MINNIE AND MOUNT JUNEAU

Recently a neighbor was leading a group on the Mendenhall Glacier just outside of Juneau Alaska and posted gorgeous pictures of ice caves within the glacier.  I replied ‘watch your step, my great aunt Minnie was killed there over a hundred years ago’.  My neighbor, Dan, followed up by saying ‘hey, tell me more about that story’.

The problem was I only knew some snippets of the story and, as it turns out, what I thought I knew was wrong.

I had thought she died in a crevasse and I had assumed it was on the Mendenhall Glacier.  And I assumed I had only one great aunt.  So here’s the real story….

Her name was Minnie Sabin and she was 18 years old.   It was August, 1911.   Passage had been booked south on the steamer ‘Jefferson’ so she could attend high school in Bellingham. Shortly before she was to board the steamer, she took a last chance to hike and climb with friends up Mt Juneau, the 3,576 foot backdrop to her hometown.  Unknown to Minnie, newspapers across the country would soon pick up on the news.

News accounts of the time have her stopping on a snow field and losing her balance.  She fell 185 striking "jagged rocks".  According to one account "her body was frightfully bruised and her skull crushed".

Another paper portrayed the rescue effort of "strong, willing hands", but then reported her body was "crushed and torn beyond the power of medical science"

The paper described 'Her beautiful traits of character were insurmountable, her frank, sweet, manner was more than lovable and her disposition was that of a pure, lovely sweet-faced girl, 'ambitious, considerate of others, a loving daughter and a rare friend'.   A nice sentiment despite the tortured sentence structure.

She was bound for the state 'normal school' in Bellingham, but never made it aboard the steamer "Jefferson".

Charles, mentioned above, would go on to marry May Anderson and have one child, Joann.  My mother.

The Steamer Jefferson

The funeral must have been quite something for young Juneau.  Stores closed and the entire town turned out to put her to rest.  "During the funeral hour the large stores closed and many of the smaller shops and concerns locked their doors during the ceremonies" (this, of course, begs the question of what, exactly, is the difference between closing and simply locking the doors? 

My comments aside, she sounded wonderful and a life taken too soon -- but she did sound quite active, dying while doing something she really enjoyed.

During the research I tripped over a record of a 2nd great aunt, Beatrice, who died a few years prior to Minnie at the very young age of 10 months. 

So now you know the rest of the story.....