AUTHOR’S NOTE: A similar version of this story first appeared in the Redoubt Reporter in 2010. One of the highlights of Rusty Lancashire’s retelling of George Dudley’s 1967 muddy, drunken mess of a funeral involved the moment that one of the attendees fell into the open grave. In fact, Lancashire, who lived on a Ridgeway-area […]
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Seward buildings included in national historic survey
Visitors to the Library of Congress will be able to take a virtual tour of the historic Brown and Hawkins store buildings located in Seward, and explore all parts of the properties, local historian Doug Capra explained. The buildings, which are located at 207-209 on 4th Avenue about two blocks from the shore of Resurrection […]
Read MoreA Kind and Sensitive Man: The Rex Hanks Story — Part 4
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thirty-five-year-old Rex Hanks homesteaded in the Happy Creek valley in 1946. He remained a bachelor until 1953, when he married registered nurse Irmgard Matz in Seward. Together they had two daughters, both stillborn. Rex built a modest home for himself and his wife south of the creek and near the beach above Cook […]
Read MoreA Kind and Sensitive Man: The Rex Hanks Story — Part 3
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Rex Hanks served in World War II, then left his home state of Washington and came to Alaska to seek new opportunities. After working and searching for a couple of months, he found property that pleased him near the waterfall at the mouth of Happy Creek, between Ninilchik and Anchor Point on the […]
Read MoreA Kind and Sensitive Man: The Rex Hanks Story — Part 2
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Happy Valley resident Rex Hanks began his own private cemetery in the winter of 1951. By the end of 1958, the little graveyard’s inhabitants numbered four. The problem was that Hanks and his wife didn’t own the cemetery land. Kenai Peninsula road-builders had other plans for that location, so all the graves had […]
Read MoreA Kind and Sensitive Man: The Rex Hanks Story — Part 1
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This first chapter of the Rex Hanks story includes many other individuals and numerous actions and transactions. It is helpful, therefore, to know a little background: The main action takes place in Happy Valley, located between Anchor Point and Ninilchik on the southern Kenai Peninsula. Of the “characters” in this tale, Rex Hanks, […]
Read MoreFresh Start: The Grönroos Family Story — Part 2
By Clark Fair AUTHOR’S NOTE: The five-member Grönroos family immigrated from Finland to Alaska in 1903 and 1904 and settled just north of the Anchor River mouth. Before and after the family matriarch, Sophia, escaped drowning in 1914 when the ship on which she was sailing home sank in Puget Sound, the Grönrooses faced numerous […]
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