| Traveling Mary  Mary
Dolan was born in Croghan, Roscommon in 1862, the oldest child of Andrew
Dolan and Anne Tansey. She had a case of wanderlust and kept on the move
over the years of her youth, first to South Africa, next to Australia,
then to New Zealand. From there she moved to Fiji, later Samoa, and still
later to Hawaii. The last queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, asked to meet
her, explaining that she had never met anybody from Ireland before.
Mary traveled the world at a time when that was very difficult and not
without risk, especially for a single young Irish woman without any money.
She immigrated to San Francisco, where she was injured in the 1906 earthquake.
After a brief marriage, Mary followed the gold rush to Alaska. There she
met Ed Snyder, married, and settled down in Tenakee Springs, a frontier
outpost with a population of about 300.
This is a picture of Mary in 1909 standing with her husband in Snyder’s
Mercantile, the general store they owned for many years. The Snyder Mercantile
remains at the center of Tenakee Springs life and has changed hands only
twice since Mary turned it over to grandnephew Dermot. Mary was a considerable
presence in Tenakee during the almost forty years she lived there.
Mary died in 1946 and left her estate to the many children of her brothers
and sisters scattered across the United States and Ireland. She is buried
in Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau. A great-grandniece of Mary’s immigrated
to Ireland a few years ago with her husband. In a way, therefore, Mary
Dolan’s circumnavigation of the globe is now complete.
Submitted by Andrew K.Dolan |
