, her pen closes off its last letter ever, June 19, 1945. You don't need to worry about him forgetting you, he remembers his Uncle Wally and knows what ship you are on. He'll probably have a million questions to ask when you get back.

A million minus one, now. The lettered answer of origins, of who first began on our family oceans of asking. As I put words to pages, I voyage on her ink.

The Doig family, replete with dogs as usual, before leaving Montana for Arizona in 1944.

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Acknowledgments

Carol Doig for her keen eye as a research photographer and manuscript reader, and her customary love and reliability; Dave and Marcella Walter for their knowledge of Montana and its history, and the loan of their four-wheel-drive rig for revisiting the Maudlow country; the late Anna Doig Beetem for details about Alzona Park; the Phoenix Public Library, the Arizona Historical Society, the Arizona Historical Foundation, the libraries of the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, and the Montana Historical Society for backdrop material about Arizona and Montana during World War Two; the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg for information and photos dealing with that community in 1945, and Linda Brown and Rosemary Clark at the Wickenburg Public Library for guiding me through the Wickenburg Sun files and other holdings; Elinore S. Thomas of the Corporate Communications Department of the Aluminum Company of America for information about the Phoenix defense plant workforce; Tab Lewis of the Civil Reference Branch of the National Archives for the Defense Plant Corporation floor plan and inventory of the Phoenix plant; Deborah Nash and Nathan Bender of the Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections at the library of Montana State University, for details of Bozeman in 1945; "Winona" and her husband for their hospitality and talk of the past; the Naval Historical Center, and particularly Bernard F Cavalcante, head of the Operational Archives Branch, for the action reports and war diary of the destroyer USS Ault, the National Archives for photocopies of the Ault's logbook from Dec. 1, 1944 to Sept. 30, 1945 and for the homestead file of Charlie Rung; David Palmer of Flinders University of South Australia, for the Kearny Shipyard specifications of the Ault, Marshall J. Nelson for being Marshall J. Nelson; R. L. Prescott for his memories of Allen and Winnie Prescott; the late Paul Ringer of Rockhampton, Queensland, for his reflective correspondence with me on the family feud between my father and my grandmother; Theresa Buckingham for her recollections of my mother and father, and for her insight on the way my father wore his hat cocked; Linda Bierds for being my volunteer muse on yet another manuscript; Joyce Justice of the Federal Records Center in Seattle, for steering me toward the relevant holdings in the National Archives; the late John Gruar for his recollection of my mother's trapline; Zoe Kharpertian for her deft blue pencil; Liz Darhansoff and Lee Goerner for their usual valuable ministrations in the book