Contributed by Richard Estelle
Every photo has a story, and each month we at the Palmer Museum are proud to share a story from our collection with you!
The nurses providing health care to the Matanuska Colonists and others living in the Valley in the late 1930s were generally sponsored by the Red Cross. Miss Pearl Williams, subject of this month’s “Photo of the Month”, was one of those who took up the challenge of attending to the far-flung populace under somewhat challenging conditions. As the accompanying newspaper article attests, the difficulties of keeping good nurses employed included more than finding those who could drive a two-wheeled horse cart!
“Help Wanted - San Francisco, Calif. (AP) There is a position for a public health nurse at the Matanuska project in Alaska who is not adverse to running the risk of terminating her career with marriage. Red Cross headquarters here said they had a letter of resignation from Pearl Williams, San Francisco, who sailed for Alaska last Thanksgiving day. Miss Williams stated she was resigning effective Nov. 1 because she was to become the bride of H.K. Wolfe, architect on the Alaskan project. Miss Williams was sent to Alaska to succeed Madeleine De Foras. Who resigned to marry Eugene Sedille, also an architect with the federal farm colony in Alaska. They are living at Anchorage. Wolfe and his bride will reside at Palmer.” – Milwaukee Journal – Oct 27,1936
The Matanuska Valley Historical Photo Project aims to collect images and stories of our community. Photos have a powerful ability to convey and store original information in an accessible format, but many private collections and stories are at risk of being lost as our population grows older or moves away. We digitize and archive these images, and in summer of 2020, we will be launching a searchable web database to enhance user access to our collection! This project is sponsored by the MTA Foundation.
Do you have historic photographs? Consider bringing them to the Palmer Museum of History and Art, located at 723 S. Valley Way so that we may scan them into our archive. Questions? Please give us a call at 907-746-7668 or send us an email at director@palmermuseum.org.
