MEANWHILE: Hardscratch Press is proud to have received the Alaska Historical Society's “Contributions to Alaska History” award, with special mention of Family After All: Alaska's Jesse Lee Home. Volume II of Family After All has also been nominated for the Alaska Library Association's “Alaskana Award.” (Click on the cover images to the right for ordering details.)

From the Qutekcak Native Tribe of Seward: Family After All “is a testament to the survival and persistence of today’s Alaska Native elders. [It] has brought history to life for our children. …”

“… New material that marks a major contribution to the body of Alaskan literature. … The tactful discussion of issues such as race [is] especially important. … The story of Alaska’s boarding schools and orphanages is only beginning to be told.”  —Former Alaska bibliographer Bruce Merrell.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine such a thorough, well researched book would ever emerge on Jesse Lee.  It should be in every school library in Alaska. …”  —Former Jesse Lee Home matron Betty Epps Arnett.

“... Mostly it’s about the resiliency of childhood, how loss can lead to redemption, how happiness can be found in the smallest and simplest of places. ... ‘Right after supper we started for home,’ resident Marie Devine wrote [Vol. II]. ‘Most of us were tired and sleepy and didn’t feel much like singing. We did stop several times on the road to pick berries. Jesse Lee Home sure was a welcome sight for our sore eyes.’

“For hundreds of children, that’s exactly what it was.” —Cynthia Ritchie in First Alaskans.

NOTE: The Puyallup Tribe of Washington state hopes to hear from people, including Alaskans, with experiences in boarding schools and other vital history for tribal archives. Details at www.puyalluptribalnews.net/article/732, or call Amber Santiago at 253/573-7965.

“Henry Ramsey's open-ended conversation with his descendants is a gift for any reader. His frank and eloquent account of the journey from Jim Crow childhood to a life of activism, public service, and high achievement will be familiar to some, a revelation to others. The challenge he issues is for all: Never forget our past. Never stop working for our future. Always cherish our children.” —Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO, NAACP.

(The Life Story of Henry Ramsey Jr., of Rocky Mount, N.C., and Berkeley, Calif., is 6x9 inches, 600 pages, soft-cover, with many photographs and a full index; $25. ISBN: 978-0-9789979-3-9.) 

Autumn Loneliness “will be of interest to anyone fascinated by the cultural relations between Japan and the United States in the decades after Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. What is unexpected is that, while it tells some part of that story—a story of healings, border crossings, cultural cross-breeding—it does it in the form of letters that are an intimate and moving portrait of a marriage, as absorbing and delicate as a Japanese novel or a film by Ozu.”  —Robert Hass, professor of English, UC Berkeley; U.S. poet laureate, 1995-1997.

(Autumn Loneliness: The Letters of Kiyoshi & Kiyoko Tokutomi, July-December 1967, translated by Tei Matsushita Scott and Patricia J. Machmiller, is 368 pages, 6x9 inches, soft-cover, with many photos, two glossaries, and an index of names; $27.50. ISBN: 978-0-9789979-4-6.)

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Historic Livermore, California: A-Z, already in second printing, is a generously illustrated and impressively researched encyclopedia of facts, photos and artifacts from Livermore author Anne Marshall Homan. The book “offers further proof that we Californians are living in a golden age of local history. What a pioneering and useful work of scholarship she has produced!” says Kevin Starr, professor of history at the University of Southern California. In 2008, the Bay Area Independent Publishers Associ-ation named Historic Livermore A-Z  as “Overall Best Book” (a tie) plus “Best Interior” − well-deserved honors for author Anne Homan and designer David Johnson. Anne Homan's Morning Side of Mount Diablo is also in second printing. Both books are available direct from the author, via annemarshall_2000@yahoo.com or 925/443-9440. See the Catalog page for more details.

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This is not to forget two remarkable nonagenarians:

Any Tonnage, Any Ocean: Conversations with a resolute Alaskan: Walter Jackinsky Jr. of Ninilchik, Alaska, signed on at age 47 as an ordinary seaman for the 1963 launch of the M/V Malaspina, first of Alaska's famed marine highway ferries. Thirty-four years later he retired as senior captain and honorary commodore of the entire fleet. Any Tonnage, Any Ocean melds Alaska Native history and family drama, zest for travel and deep roots in the home place. The title refers to Jackinsky's hard-won master mariner's license—“high as you can go,” he says with pride. Even more it conveys his no-limits approach to life in general. Today, fishing for salmon on Kachemak Bay or traveling the world, he still relishes the ride. As Alaska book reviewer Dee Longenbaugh noted in the Sitka Sentinel (also heard on KTOO public radio in Juneau), “If you feel sad about missed opportunities but too old to change, don't get a self-help book; buy Jackinsky!”

In Fin, Fur & Fiber: The life and [fishing] times of a New England textile man, antiques and art dealer Nelson F. Getchell tells his part of “a broad stretch of history” with extraordinary recall and dry, sometimes mordant New England wit, offset by the loving homage paid his parents and grandparents. “My father saw the last days of sailing ships; I am experiencing the last days of the American textile industry,”  he notes with regret. “Fur & Fiber”  are well accounted for in his salty reminiscences. But “Fin” rightly gets top billing. From New England to Alaska and Newfoundland to Florida, from early boyhood to the current season, on two oceans and countless streams – Nelson Getchell has fished and still fishes. His first date with Martha, his wife of more than 60 years, was a moonlit outing in hip boots, hand-fishing for smelt. In the final chapter of his recollections, about the pets of a lifetime, he salutes a succession of fine dogs and memorable cats but reserves sentiment for George, a fish out of water. A good life, well told.

"Each of the memoirs published since Hardscratch's founding in 1990 is handsome and meticulous in detail, illustrated with carefully chosen photographs and hand-drawn maps. ... They ask to be picked up and leafed through." – Contra Costa Times