FIFTH OPENING – The Sitka seine boats Hukilau and Rose Lee pump herring aboard this afternoon at the end of Deep Inlet during the fifth opening in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery. The opening was being held in two locations beginning at 11 a.m. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The future of management and operations at the Perform [ ... ]
By Sentinel Staff
The Sitka Sound commercial herring sac roe fishery continued today with open [ ... ]
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
After storming into the state 3A boys basketball brac [ ... ]
By Sentinel Staff
The Queen Bees’ spotless season record ended Tuesday night with a 2-1 loss [ ... ]
By SHIRLEY SNEVE
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By CLAIRE STREMPLE
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A presentation about a jump in the number of inmate deaths in [ ... ]
By NATHANIEL HERZ
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Tribal and environmental advocates calling for a crackdown o [ ... ]
Police Blotter
Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
March 26
At 2:10 p.m. a man e [ ... ]
Big Rigs Sought
For April 13
The 3 to 5 Preschool’s spring fundraiser and Big Rig event is happening [ ... ]
By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
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By Sentinel Staff
The third opening in this year’s Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery was held Mon [ ... ]
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
Sitka High’s Lady Wolves bounced back from an openi [ ... ]
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel ports Editor
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Playing in a competitive division City League volleyball game Monday evening [ ... ]
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By YERETH ROSEN
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In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, [ ... ]
Police Blotter
Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
March 25
At 7:48 a.m. a calle [ ... ]
Vietnam-Era Vets
Invited to Lunch,
Commemoration
American Legion Post 13 will host a luncheon 1-3 p.m. [ ... ]
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The 2024 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery got under [ ... ]
By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Assembly will start the annual process of determi [ ... ]
By Sentinel Staff
Competing in the 3A state championship title basketball game Saturday, the M [ ... ]
By Sentinel Staff
Playing through the afternoon Sunday, City League volleyball teams faced off [ ... ]
Daily Sitka Sentinel
Generations Linked by Hollywood Portrait
By BRIELLE SCHAEFFER
Sentinel Staff Writer
Shelley McLaughlin-True and Winifred Gail Bailey have been friends since Shelley’s husband moved into the Pioneers Home last year.
Shelley, who lives in Juneau, comes to Sitka regularly to see her husband, and often visits with Winifred in the Pioneers Home’s assisted living area.
During those casual visits the 99-year-old Bailey talks about her days as a professional photographer in Hollywood in the 1940s.
Winifred Gail Bailey, left, and Shelley McLaughlin-True. (Photo provided by Skye Workman)
“I thought she was just talking,” Shelley said, and didn’t give Winifred’s stories any particular credence.
Then one day this summer, when Shelley was at work in Juneau where she’s a dental hygienist, an image suddenly popped into her mind.
“I was cleaning this woman’s teeth and she said something that reminded me of Winifred,” she said. “I couldn’t even tell you why.”
She suddenly thought of the glamorous photo of her mother that had hung in the house when Shelley was a child. In the corner of that picture was the signature “Winifred Gail, Hollywood.”
“It validated her stories all along,” Shelley said.
Turns out that back in the 1940s Shelley’s mother, Dorothy, was an aspiring actress in Hollywood, and had gone to Winifred’s studio to have publicity photos taken.
“My mom went to Hollywood because everyone told her she could be a famous star,” Shelley said.
The picture that Shelley remembers from her childhood, a portrait of her mother wearing a pink sweater, is now in the possession of her sister in California. But in her own family memorabilia, Shelley has another photograph of her mother, also a studio portrait signed in the corner by Winifred Gail. In this one Dorothy, in a belted dress, is accompanied by a young man in a herringbone jacket, and they are both gazing off to the left side of the frame. It is a wedding portrait of Shelley’s mother and father C.A. McLaughlin as 24-year-old newlyweds,
Dorothy had met the handsome sailor while he was on leave. After they married they made their home in Northern California, where Shelley and her siblings grew up.
“It’s just too bizarre,” Shelley said. “It never occurred to me there was a connection at all.”
At first Shelley was afraid to show Winifred the photo because she didn’t want to make her cry, remembering her old life. But in the end she did.
“The first thing she said was, ‘They spelled my name right,’” Shelley said. (Apparently someone else at the photography studio would etch the photographer’s name on the prints, and sometimes they would spell Winifred with two n’s.)
Bailey did cry. But she also smiled.
“I’m glad I brought it,” Shelley said. “We made her a copy of it so she could have it.”
The whole thing is such a coincidence, she said. She can’t believe she didn’t make the connection sooner.
“It’s beyond the realm of belief in my mind I would run into her in a small town on an island in Alaska,” Shelley said.
Bailey was born in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 2, 1917, and grew up in Hollywood, graduating from Hollywood High. As a professional photographer there in the 1940s, she took portraits of the movie stars of her day, the Pioneers Home said. Winifred also played the organ and taught organ lessons, and was happy to see the Home had an organ and piano.
Winifred married Jay Richard Bailey and they had one child, Paul Bailey. Jay died in 1990, and in 2000 Winifred moved to Hawaii to life with her son and his family. They all moved to Juneau in 2012, and Winifred moved here three years ago.
Shelley’s parents have passed away, and she wishes she could share this story with them.
“They would understand how odd and special it is,” she said.
She also thinks that maybe her mother was trying to tell her something.
“One of the nurses said, ‘that’s your mom smacking you from heaven telling you you’re so slow,’” she said.
“It’ll be one of those weird things that will puzzle me all of my life. It makes me wonder if that particular patient hadn’t have been in the chair that day if I would have ever made the connection.”
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Matthew C. Hunter of Sitka recently returned from Cuba as part of a St. Olaf College International and Off-Campus Studies program. Hunter, a junior physics major at St. Olaf College, is the son of Robert and Kim Hunter of Sitka.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Eighth graders have returned from a visit to Juneau to see the Legislature. They had worked for it since Christmas vacation ... Clarice Johnson’s idea of a “White Elephant” sales was chosen as the best money-maker; Joe Roth won the political cartoon assignment; highest government test scorers were Ken Armstrong, Joanna Hearn, Linda Montgomery, Lisa Henry, Calvin Taylor and David Licari .....