Vuka: Destination Alaska

By Vladimir Radovic

Vukas elopement in 1928 caused a major scandal in a small Adriatic port. Wise Mike, a mature sourdough, organized her voluntary kidnapping and took her on a venturesome journey to Alaska, where he had struck gold.

In defying local customs and in breaking a taboo, she chose personal happiness over family constraints. She fell in love with the adventurer, endured frigid nights and freezing winds, and fully apprehended the majestic beauty of a distant frontier.

The text traces the life story of this Southern Slav woman without formal education but far ahead of her time. Independent and wealthy, she was most at ease at her Fairbanks Creek, in the midst of astonishing nature and at peace with the essential. There is an endowment in her name at a university in California entitled the Power of Good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504979641

Vladimir Radovic

Born in Belgrade to a Serbian mother and a Montenegrin father, Vladimir Radovic graduated in economics and political science from universities in Chile, France and the United States. He spent most of his professional career at an international financial organization. This is his fourth published manuscript.

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© 2016 Vladimir Radovic. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/12/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7966-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7965-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7964-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: Pending

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

The Note

Part One

Motel California

Kastradina and the Old Place

The Dual Heritage

The Families

Before They Met

An Unorthodox Match

The Journey

A Correspondence

The Scarsdale Conversations

California Dreaming

A Transit Corridor

Siempre Adelante

Gold Actually

Russian America

Part Two

At Her Villa

About Chilkoot

Kind of Alaska

At Forty Above Zero

An Officer and a Gentleman

The Power of Good

Alaska Revisited

Last Conversations

The Art of Living

Recommended Reading

Basic Family Tree

About the Author

The text is based on my diaries and recollections, family letters and documents, conversations and readings. Any factual mistake or error of appreciation is solely my responsibility.

I am the family face

Flesh perishes, I live on,

Projecting trait and trace

Through time to times anon,

And leaping from place to place

Over oblivion.

---Thomas Hardy, Heredity (1917)

Preface

Since I was a child, I had heard stories about my great-aunt Vuka that sounded like a fairy tale. When we first met, she was seventy and I twenty-four. In getting to know her, I realized that her remarkable life story needed to be recorded. When I mentioned the idea to her, she responded with genuine surprise: Why taking the trouble? Mine is just another hard task of living, like so many others.

But it was her unique way of approaching this hard task that made her life so special and interesting. Defying age-old customs, she eloped from the sunny Adriatic, embarked on a perilous journey with a mature Alaskan sourdough, and started a venturous life at the Last Frontier. And her love story in the harsh splendor of the New Place overcame great obstacles, nurtured a family, and found peace with the essential.

Although she never returned to her Old Place, Vuka remained in close touch. And she gave me the opportunity to correspond and visit her during twenty-six years. This narrative is based on my annotations and recollections of conversations with her, family, and friends. I am especially grateful to her children for generously sharing memories, photos, letters, and documents.

Friendship Heights, Maryland

The Note

The late morning sunrays broke through the open window and woke up the boy. Lying low on the divan, the ten-year old Rasho at first blink noticed a folded paper protruding from his left rubber sandal. He recognized the squared math sheet that his grandfather used for` the store receipts. His aunt's handwriting on the top:

From: Vuka

To: Father Simo

Date: July 1, 1928

What could that message be? Rasho wondered. Last night, Vuka spoke very softly and said that at daybreak she was going to church. She turned off the oil lamp immediately after the goodnight hug and kiss. He noticed that her empty bed was unusually well made. The boy's quick mind concluded that it must be something that she prefers to put on paper instead of telling it directly to her father's face.

He carefully opened the note and read slowly:

My dearest father,

I have gone with Marko. He is a good man.

He has promised to love and take care of me.

You know that his family is honorable.

I hope you will forgive me.

Love and respect always.

Your daughter Vuka

Rasho felt a cold sweat flowing down the bend of his arms. He dressed quickly, locked the front door of the Mala house, and ran downhill. Questions flashed through his mind: Will I ever see my aunt again? Was she the reason Marko came back all the way from America? Will I have to stop being friends with his family?

The store had several customers. Uncle Filip was cautiously filling olive oil into a carafe while his assistant was grinding coffee and observing the price list. Rasho waved hello to them, quickly passed behind the counter, and opened the storeroom door. He saw his grandfather's back; Simo was absorbed in papers and documents.

Good that he is seated with his glasses on. Rasho noted. He cleared his throat and uttered respectfully: Good morning, Grandfather.

Sensing that the boy had something important to say, Simo slowly turned around with a half-smile. Although pushing eighty, Granddad was full of energy. Tall, lean-faced with a clipped silver moustache, he dressed in white shirt and black trousers ever since his beloved Stana died of Spanish flu ten years before.

Good day, my dear grandson. How did you sleep up the hill? The breeze there is a balm, isn't it?

Tongue-tied, the boy extracted the note from his right pocket and handed it to Simo.

With a poky movement of his long, calloused fingers, the old patriarch unfolded the paper and, before reading it, spread the sheet neatly on the desk. After an awkward, endless silence, Rasho heard a deep sigh and lifted his eyes. His granddad's tall face had suddenly darkened as if splashed by a pail of muddy water. The boy shrugged his shoulders and ran out.

His aunt's elopement caused a major scandal. Simo broke off relations with Marko's family. Accusing his daughter Zorka of complicity, he never spoke to her again. To young Rasho, the family drama seemed like a fairy tale come true. And his shoe played a key role in it, although, unlike Cinderella's father, Simo did not remarry, and therefore aunt Vuka had no nasty stepsisters.

PART ONE

Motel California

On a sunny and breezy day in October 1973, I finally met my great-aunt Vuka. She was waiting for me under an oak tree at the San Jose Greyhound station. Just like in her photos, Vuka looked almost identical to my grandmother Jovanka: the same silver-gray hair neatly combed into a bun, almond-shaped turquoise eyes on a wide Slav face, and the same bounteous and upright stature.

She hugged me so long and hard that I almost choked. This was a big surprise since I thought Americans disliked physical contact. Vuka giggled like a teenager and---with a rich and melodious voice---pronounced her deeply accented dialect from the Gulf of Kotor, from whence she had eloped in 1928.

For a seventy-year-old, she exuded a sprightly demeanor and was completely at ease while driving her spacious station wagon. I couldn't help noticing a massive gold nugget ring on her right hand and a beautiful ruby-encrusted gold wedding ring on her left---symbols of her love for and life with Marko.

As we approached her home in Saratoga, she pressed a button on a tiny box clipped to the windshield visor and---surprise, surprise---the garage door started lifting. Noticing my astonishment, she said proudly, Oh, you haven't seen this before? It is remote control, my sons' birthday present. They didn't want Mom to hurt her back by opening and closing the garage door.

But how does the door open from such a distance? It's like Ali Baba saying: 'Open Sesame'.

"Oh, you remember Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves? In Risan I used to read One Thousand and One Night stories to your dad when he was a little boy. When we park inside, I'll show you how this modern Ali Baba works.

You know, my children and grandchildren are my real treasure. Most of them will be here tonight. We are having a family reunion because I just came back from Alaska. Please don't let them scare you; they laugh very loudly and can be rowdy at times.

As we got out of the car, she pointed to the ceiling. There was a big gray box hanging like an operating lamp. It was connected to a track that led to the top of the garage door.

"You see that box? Inside there is a motor that slides a trolley along the ceiling track---like a tramway---and it opens and closes the door upon receiving command from my remote control. In the last twenty years there have been so many new products here that I call it our miracle time.

Some of the companies, like Hewlett-Packard, started in a garage just like this one. Now they are selling calculators all over the world. I'm so sorry that my Marko did not live to see all these technological wonders. He would be thrilled as a child with new toys.

She added proudly, My daughter Nada's husband works for a big engineering company. Next week, she is moving her family to New York. Her husband got a promotion and will work at the company's headquarters. And my youngest daughter, Ellen, is living in St. Paul because of her husband's work in Minnesota.

Unlike for Europeans, it looks so easy for Americans to change place of residence! I said excitedly.

Oh ya, it's basically, 'Have work, will travel.' Now I'd like to show you the house and the guest room that is reserved for you.

When did you move to California, my dear aunt?

Oh, it was after our house in Alaska burned down in June of 1942---the same month that the Japanese attacked the Aleutian Islands. I never thought that another world war could come all the way to Alaska. And our government ordered closing down all private gold mining.

So after living in Alaska for more than a decade, you moved here? I asked. I understand that Marko arrived in California as a teenager.

Oh ya, fourteen unforgettable years in Alaska. My four children were born there. When Marko came to this country in 1892, his first work was in Fresno---in the San Joaquin Valley---not far from here. And now I am spending six months a year in Alaska. You have to visit me there one day.

I promise I will, Aunt Vuka. But this is a very nice house and property, I said admiringly.

It was much bigger when we first came. Marko bought it together with twenty-two acres of land. We had a farm and an orchard. After he died in 1944 and after the children went their own ways, I sold the farm.

But it is still a big property. How do you manage to maintain it?

"Oh, here you can always find people eager to make a few dollars by cutting lawns, house-cleaning, running errands, and so forth. Still, I am the one who works the most here. It keeps me young. For our family gathering tonight, I am preparing dinner, even though they are also bringing food and drinks.

"I like that everybody brings his part and shares in the expenditure. Remember the old country saying: 'Nobody knows who's drinking or who's paying for it'?

When my children were attending college, this place was a Motel California. After studying hard during the week, practically all the fraternity and sorority members---up to a hundred youngsters, including some faculty members---were spending their Sunday afternoons at our big barn. I used to prepare sandwiches, cookies, and cakes, and they brought drinks for their dance parties.

And you were not afraid of drunk driving afterward?

Precisely for that reason I was happy to have all of them at our place. You know, in Misho's and Alex's Delta Upsilon fraternity, there were young men who had returned from World War II. These GIs were older than my boys, and they drank and smoked a lot. To those who had too much drink, I used to say, 'Hand me your car keys! You will sleep here, and I will prepare breakfast for you in the morning.' And the bullies were not allowed to return.

Your children must have fond memories from those years. But what are these sororities and fraternities? I asked.

"Oh, I guess it is a very