Gastineau Channel Memories

Satre, John & Patty (Dooley)

Tim Satre

Patricia E. Dooley was born in 1920, in Cordova, Alaska, to Deputy Marshall George Dooley and Minnie H. (Way) Dooley. Patty was the seventh child and the fifth daughter, and only three years old when her father died, leaving her mother to bring up the seven children.

Patty went through grade and high school in Cordova, then to Seattle to Griffin-Murphy Business College. Traveling to Juneau, she lived with her sister, Bobbie Dimond, and worked first for the Legislature, then for the Territorial Health Department. In 1957, she was Assistant Secretary to the Senate. She also worked as a legal secretary for John Dimond, who became Judge Dimond (former Justice of the Supreme Court) and son of Anthony Dimond, Alaska?s Territorial Representative to Congress. She later worked for the law firm of Faulkner, Banfield, Boochever and Doogan in Juneau.

In 1943, Patty married John Oscar Satre, Jr., in the post chapel at Fort Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska. John was the son of pioneers John and Therese Satre and born in Flat, Alaska. John served in active duty with the Alaska National Guard during WW II. While stationed in Seattle, their first child, Lee Ann, was born. Returning to Juneau, Sharon, Tommy and Timmy were born. While there, they owned and operated the Baranof Gift Shop.

In 1969, Patty and John moved to Fairbanks where John worked for the U. of Alaska?s Purchasing Department, and the children attended the University. Patty worked for the law firm of Merdes, Schaible, Staley, and Delisio as Administrative Legal Secretary, retiring in 1984. Following her husband?s death in 1992, she returned to Juneau.

Patty?s hobbies included gardening, ceramics and crocheting afghans for all her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren as well as nieces, nephews and their children. She enjoyed camping, spending many weekends traveling with John; first sleeping in the back of a covered pick-up truck, then in a cab-over camper, and finally in a motor home traveling throughout Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. They visited a gravel pit located at Chatanika on the Steese Highway frequently, and nicknamed this favorite spot ?Satre?s Pond.? Traveling internationally, they visited Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Tahiti, Mexico, Hawaii, and the Shetland Islands, where they met people on these trips and cruises whom they later visited, becoming friends.

Patty died of cancer in 1994, in Juneau at the age of 74.