Artist Interview - Marthanna Yater
You started out in Alaska. An Air Force kid. What do you remember?
"I am an Eskimo" seemed logical as a child since I was born in Alaska. My dad, an Air Force colonel, was at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage before I was born. I was a late child in my father's life. When my brother and I were small children and walked with him on an air base, airmen would salute and say, "Colonel, you sure have cute grandchildren." Tongue-in-cheek, my dad would quickly reply, "These are not my grandchildren; they are my great-grandchildren."
Marthanna Yater
My own tour in Alaska was short, four months. I don’t remember anything from our next assignment, Kelly Field in San Antonio; my earliest memories are of Eglin AFB in Florida, and our house in Valparaiso, on the Choctawhatchee Bay. One of my earliest memories is of men attempting to pull an alligator they had roped out of the bay and shooting at it with rifles. Dogs in the area were missing; many were concerned that a gator might enjoy snacking on small children.
< Click the buttons to turn interview pages
Military life usually means lots of travel. True for you?
Before I was five, we moved to Arnold AFB, in Tennessee, where my dad was the Inspector General at Arnold Engineering Development Complex. In the first five years of my life, I had lived in four states, although Alaska was not yet a state. After my parents separated, I lived in Arkansas, where my mother put us in a private religious school to shelter us from worldly temptation as we grew into teens. At 13, I was transferred to public school for 8th grade. Shortly after, we moved to Alabama for another even more conservative private school. This made four school changes in nine years and added two more states of residence.
For some of us, that would have been more than enough dislocation but you became a life-long traveler. Explain?
I went to a small religious college in Florida. After my sophomore year, my mother kicked me out of the house for hemming a dress an inch above the top of my knees. This was during Hot Pants, Mini Skirts, and the hippie revolution. I was told not to come home again until I repented. Whatever.
I grew up, completed college, got a job, married someone that my mother would despise, to spite her, divorced, bid adieu to the confines of the sterile corridors of the university, bought a backpack, and hit the road to attend the University of Life. FINALLY, I was living and attest that travel is the best well-rounded education.
Did this early mobility set the stage for my peripatetic future, or was I born for adventure? In my adult years, my dad told me that from the age of three, I showed my strength, stubbornness, and determination. Dad cautioned me about my stubborness, but my backbone of blue steel turned out to be a be a great asset.