Comments on: North to Alaska: Edward G. Cannon and Kedzie N. Winnie

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:48:56 +0000

Sure, Doug, I’ll be glad to send them to the address you’ve left with your comment. It will be sometime this afternoon before I can do it, but they’ll come.

By: Doug Wood

Doug Wood — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:19:31 +0000

Kedzie Nobel Winnie is my grandfather. Is there any way to get copies of the phoooootos in this blog.
Thanks Doug

By: Clark

Clark — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:18:22 +0000

John, if you don’t mind sharing with more than Ardis, and your history extends into the ’50s, I’d be very interested in looking at it. My wife’s family moved to Anchorage in ’56, and still live there today.

By: John Tippets

John Tippets — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:43:50 +0000

Ardis,
Drawing in part from missionary journals I have written a piece about the early days of the Anchorage, Alaska Branch ( in 1941 my Dad, Joseph Tippets, was made the first branch president). let me know a best way and I will send the article to you.
I was born in Anchorage in January of that same year. John Tippets

By: Maurine

Maurine — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:30:58 +0000

This has been a very interesting post, both the original story from Ardis and the comments. Thank you all.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:22:09 +0000

Thanks for this, Clark. I think their description of the tabernacle is probably as much a guess as mine all were. As for the Mormon presence, I wish I could lay my hands on a couple of quotations I have from missionaries of the ’40s or ’50s who talk about how many Mormons they were finding as they traveled around, who would acknowledge their membership privately but didn’t want to have anything to do with organizing formal meetings. I guess that fits in very well with your second paragraph.

By: Clark

Clark — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:42:44 +0000

According to “A Gathering of Saints in Alaska” by Jasper and Basongame (p.9) “They worked together proselytizing [sic] the gold settlements with their ‘chapel on wheels’ a converted wagon which served as a mobile meetinghouse.” No original source is cited.

The book also states that there has been a Mormon presence in Nome since the gold rush but “only as the members sought each other out” (p.114) Regular meetings began in the late 1960s, and a formal branch organized Nov. 20, 1978.

By: Clark

Clark — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:29:59 +0000

A few pieces of worthless trivia I feel compelled to add:

Regarding separate services: Alaska did have institutional segregation. “No Dogs or Natives” was a common sign in restaurant windows up through WWII, at least.

#3 Don’t feel bad about the peninsula being named wrong. Nome got it’s name from a cartographer who wrote ‘Cape Name?’ off the point, and when gold was discovered at the place, the scrawl was interpreted as “Cape Nome.”

#5: U.S. soldiers stationed in Alaska get “foreign duty” pay added to their regular stipend.

What’s up with the phrase “..his origin and destiny” Both Cannon and Winnie use it in their quotes. Is is a play on the name of J.F. Smith’s book?

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:06:59 +0000

Bravo, Justin! I could be — and evidently am — wrong about Barbara having been deceased by 1873; my only source was a secondary one. The family certainly moved around. I’ll see what I can do to track these presumed family members.

Thanks.

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:44:32 +0000

He married Barbara Mook of Grove, New York; how long she lived, or whether they had any children, I do not know. He was baptized in 1871 and sealed to his deceased wife in the Endowment House in 1873.

I located the family (I think) on the 1870 census in De Soto, Nebraska. Edward (listed as a farmer) and Barbara had three younger individuals living with them, although I had trouble with some of the names.

[Rulee?] Lucy (22) (b. Mich.) (at home)
[Cremean?] George (11) (b. Wisc.) (at school)
Cannon[?] Lilly (2) (b. Neb.)

I’m confused by the 1873 sealing. The 1880 census in Wanship, Utah, lists an Ewd G. (52, Doctor, b. Kentucky) and Barbary[?] E. (50, b. New York) Cannon living with Lillie M. (11, b. Nebraska).