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Bob Keeler and his daughter Sandra relax at October 1956 festival in rural Oregon. Photo from The World (Coos Bay, Oregon).

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 6

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The first of the three Keeler siblings to travel from Oregon to the Kenai Peninsula for…

Cheechako News photo courtesy of the KPC historical photo archive Don Wilson feeds a “pet” moose from the door of his first Soldotna grocery store, circa 1950s.

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 5

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Verona (Keeler) Wilson and her husband Don moved from rural Oregon to Soldotna in 1951, about…

Photo courtesy of the Pratt Museum Members of the Keeler family and some Anchor Point church members get a ride on Jimmy Elliot’s “mud sled” on the way to services at the Elliot home, circa 1956. Lorna Keeler is sitting on the far-left side of the sled. April Keeler is the middle girl of the trio sitting in back, and Larry Keeler is standing behind those girls.

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 4

Lawrence and Lorna Keeler and their family moved from Oregon to Alaska in June 1948 and began building…

Photo courtesy of the Keeler Family Collection Brothers James (left) and Lawrence Keeler with their Kissel car, circa 1910s. Both brothers enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War I. James was killed in battle.

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Lawrence and Lorna Keeler and their family left Oregon in June 1948, and began driving to…

Photo courtesy of the Keeler Family Collection In 1951, shortly after they had purchased their new jeep (pictured), the Keeler family (L-R: Larry, April, Marion, Lorna and Lawrence) used it to help another traveler extract his own vehicle from a snowy ditch. The other driver took this photo and later sent a copy of the image to the Keelers.

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Lawrence and Lorna Keeler, along with their three children and Lawrence’s older brother Floyd, left Oregon…

Louvie “Vi” Chapman photo courtesy of the Pratt Museum Lawrence Keeler (right) talks at his Anchor Point sawmill with Sherman Chapman in 1950. Keeler was cutting spruce logs for Chapman’s home.

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Keeler Clan of the Kenai — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Over a four-year period beginning in 1947, three siblings from Oregon’s large Keeler family settled on…

Rex Edwards experimented with many activities, including fencing, for the students at the school in Seldovia. In the 1973-74 school year, he even attempted to coach football, even though the only “field” available was the beach. Here are the “Seldovia Retreaters” as they appeared in the school’s 1974 yearbook. (Image courtesy of Rex and Beverly Edwards)

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First in the Pool — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is the second part of a two-part story about former teachers Rex and Beverly Edwards…

Betty Fuller, working with a shovel outside the Cooper Landing Post Office in 1969, was among the first to suggest that her town’s first post office had been named for a postal official. (Photo courtesy of Mona Painter)

Community

Riddiford: Story of a Name Change — Part 2

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Cooper Landing, on the Kenai Peninsula, was once identified with a postal inspector named Charles Arthur…

Charles Riddiford, far right in the back row, posed for this Spokane Post Office staff photo in 1898 when he was just a clerk. The photo appeared in a 1922 edition of the Spokesman Review, along with a discussion of the post office’s tremendous growth.

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Riddiford: Story of a Name Change — Part 1

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Place names can be ephemeral. And they can fade for myriad reasons. Sometimes offensive names are…

Photo from Ball Family memorial slideshow, 2022 This photo from the early 1960s shows Jackson Ball enjoying the Christmas holidays with his eldest three daughters. His fourth and youngest daughter was born less than a year and a half before Ball’s death in 1968.

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Human Complexity: The Story of Jackson Ball — Part 3

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Misfortune was written across the recent history of the Arlon Elwood “Jackson” Ball family. Ball’s father…

Photo courtesy of the Ball Family Collection After being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1945, Arlon Elwood “Jackson” Ball posed for this photograph, demonstrating his five years of military service through his many ribbons, badges and patches.

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Human Complexity: The Story of Jackson Ball — Part 1

A Premise to Explore

1954 photo by Bob and Ira Spring for Better Homes & Garden magazine The Lancashire sisters(L-R, Lori, Abby and Martha), cleaning up in their younger, more carefree days.

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The Lancashires: Evolving lives on the evolving Kenai — Part 9

In the 1950s, Lori Lancashire and her sisters, Martha and Abby, had glimpsed brief but tantalizing views of…

Despite the misspelling of “Bordenelli,” this legal advertisement, which appeared in the Cheechako News on Aug. 21, 1964, set the stage for the transfer that allowed Larry’s Club to come into existence.

Community

The Lancashires: Evolving lives on the evolving Kenai — Part 8

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In late 1948, after six months of homestead living on the central Kenai Peninsula, Rusty Lancashire…