Mary came to Skagway in the Gold Rush and started a restaurant called the “New Home Restaurant and Lodging House” which she ran with her sister Caroline for a number of years. By the 1929 census she was still listed as a cook in the restaurant.
Born in 1853 in Germany, she was listed in the 1910 census as single but in the 1929 census as a widow.
Her son Henry (born 1887 in Germany) died tragically on July 4th 1914. He was crossing the bay from Haines when the boat sank and everyone onboard drowned.
Mary died on this day, April 9, 1941 and is buried in the Catholic Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau.
Censuses; directories; Evergreen Cemetery records.
Love these stories and is helping me with my family genealogy!
Thanks-
a note about Mary Bernhofer (Bernhoeffer no doubt is original German spelling). There are two Mary’s-the one you blogged on, and her sisterinlaw-brother Heinrich died in 1902 in Wisconsin. His wife came to Skagway to live with this sisterinlaw Mary (also Bernhofer!)-with her children. It is her daughter Lena that shot the Marshall. And is her son-so your Mary that you blogged on-actually her nephew– Henry that died tragically.
Thanks too for Henry’s story-I didn’t know that before.
Another son/nephew John Hans (Dutch) went to college in Portland OR and met my great aunt-Helen Gould and they were married in 1917 in Juneau Alaska-not sure why he ended up there-but near to Skagway-and he was in business there. Then per your blog (thanks again) the aunt mary came to Juneau by 1915 and died there in 1941. Looks like the mother Mary remarried-I think a Charles Petersen-and I believe had at least one more child-(still need to research a bit more-these two marys are confusing-and now I see there are two Carolines too!) and died in Skagway 1927.