JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The great-granddaughter of a woman who died in Juneau a century ago has located her ancestor’s unmarked grave and placed a headstone.
Paula Haug visited Juneau last week to see the new grave marker at Evergreen Cemetery for Soyla Valentina Cardwell Lockhart, who died in November 1918, the Juneau Empire reported .
Haug’s great-grandmother died from pneumonia about nine days after giving birth to a daughter and shortly after arriving to the city, according to a Juneau Empire article at the time. She traveled to the city to surprise her husband, who was a worker at the Alaska-Juneau Mine. She was unable to track him down before her death.
Lockhart’s grave was forgotten until Haug visited Juneau while on a cruise in 2002. Haug, a college professor in Folsom, California, knew her great-grandmother died in the city, but didn’t know much else about her.
Haug asked around town, learning Lockhart was likely buried in the Catholic section at the Evergreen Cemetery. The grave’s location was unknown.
“It really bothered me that she was up here without a stone,” Haug said.
City and borough officials partnered on a mapping project in 2015 to confirm gravesites at the cemetery and digitize records. The efforts led to Haug tracing Lockhart’s grave to plot 991.
In 2016, Haug contacted Ben Patterson, the cemetery’s landscape supervisor, launching a two-year process to place a marker on the grave.
|
|
