ALEXANDRIA POTOROCHIN ELXNIT is buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery in plot 228.
Alexsandra’s family, the Potorochins, lived for ten years in Eagle Harbor near Saltery Cove on Kodiak Island. According to the birth registry book of the Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Kodiak, Alexandra was born in Kodiak on March 16, 1885. Alexsandra’s father was Nicolas Mikailov Potorochin who married Martha Egorieff (Egorev, Igoroff). After the Katmai eruption in 1912, the Potorochin family were transported to Iliamna on the Revenue Cutter Manning, then to Ninilchik and later settled in Seldovia. Alexsandra’s mother Martha later married Nicholas Romanov Fomin, a Creole and lay reader in the Russian Orthodox Church. Mr. Fomin also worked as the store manager for the Alaska Commercial Company in Eagle Harbor. Alexsandra became Nicholas Fomin’s step-daughter.
Alexsandra, known as Shura, married first on November 24, 1902, Harry (Rufus) Grenieff, Russian-born though of Finnish descent. As was custom, the church arranged the marriage between Rufus and Alexandra. The Grenieff’s had two children, Nicholas born November 3, 1903 in Kodiak, and Dora, born on the Steamship DORA on November 2, 1905, while the ship traveled between Seldovia and Kodiak. Rufus died in Kodiak from pneumonia at an early age and Alexandra later married Aleksander Elxnit who was born in 1867.
Her daughter Dora lived in Kodiak until 1913 when she moved to Seldovia and attended the Seldovia Territorial School. She married Axel Ursin of Seldovia and the couple had four children: Rayder, Laura, Norman and Eleanor.