We’re in another gap in the letters, as Walter and Ina are together again. He returned to Dallas with his Sc.D. from Johns Hopkins, and the two of them left immediately for his new assignment in Alaska. Walter investigated a parasitic fly that was laying its eggs in the hides of reindeer, sickening the animals and riddling their skins with holes. After working out the insect’s life cycle, Walter recommended a series of control measures that would prevent the problem. I believe someone in the family still has a chair upholstered in fly-damaged reindeer hide, a souvenir from this trip.
Ina was pregnant with their first child as they journeyed up the Nome River in an open boat.
June 1929
Thanks for posting that wonderful pic of my mother in her parka.
One addition/correction from the story she told me several times: They rode in the President’s Car with the president of the Alaska Railroad from some point on the coast, perhaps Seward, to the river town of Nenana. A river boat ran down to the Yukon river, where they transferred to an open boat for the 1000-mile run down the Yukon. The boat had an outboard motor for power and a native to run it.