Staying Safe

Dear Editor,

Love your magazine! I hope all of you are staying safe, whatever that is.

My youngest son and I moved to the best place we can be: a few acres in Marsing, adjoining BLM land on one end. It’s up a quarter-mile-long driveway with no close neighbors. I won’t catch the virus, unless my son brings it home from work. My two kids who live in Homedale and in Meridian stay away, my eldest son lives in northern Idaho, and my eldest daughter works at a nuke on the coast of New Hampshire, so that’s about as safe as an old granny can be.

I’ve heard the saying, “You can’t get there from here.” That applies today to just about everything. I tried to order checks with my new address on them, but the bank was closed. When I tried to deposit my tax refund, it was still closed. My winter woolen coat should have been cleaned and bagged for the summer but the dry cleaner was closed. My cousin, who is even older than I am (very few people are), called for an appointment with her doctor, but he wasn’t seeing anyone older than eighty.

I realized if you died, they weren’t having funerals. If you usually attended church, you couldn’t. If your parent or close friend was in a nursing home or care center, you couldn’t visit them. Schoolchildren were missing their friends. My granddaughter graduated in the spring from Dartmouth but we couldn’t attend. At least we have a big stack of toilet paper.

—Ellen Barayasarra, Marsing

Outside Marsing. Ken Lund photo.

Dam-Building

Reading the stories in the new IDAHO magazine, I was interested in the Spotlight City, because my husband Tim’s great aunt lived in Irwin (“Irwin—Spotlight City,” May 2020). She and her husband had moved there so he could help build the Palisades Dam and they stayed. He still has cousins who live there. The story “Hunkered Down” reminded me a bit of a friend who just wrote in her blog about ordinary magic—finding the magic in ordinary things.

—Michelle Chad, Twin Falls

In the Books

Dear Editor,

I want to take this opportunity to highly commend you and the staff of IDAHO magazine for the great work you do with the magazine. I have saved every issue since the time that my article on Clearwater was featured (“Clearwater—Spotlight City,” September 2019). I look forward to every issue. My sister, Judi Wutzke, who owns  and BOOKS Too!, a bookstore in Clarkston, Washington, has her copies of IDAHO magazine displayed in the store as well. Keep up your excellent work.

I am still the historian and past president of the Friends of the Elk City Wagon Road in Clearwater. I have written two new books during the past year. One of the books is entitled, Way Stations and Rest Stops on the Elk City Wagon Road and the latest one is Dixie, Idaho: The Early History.  Our Elk City Wagon Road Museum in the Clearwater Grange Hall is growing. If you are ever up in the Clearwater area, I cordially invite you to visit the museum.

—Dana Lohrey, Lewiston