I'm putting this together backwards. Death to beginning...Perhaps because, I believe, Fannie Sedlacek McKenzie Quigley would have spent her life no other way.
DEATH CERTIFICATE
(available Alaska...extracted)
She died Fairbanks Precinct ALASKA at Kantishan (Red Top) at her cabin.
Fannie Quigley, female, white, divorced. A member of the community for 38 years.
Her ex-husband was Joe Quigley. She was born 18 Mar 1871 and was 73 years 5 months 4 days old. Her occupation says Housewife.
She was born Wahoo Nebraska. All information about parents was listed unknown.
She died 22 Aug 1944 of cardio resparatory (sic)failure. She was buried Birch Hill Cemetery 31 Aug 1944
(End of extraction.)
Picture from new book "Gold Rush Women" written by Claire Rudolf Murphy and Jane G. Haigh. Published by Alaska Northwest Books 1997. I bought a dozen of these books and gave 'em to all my cousins and a few who weren't...cause I liked the book.
She was not famous, or an outlaw, or a housewife. She was my great-great Aunt Fannie
who was a legend in her own time.... yep really.
OBITUARY
F. QUIGLEY FOUND DEAD BY FRIEND
Famous Kantishna Woman Dies in Sleep After Long Career in North
One of Alaska's most colorful pioneers came to the end of her tread last week when Fannie Quigley died quietly and alone in her little house in the Kantishna where hundreds of park visitors, explorers, scientists, trappers and prospectors had visited her in the past 30- years since she settled there at the edge of McKinley National Park, a hundred miles from the railroad
Fannie was found dead Friday by her close friend and neighbor Johnny Busia, who accomplanied her body to Fairbanks yesterday and help make funderal arragements. Busia said he had last visited Quigley house on Tuesday and it appeared Fannie had died the evening after he returned home.
Busy As Usual
Busy as usual, Fannie was a starting to pile some wood when he was there Tuesday, Busia said. When he made his second call Friday she was on the couch dead, the wood unpiled and a cookstove fire in the kitchen stove but not lighted. He deduced that she had sat down to rest before cooking an evening meal and had died in her sleep.
This ended the 73 year career of Fannie Quigley, the midwestern girl who ran away from her Bohemian home at an early age, learned to speak English while working her way westward along the railroad, and took up the trail of (missing word) with the stampede to the Klondike in 1898.
Fannie was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, March 18 1871, in a settlement were little English was spoken but where she learned the art of gorgeous embrodery that helped her while away many a long winter hours in the north. Her journey westward was punctuated with several restaurant jobs and it was as a roadhouse operator that she was known in the Dawson country in '98. Many remember her place on No. #. Above on Hunker Creek and her marriage to Angus MacKenzie in 1901.
When gold started the stampede to Fairbanks shortly afterward, Fannie and her husband followed stopping firt at Chena where the original Tanana settlement was made, and following the population to Fairbanks.
In 1906 the new diggings in Kantishna attracted Fannie and she again pulled up stakes, this time for the last time. With Joe Quigley she staked claims on Clacier and Caribou creeks and later a piece on Eureka creek. Fannie and Joe were married after that and prospected, mined, trapped and hunted together until they weere divorced seven years ago. Joe now lives in Seattle.
Worked Like Man
In the Kantishna Fannie became a legend. Her abilities to work like a man, hunt, kill, skin, butcher, pack, and cache her own game, embroider like an artist and entertain like a queen, spread her fame in books and stories and brought many visitors to her place in the shadow of Mt. McKinley to see and talk with the little woman who stood hardly five feet tall in her rough men's clothes.
With no formal education, Fannie all her life kept studing, collecting facts, and ideas from newspapers, magazines, visitors, the radio, and her own observation of nature and people. Some of her game trophies have been preserved in museums and many of her sayings have been quoted by writers.
Expert Gardner
In addition to her spectacular abilities on the sled-trail and the game trail, Fannie was also an expert gardener, a grower of fine vegetables for good as well as the flowers for decortion. A selection of her finest pansies and toehr flowers she pressed in books and later reproduced in embrodery work on a beautiful table cloth on which she spent many years and which still was unfinished at her death
Fannie's ability as a seamstress got a real test many years ago when she got out her needle and made repairs on Joe Quigley's face after his nose was nearly torn off in the crack-lup that followed the first airplain landing on Moose Creek near their diggings. The story is told with gusto by Fannie's friends as they escort visitors to the little frame house that Fannie and Johnny Busia put up four years ago down the hill from the Red Topmine, where she lived with a big tomcat for a companion.
Fannie continued to live in the Kantishna by choice, long after the normal time to retire to the easier life in civilization.
Her industrious habits, her success as a miner and her ability to live mostly off the country had long since assured her financial independence. One trip outside many years ago, and several jaunts to Fairbanks for supplies and medical attention, including one siege in the hospital with a broken leg, always found her glad to return home to the Kantishna where there was no need to lower her high, ringing voice to conversational tones or to forsake her outdoor garb.
Years ago Fannie wound up her business affairs, and her will reveals that she is survived by two sisters and three nieces. The sisters are Josie Criss of Marcola, Oregon and Mary McLain (article misspelled Great-Grandma's name, McCLEAN)of Anacortes Washington. The nieces are Mrs Smith and Maggie Miller of Marcola and Tessie Owen (article misspelled Grandma's name, OIEN) of Anacortes.
Funeral arrangements are being made by her attorney, E. B. Collins, and will be announced later.
(end of first obituary...dated...)
The Alaska Sportsman...
has published several articles about Fannie and Joe Quigley or at least mentioned them. Still in publication as the Alaska Magazine, this magazine is a treasure mine of pictures and stories.
. In a Regular Feature called "From Ketchikan to Barrow", published in July 1940, comes the following item... Fannie Quigley of Friday Creek shot a moose from her back porch last winter. While lugging the meat up to the cabin she picked up a gold nugget worth sixty dollars. "Heck!" she said, "I seen the dern thing layin' there all the time--but I just didn't believe it. Friday Creek's been worked four times."
Family Group Sheet
. Father Vencel Sedlacek born 25 May 1845 Alt Lieben near Praha, Bohemia (this is questionable)
. Settled before 1870 Wahoo, Sanders, Nebraska.
. 1870 Census Vencil Sedlacek under name James age 25. His wife Josephine was 21 Josie was 2 and baby Frances was 6 months old
. 1880 Census Vencil was 36 his new wife, Mary, was 26. At home were Josie 12 "keeping house"; Fannie 10 "at school"; Mary 8; Joseph 6; Anna 2; and Victoria 1.
. 1885 Census Josie is 17 and laborer, Fannie 15, Mary 13, 'at home'. Vencil 2, Anna 1, and Theresa 6 months. Vencil was 'renting for a share'
. Jun 1880 Census living Elk Precinct Sanders Co, Nebraska
. Married about 1865 to Josephine born abt 1849 and died abt 1875
. Death 20 Mar 1921 Liberty Twp, Valley, Nebraska
. Burial 2 Apr 1921 Geranium Cem, Sargent, Valley, Nebraska
Children (Marriage of Josephine and Vencel): 1. Josephine Julia born 15 Mar 1866 Iowa. Died 24 May 1953 Redding, Shasta, CA. Married (1) Daniel Walker and (2) James William CRISS (m 29 Dec 1890)
2. Frances "Fannie" Sedlacek b 18 Mar 1871 at Wahoo, Sanders, Nebraska and Died Fairbanks Precinct, Alaska
3. Mary Katherine Selacek b 25 Mar 1874 Wahoo, Sanders, Nebraska died 3 May 1953 Langley, Island, WA. She married William Hugh McClean 17 Apr 1897
More material is available on Aunt Fannie and I will be putting up up as fast as I can type.
I'm putting this together backwards. Death to beginning...Perhaps because, I believe, Fannie Sedlacek McKenzie Quigley would have spent her life no other way.
