Mary Ann Perkins
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- Category: Obituaries
- Created on Friday, 22 May 2015 08:22
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Mary Ann Esther Ghering Perkins passed on to the next world peacefully at her son’s home in Silverton, Ore., on May 11, 2015.
She was born July 23, 1926, in Kulm, N.D., to Anna Marie Heck and Reinhold Gehring. She grew up in South Dakota, then graduated from the Nursing Cadet Corps.
In 1951, she boarded the SS Denali in Seattle and sailed to Sitka to work at the Public Health Service’s hospital for children with bone tuberculosis (later renamed and repurposed as Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital).
She met Alfred George Perkins in 1952 and they were married in Juneau on Oct. 31, 1953. Al and Mary Ann had two sons, Kim and Kelly, and raised their niece, Helen, as their own.
Mary Ann worked at Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital as a registered nurse until 1988. During retirement, she enjoyed talking on the phone with her sister Vi, spending time with her family, and looking at her beautiful view of Sitka Sound and the Thomsen Harbor breakwater, watching boats and planes coming and going from Sitka.
Mary Ann was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her sister Grace, and her son Kelly.
She is survived by her sister Violet Week and her brother Alan Burrer, both of South Dakota; her son Kim of Silverton and Sitka, and daughter Helen Desjardin, of Homer; daughters-in-law Bobbie Behrens of Soldotna and Jessica Perkins; son-in-law Paul Desjardin; grandchildren Holly, Brendan, Bryan, Jenci, Holly, Brady, Heidi, Aanḯ and Zen; and many extended relatives.
Mary Ann’s ashes will be placed with her husband, Al, at the Sitka National Cemetery once Kim returns to Sitka this summer.
Thanks to the generosity and expertise of the the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska broadband department, Tidal Network ; Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network; and Luke Johnson, Tidal Network technician, SitkaSentinel.com is again being updated. Tidal Network has been working tirelessly to install Starlink satellite equipment for city and other critical institutions, including the Sentinel, following the sudden breakage of GCI's fiberoptic cable on August 29, which left most of Sitka without internet or phone connections. CCTHITA's public-spirited response to the emergency is inspiring.
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20 YEARS AGO
September 2004
Photo caption: First-gradcr Ava Parrish holds up a large carrot she harvested at Sitka National Historical Park’s Russian Bishop’s House garden, as volunteer gardener Jude Reis looks on Dozens of first-graders harvested the crops they helped plant in the spring when they were kindergartners.
50 YEARS AGO
September 1974
Classified ads Notices: Wood-burning kitchen ranges now in at Horton’s Hardware, Katlian St. .... Your boat AK numbers and letters now in. 15c each. Sitka Engine. .... Sue is back at the Baranof Beauty Shop. Call for an appointment. ... Responsible person desires to live on board boat for winter. Will do whatever maintenance needed.
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