Dorris James, longtime Homer homesteader and potato farmer at McNeil Canyon, turns 100 on Sept. 28. Her daughter Judith James, sat with her mother at their home out East End Road and shared some of Dorris’s memories of her life in Homer. Dorris sat through the entire conversation with Judith, who carefully shared questions and memories with her.

As a young child, Dorris came with her family from Washington to Aleknagik, Alaska, which was being settled as a Seventh Day Adventist community. At that time, the village was abandoned by the Alaska Native community, although a Native graveyard was still there. Aleknagik is located north of Dillingham up the Wood River.

Dorris came to Homer in 1953 with her husband, Bob James, who moved to Alaska after serving in Kingston, Jamaica, during World War II. A friend and also military veteran had heard that there was a community of Seventh Day Adventists living in the state and both of the men hoped to find partners there.

Judith began the conversation by discussing how far outside of Homer the homestead was. It was located in McNeil Canyon, approximately 10 miles east of Homer. The road at that time, 1953, ended at the Middletons, where the Kilcher Road is now. In order to reach the homestead, Judith said her parents would put on pack boards and secure babies in a sling made out of a sheet and then walk through the woods, down the ditch to the canyon. They used a bear trail to hike up the canyon and bear and moose trails to get through the woods to the family’s tent home. Judith estimated the hike was approximately a mile and a quarter.

Eventually, the six-member family moved into a 12-by 6-foot cabin. They made their income by hand-harvesting potatoes.

“We grew acres of potatoes, and most of the work, especially at first, was done by hand. Eventually, we got a big tractor and that kind of stuff,” Judith said.

Judith provided a photo a handful of potatoes to demonstrate their small size — approximately 2 to 3 inches in diameter — and noted how much physical labor it took to produce them. The homestead also had a large strawberry patch and “mom would pick gallons and gallons of berries and bring them to town to sell,” Judith said.

The homestead didn’t have power until a power line was installed in about 1979. Dorris moved into the home where Judith lives in May of 2019 and it was the first time that she lived with running water.

“Mostly we just stayed on the homestead and worked. In the wintertime it was mostly about taking care of the cows,” Judith said of her childhood.

Dorris James received two years of teacher training in Walla Walla, Washington, in the 1940s and used that to homeschool her children using an accredited homeschool program. However, the children and their mother moved back to Aleknagik when Judith was in eighth grade to attend a Christian school there.

Judith recalls local law enforcement in Homer approaching her father to tell him that if he didn’t send the children to school he would go to jail and the state didn’t have a full-time accredited homeschool program at the time.

“We just packed up and mom and us four children went over to Bristol Bay for schooling and left daddy alone on the homestead because their conviction was so strong about giving the children the values they wanted us to have,” she said.

Judith shared some of Dorris’ other early life activities, including crocheting. One piece they still have as a memento is a large crocheted tablecloth, 9 feet in diameter, that took approximately 2 miles of fine Irish linen to create.

When Judith asked her mother how much linen was in it, she indicated with her hands as far from this shore of Kachemak Bay to the other side. The piece took her a year to create. She also knitted smaller projects that she would sell to supplement family income.

Later in life, Dorris started crafting Alaska Native dolls with parkas modeled after the fashions she saw during her childhood in Bristol Bay. “These would take her about a week to make and she only sold them for about $20,” Judith said.

The Judith’s family also had a setnet site at Ekuk, a small community located at the mouth of the Nushagak River near Dillingham. All of the early setnetting operation was run primarily by hand. Her father also participated in some moose hunt guiding.

Judith noted that despite the Alaska lifestyle, her mother was a lifelong vegetarian and never ate moose or fish.

“The family would even eat trapped beaver tails, because we needed the food, but she never wanted to eat that kind of stuff.”

In 1972, when Dorris was 48, some family relatives were visiting the homestead while Judith was away at college and discovered Dorris had been in bed for a month, with what turned out to be very serious colon cancer. Dorris immediately headed to Anchorage on what was then a very rough Sterling Highway and had a large part of her colon removed.

“The doctors told my dad if they had been two days later she would have been gone,” Judith said.

Judith noted that her mother had to bring her chemotherapy treatment and colonoscopy bag back to the homestead and care for it without running water.

In 1973, the family’s cabin burned down, “so we lost everything,” Judith said. The only photos that remain now are those that friends and family have provided.

In the 1980s, after earning some money at the Ekuk setnet site, Dorris was able to travel to the Lower 48 to visit Judith, who was at college at the time. Dorris purchased a vehicle and collected produce from various sites before shipping the car back to Alaska from Bellingham in order to sell the produce. She also set up an operation to sell 55-gallon drums of honey in Alaska.

“Mom loved to travel but I think it’s a little past that time now. I think she would say she’s looking forward to being in heaven where she’ll be able to travel as much as she wants to,” Judith said.

The James family is represented in two local books about Alaska history: Sharon Bushell’s “We Alaskans: Stories of People Who Helped Build the Great Land” and a history compiled by Beth Cumming titled “And Some Stayed On: Settling the North Shore of Kachemak Bay and Points Beyond, 1900-1959.”

They’ve already had a few small birthday celebrations with a dinner at Land’s End, a small church celebration and relatives coming down from Anchorage and Wasilla to visit. If anyone would like to send Dorris James a birthday card, a memory or story, they can send it to:

Dorris James

South Peninsula Hospital Long Term Care

4300 Bartlett St.

Homer, Alaska 99603