Alice Nutbeem
September 15, 1899, Unga Island, Alaska — July 13, 1990, Homer, Alaska
Buried in Seldovia City Cemetery Plot #116
Alice LARSEN was the daughter of Peter and Mary (Hubley) Larsen. She was born on Unga Island on September 15, 1899. Her father, from Denmark, was first a gold miner and later a bear hunting guide in Unga. Her mother, Mary, was a Native Alaskan and a midwife.
Alice was raised in Unga Village on Unga Island in the Shumagin Islands, Alaska, along with her six sisters and five brothers. She attended the Unga Village school.
Alice and Ted Nutbeem were married on February 12, 1920, in Unga. They later moved to the Kenai Peninsula where they homesteaded in Halibut Cove before moving to Seldovia, making it their permanent home.
Alice spent much of her life in the food industry. She and Ted had held the positions of cook and baker on ships that traveled the Alaska coast from southcentral Alaska to the Aleutian Islands. Later they had a restaurant in Seldovia called Ted’s Cafe, where Ted was known as a great baker.
Alice also worked in canneries much of her life. She was at Libby’s Cannery in Kenai until it closed and then she worked in the cookhouse at the AYR cannery in Seldovia.
Alice and Ted had no children, but she was a wonderful “godmother” to many local children, babysitting and teaching them to sew and cook.
Goddaughter Laurel Baird remembers that “Alice lived up the slough, and the original house that she and Ted built was a white canvas tent. And then they just added wood around it, and it really wasn’t insulated, so when the wind blew, you could sit inside and watche the walls move. But it was warm and cozy in there. There was a great little enamel stove. It had one little area that was like the bedroom, and we loved being able to stay over there because she had a featherbed that was made of feathers from Unga and she would fluff that featherbed up and we got to sleep in it and always loved that.
She loved to garden, and she’d just bring in soil because she didn’t have the best soil up there. So she’d bring it in, and she’d work it, and put fertilizer in it. There was a dairy farm up the slough, and so she would bring manure and and enrich the garden. And she grew wonderful things. She had big bunches of petrushkies in her garden that we put on our fish for seasoning. It was wonderful. And she’d always bring us goosetongues in the spring, when the goosetongues first came out. And she – we would go to the beach and get bidarkis, and we got goosetongues out by the beach, too.”
After Ted’s death Alice continued to live in Seldovia the rest of her life, traveling only to visit her Alaska and Washington State family. Her sisters, Betty McIntire and Clara Oaks, lived in Seldovia and they were great companions. Alice died in Homer on July 13, 1990 and is buried in the Seldovia City Cemetery in plot #116, beside her husband, Ted.