Homesteader Dolly Farnsworth passed away on this Monday, December 9, 2014, but not before leaving a permanent impact on the community.
One of Dolly’s youngest daughters, Nina Kersten said that after following Jack Farnsworth to Ft. Richardson from California, they heard about an opportunity on the Kenai Peninsula.
Kersten: “She heard about a fellow that homesteaded down here and had a little cabin on the property and his wife decided that she was not going to go live in the wilderness so he had to give it all up. A friend of a friend that told my dad about it, so he bought the cabin and then came down here and staked the claim and they decided to homestead. My mother had always wanted to own land.”
Dolly acted at the City of Soldotna’s clerk from the time it became a fourth class city in 1960 until it became a first class city in 1967.
She was the first woman to sit on the Kenai Peninsula Borough assembly in 1965 when her husband had to resign due to health reasons and held office as the Mayor of Soldotna from 1984 to 1990.
Kersten said Dolly was instrumental in getting both the Central Peninsul Hospital and the Soldotna library operational.
Kersten: “She was wonderful, everybody loved her, she was very hospitable and very knowledgeable, of course she basically grew up with the area so she knew just about everything there was to know about the area and the city. She had a mind like a steel trap, she never forgot about anything. She was a mentor there was a lot of people she was a mentor too. She loved Alaska, she loved her homestead and you couldn’t get her to leave here.”
At this week’s Soldotna City Council meeting the council paused for a moment of silence to remember Dolly and her significant accomplishments.
Click here for her full biography and obituary.
