Florence Bowen—Pettlin—Olssen—Hammalbacher

My great aunt Florence, the second child of Henry R. Bowen and Barbara Naumoff, was born 1 April 1883 in Kodiak, Alaska. She was an April Fools baby, so there must have been a lot of jokes played on her while she grew up.


Portrait of a woman with short curly hair in a lacy top with a small jeweled cross pin.
Florence B. Olssen.
Portrait of a woman with short curly hair wearing a small pendant.
Florence, daughter of Barbara Naumoff Bowen.

She died 24 March 1946 in Seattle, Washington.

From the census records we found that she had married a man named Pettlin while living in Wood Island. She had a son Herman Pettlin who was born 20 October 1900. Herman died 22 January 1902 in Kodiak.

From the 1900 census:Open the document

Florence’s second marriage was to Charles R. Olssen. (His name was changed from Olsen but his son Bill can’t remember when.) Charles Olssen came from Sweden in 1892, age 21.

Charles’s aunt owned a trading post at Kennecot. When her husband died she called for Charles to take over the business. Later he discovered oil near Cordova and put in an oil well with a few barrels a day coming from it. He also raised foxes on Fox Island. He dried fish with Keller and sold it for dog food. Later he built dories and powerboats, the Waldo and the Ralph were two of them. He took my great Aunt Barbara and Great Uncle Fred to the island with him to help with the foxes, when they were young.

Florence and Charles had 10 children but only 5 lived.

William (Bill) married Alice K. Moore (who was also blind, born 5 March 1912, died 13 May 1978). They had no children.

Photo of a man with short hair wearing a business suit, and a woman in a dress with curled hair.
Florence’s son Bill Olssen and his wife, Alice.
Photo of a man smoking a pipe and wearing suspenders and a cap in front of a tent.
Charlie Olssen.

Charles carved the name Barbara in a huge wooden bed that belonged to Florence’s mother Barbara. I remember sleeping in her bed, the mattress was so soft and with the heavy quilts you really sunk in. Bill says that once when he was sleeping in her bed, his cat peed on the bed so he climbed under the mattress and with the heavy quilts almost smothered.

Florence was a midwife and delivered almost 400 babies in Seldovia. She learned to deliver babies about age 12, helping a local doctor. She delivered all of my mothers babies except my older brother Thomas, who was born in Anchorage.

Florence met her husband Charles when he went to Kodiak. They wrote letters to each other for a while, then got married. When she first came to Seldovia, she and her husband ran a boarding house near the boardwalk. I remember it as John Roe’s house, which was below our log house and near Captain Fillmore’s Hill. They grew a huge garden furnishing the family with vegetables.

Florence’s third marriage was to Charles Hammelbacher, who was born about 1877 in Germany, and who died 14 January 1930. They had no children.

When I was a child Florence lived in a big white house at the end of the Russian graveyard on the waterfront. To get to her house we had to walk a block of sidewalk, on one side the graveyard and the other the bay. At night this was scary and we always scared friends and ourselves with our imagination.

Florence was a big women and very strict. She gave us all our birthday parties at her house.

Dr. Kirby lived in a small house on the other end of the graveyard toward town and all his sick people went to her house to recover, as we had no hospital then and his house and doctor office was too small to take care of them.

Great Aunt Florence had a beautiful garden of strawberries and a pantry full of cookie jars.

Her son Bill went blind. When coming home from school, he ran into a flywheel at the side of the road. He was sent to school in Portland.

She along with her sister Barbara and a few neighbors were always making quilts. They were quilts that were made to be used. She made her babies that she delivered quilts also. My brother said that he remembered working on them when he would go to visit her. (She is in the quilt book, Quilts of Alaska: A Textile Album of the Last Frontier by June E. Hall, published in Juneau 2001 by the Gastineau Channel Historical Society of Juneau, Alaska).

Florence and her sister Barbara were very superstitious women and would scare me with their spooky stories. They always seemed to know when someone was going to die, even telling me (or listening to them talking) who that person would be. If anyone drowned in our town, none of us children were to go near the water until they heard that there was three that died. If a bird hit a window of a boat or house, that was another omen. It still bothers me when a bird hits our window.

When my mother and dad had problems, usually it was drinking and guns, we always got hold of her, and as soon as dad saw Aunt Florence coming up the walk he calmed down.

When Florence moved to Seattle her sister Barbara Bowen Wick moved into her home in Seldovia. Florence died in Seattle on 24 March 1946.Open the document

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Agnus B. Olssen married Victor Ross, who was a pilot in Alaska. Her other husbands were Chester Milligan (married 13 November 1934) and Barney Crosby.

Lawrence Peter Olssen married Grace Mary Monson in Seldovia on 7 Apr 1929. Lawrence and Grace’s children:

  • Richard C., born 28 November 1929; married Mary Jane Aubert (1934-1983). He drowned at sea while fishing near Canada in 1964.
  • Carmen Joan, born 23 June 1933, Seldovia. Carmen married Bob Decker, then she married Jake Ivanoff of Kenai. She died 6 February 2008, Kenai. She had one girl by her first husband who was adopted. She committed suicide.

Lawrence’s second marriage was to Nellie L. Anderson Suydam. Lawrence and Nellie’s children:

  • Laurel Rose, born 23 October 1949, married Richard M. Baird on 20 December 1969, and they have a daughter Ashley, who goes by Lee.
  • Loretta Suzanne, born 13 December 1953, married Conway (no children).

Nellie was from Chignik Bay, Alaska; her parents were Olz and Fedesia Anderson; she had four children by a previous marriage to Floyd T. Suydam (born about 1898):

  • Floyd Lowell Suydam Jr., born 3 April 1928; died 8 August 2002.
  • Marilyn Suydam, born about April 1929.
  • Lawrence K. (Larry) Suydam, born 6 May 1940.
  • Glenn Clyde Suydam, born about February 1944.

Richard C. Olssen married Mary Jane Aubert (13 October 1934 - 1983) on 3 April 1954; their children:

  • Carl Richard, died 2005.
  • Rhonda Lynn, who died age 3, when her hair caught fire in the fireplace.
  • Joanne Marie, who was raised by cousin Carol Manoa in Hawaii.

Richard K. Olssen married Hazel May Schnieder (19 May 1919 - 25 April 1968). Richard and Hazel’s child:

  • Judith Hazel (Judy) Olssen, born 24 July 1943.

Richard K. Olssen’s second marriage was to Moreno. Richard and her children:

  • Carol E. Olssen, born 1 October 1945.
  • Kathryn M. (Cathy) Olssen, born 31 March 1946.

Judy Olssen married Jerry Edward Zylstra. Judy and Jerry’s children:

  • Brock Edward, born 30 July 1970 (married Lorie M. Latter on 11 October 1998).
  • Step daughter Corryn Zylstra.

Carol Olssen married George (Bo) Manoa. Carol and George’s children:

  • James Manoa, born 24 January 1968.
  • Erin Manoa, born 3 July 1970.
  • Maile Manoa, born 20 December 1981.

Cathy Olssen married John V. Harrington on 14 July 1973. Cathy and John’s children:

  • Jennell Harrington, born 3 February 1974.
  • Kelly Harrington, born 22 December 1977.
  • Brian Harrington, born January 1979.

Jennell married James Utter on 1 June 1996. Jennell and James’s children:

  • Taelyn Utter, born 17 October 1997.
  • Rylan Utter, born 6 July 2000.

Ella K. Olssen married Lloyd Wallace Swan (born 20 May 1899, Centralia, Washington, died February 1968, Kodiak). Ella and Lloyd’s child:

  • Howard Lloyd Swan, born 29 January 1923, Seldovia, died 26 October 2007, Kent, Washington.

Lloyd Wallace Swan married Edith Kegien Aga (1916-1992); their child:

  • Irene Swan, born 22 October 1935, Karluk; died October 2011, Elkhart, Indiana.

Howard Lloyd Swan married Eleanor Mae Cooper (29 January 1925 Seldovia - 21 May 1998, Kenai). Howard and Eleanor’s children:

  • Roberta Eileen (adopted by mother’s 2nd husband Painter).
  • Robert Lloyd (Bob).

Howard’s second marriage was to Helen Dorothy Andrews (24 May 1924 - 18 August 2003).

Roberta Eileen Swan married Arnold Eli Oskolkoff. Roberta and Arnold’s children:

  • Cynthia Denise, born 28 February 1964.
  • Zoya Cathleen, born 22 October 1966.
  • Elizabeth Catherine (adopted), born 26 December 1976.

Cynthia Denise Oskolkoff married Matthew J. Humecky (28 November 1959 - 20 August 2015); their child:

  • Alexis Kelli Oskolkoff-Humecky, born 5 May 1985.

Cynthia Denise Oskolkoff married Jeffrey Kevin Beatty (7 April 1963 - 24 December 2020) on 19 September 1987. Cynthia and Jeffrey’s children:

  • Blake Arnold, born 6 April 1988.
  • Landon Harold, born 23 May 1990.
  • Autumn Candice, born 16 October 1995.

Zoya Oskolkoff married Ed Salzer. Zoya and Ed’s child:

  • Sterling Langdon, born 23 November 1989; died 24 February 2010, Soldotna.

Zoya partnered with Jerry Lee; their child:

  • Chase Kenneth, born 11 April 1992.

Children of Elizabeth Catherine (no marriage):

  • Natallya Elaina, born 3 March 1995.
  • Rylene Arnell, born 24 August 1996; father: Don Eide, Jr.
  • Mavra Blayne, born 20 March 1999.
Two older women, the first holding a baby, two younger women behind them.
Florence Olssen (with baby, Pauline Williams), Barbara Wick.
Four young women sitting on a couch, photo of Charlie Olssen on the side table.
Granddaughters of Florence Olssen—Judy, Carol, and Cathy— with cousin Sherri Sharp.
Four people seated on folding chairs on a lawn, women in dresses and the man in a navy suit and red tie, smoking a pipe.
Sally Berlin, Cathy O. Harrington, Bill Olssen, Laurel Rose Olssen.

Checks Reindeer from Sky in Arctic Circle

Victor Ross One of Northland
Intrepid Flyers—His Wife Local Guest

Herding reindeer from the skies, and flying with mail and supplies to the Arctic Circle for the Loman Reindeer Corporation, are some of the jobs of Victor Ross, whose wife, Mrs. Agnes Olssen Ross, is a guest at the Seldovia home of her mother, Mrs. Chaz. Hammelbacher.

Mrs. Ross was a recent arrival in Seldovia on the “Princess Pat,” after an airplane flight from Nome to Fairbanks, thence by rail to Anchorage. She spoke of a fine trip all the way, the weather during the flight being particularly fine.

The aerial journey was made in five hours, which included two stops at Kaltak and at Ruby. Ordinarily the flight is timed as from four to four and one-half hours, while the old style land route required four weeks, Mrs. Ross explained.

Mrs. Ross stated that her husband is employed a good portion of the time by the Loman Reindeer Corporation in checking up on their vast reindeer herds, his particular job in this connection being to report the distances they have traveled in their trek toward Canada, that being one of the main markets for the stock.

Preparatory to receiving his flying license, Victor Ross, who is now associated with the Northern Air Transport Corporation, became identified with the late ill-fated Carl Ben Nielson, his required 200 hours of flying being devoted to delivering oil to the noted flyer.

Mrs. Hamelbacher left out on the M. S. “Discoverer” on the 30th for Anchorage, being called away on business. Her daughter will join her there, and after a brief visit in the Inlet City will return to her home in Nome.