Roy Louis Hansen
August 25, 1926, Katalla, Alaska — June 06, 1989, Seldovia, Alaska
Buried in Seldovia City Cemetery Plot #222ROY LOUIS HANSEN was born August 25, 1926 to William C. and Grace Dahlgren Hansen. His father was from Denmark.
At the time of Roy’s birth, the Hansen family lived in what is now the ghost town of Katalla, Alaska, in the Valdez-Cordova area. Katalla was at the center of the now-abandoned Katalla oil field. This was the first discovery of commercial quantities of oil in Alaska (1902). The town reportedly had a population of 5,000 in 1907-1908. The famous “ship of gold” SS Portland, ran aground and sank at Katalla in November 1910, during an autumn storm. The town’s population continued to depend on the small oil field for income until December 25, 1933 when fire damaged its refinery and operations ceased. The town’s post office closed in 1943 and the town site was abandoned.
The Hansen family moved from Katalla to Cordova when Roy was four years old. He attended school in Cordova and was in the US Army during WW II.
Roy married Lucille OLLESTAD in Seldovia in 1953 and they had 3 sons and 6 daughters.
Roy with children Anne Marie and Roy, Jr, about 1982
Roy was a commercial fisherman. He and his son Roy survived the sinking of the vessel Glacier King in Bristol Bay in 1977.
He was a member of the Seldovia Native Association and the Cook Inlet Regional Association. He lived in Anchorage, Alaska after 1981 but was buried in Seldovia, next to his wife, Plot # 222.
Daughter Sandi Hansen, who died in Anchorage in 2018, was the mother of “Baby Groothof” (1975-1975) who is buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery.
Another daughter Patti Lu married Thomas Bowden. She died in 2010 and is buried in the Seldovia Cemetery next to her parents.