Photo by Courtney Cook on Unsplash

CARAVAN WOMEN: Four Fictional Women Drive the Alaska Highway in 1959

by Debbie L. Miller

Caravan Women is a set of fictitious monologues about four women who join a caravan to drive the Alaska Highway in 1959. Bonnie, Marjorie, Ida Mae, and Rory hail from different parts of the U.S. and tell their stories from Mosquito Alley, a roadside diner along the highway.

Bonnie Blanchard, 36

I’ve always loved to drive. My earliest memory is sitting on Mom’s lap behind the wheel of our old Ford. I was three, and it was 1926. I guess I inherited my knack for driving from Mom. She was an ambulance driver in France during WWI and drove a Red Cross supply truck in England. After the war, back in the States, she joined the Women’s Civilian Motor Corps, delivering food and medical supplies to Appalachia.

I was driving long before I was old enough to get my permit. When I was eight, Mom and I would go out early in the morning, and I’d drive around the neighborhood. When I was 13, we started going for rides in the country. Mom would pick me up from school at lunchtime and tell the principal’s office I had a doctor’s appointment. Once we got to the edge of town, we’d change drivers, and I’d drive for a few hours. We’d stop at a diner for a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, and get home in time to make supper for Dad. I don’t know if the…