At least 21 grave markers in Juneau\u2019s Evergreen Cemetery share a common death date: 1918.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 25, 1918, more than 340 people died when the SS Princess Sophia sank after striking Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal. On Tuesday, a group of about 35 people gathered around the graves of Walter Harper and Frances Wells in Evergreen to commemorate Alaska\u2019s worst maritime disaster.<\/p>\n
Harper and Wells are among the 21 shipwreck victims buried in Juneau. During Tuesday\u2019s memorial, several people told brief stories about Harper, Wells and other passengers who were traveling on the ill-fated ship.<\/p>\n
Harper and Wells were on their way back to the Lower 48 to become involved in World War I war effort when the Princess Sophia sank. Only five years earlier, Harper became the first man to reach the summit of Denali, then known as Mount McKinley.<\/p>\n
Now, 98 years after the disaster, people still visit Harper\u2019s grave. Many of the 35 people who attended Tuesday\u2019s memorial have been doing so for at least 25 years.<\/p>\n
Mark Boesser is among that group. From a seat beneath a large tree near Harper and Wells\u2019 grave, Boesser led Tuesday\u2019s memorial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe learn more each time we do this,\u201d Boesser told the Empire after the event.<\/p>\n
Each year, somebody will show up with a piece of information that nobody else knew, or at least disclosed, before, he said. This year, the new interesting fact came from Mary Lou Spartz, who spoke briefly about the Juneau\u2019s involvement in the rescue and recovery efforts.<\/p>\n
According to Spartz, Juneau residents played a key role in recovering and identifying the bodies of those who died in the shipwreck.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t all pleasant, and it wasn\u2019t all safe,\u201d she said describing the work.<\/p>\n
It was important, however. Because the shipwreck\u2019s only survivor was a dog, the only accounts we have of the final moments of the Princess Sophia are from letters recovered from the dead.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s memorial service played out like most of those in the past, but future commemorations are likely to be more noteworthy, particularly those of 2018 \u2014 the disaster\u2019s centennial.<\/p>\n
Katy Giorgio of the Orpheus Project, a local opera group, announced at the memorial that the group has started working on an opera about the Princess Sophia that is scheduled to premiere in October 2018.<\/p>\n
Fairbanks-based composer Emerson Eads and Juneau-based playwright David Hunsaker are currently working on the opera. They hope to workshop in about a year to find cast members, according to Todd Hunt, who will conduct the opera.<\/p>\n
A representative of the Pioneers of Alaska, a fraternal history organization, also announced Tuesday that the organization is working to build a memorial to those who died on the Princess Sophia at Eagle Beach State Recreation Area.<\/p>\n
The memorial will comprise a boulder with a bronze plaque describing how the ship sank. Like the opera, this memorial is slated to be finished by October 2018, according to Terry Brenner, a member of the Pioneers of Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 21 grave markers in Juneau\u2019s Evergreen Cemetery share a common death date: 1918. On Oct. 25, 1918, more than 340 people died when the SS Princess Sophia sank after striking Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal. On Tuesday, a group of about 35 people gathered around the graves of Walter Harper and Frances Wells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":32885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32884"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}