Gastineau Channel Memories

Harris, Frank & Mae (Hash)

Leota Harris Puzey

My parents met in southern Oregon. My dad, Frank W. Harris, went to Juneau in 1914, and my mom, Mae Hash, went to Juneau in 1916, and they were married at that time. I was born in 1917, and my brother Carl was born in 1919. Carl was later killed in a motorcycle accident in California in 1947.

We lived in a house on the bay side of Glacier Highway opposite the Greenhouse. We moved to town when I started kindergarten where Anita Garnick was my first teacher. I graduated from Juneau High School in 1935. I then moved to Ashland, Oregon, and attended college until 1938.

I moved back to Juneau where I met and married Louis Virgil Puzey in February 1939, and lived in town until we moved to a house on the Loop Road overlooking Auke Lake. We had a daughter, Virginia, and a son, Kenneth.

Virgil worked at the A-J Mine and shortly after our son was born in 1943, Virgil was in a very bad accident in which he was the only survivor. One man was killed outright and the other, Jack Harrington, lived only long enough to get to the hospital. Virgil?s back injury made it impossible for him to work and the doctors advised him to move to a drier climate, which we did in 1944.

After moving to El Cerrito, California, we had another daughter, Carole, and another son, James. Virgil passed away in 1984. I have been back to Juneau three times since I left, the last time was in 1998 and my, what changes!