Obituary: Dorothy Frandsen, 92

Born at home November 29, 1923 in Barnet, Vermont, Dot spent her early years in a loving family with her parents Edward and Alice Morton Johnson and her younger brother Edward. She attended grade school in Barnet, high school at McIndoes Academy. She graduated from Lynden, a Vermont state college. Dot started her teaching career in 1943 in a one room school with all 8 grades in Comerford, Vermont.

After teaching in schools in Vermont and Massachusetts, she moved to Alaska with her first husband, Dan Roberts, in 1948, arriving in Ketchikan, Alaska in a Grumman Goose, Dot wearing a pink raincoat. They were weathered in. Later, Bob Ellis of Ellis Airlines couldn't find Dot to tell her it was time to fly to Wrangell, as she had the audacity to take off her pink raincoat and he couldn't find her. Dot taught school first in the BIA Wrangell Institute, then later in the Wrangell Public Schools until 1970.

In 1970, Dot moved to Wasilla, Alaska, with Ed Frandsen, her second husband. Dot continued to teach at the Elementary School. Dot and Ed purchased a lot on the Kenai River, where they built a fishing camp and enjoyed many years of salmon fishing and time spent with friends and family. They were also avid gardeners, their dahlias were colorful and exuberant. Dot retired in 1977. She briefly worked for the Frontiersman, a local newspaper, and volunteered for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race and for the Mat-Su Visitors and Convention Center.

In 1986, the couple bought a cottage on Coeur d' Alene Lake and spent summers there while still living in Alaska. They started spending winters in Yuma, Arizona in 1991; in 1995 they moved out of Alaska permanently. The couple traveled all over the U.S. and Canada, many trips over the Alaska-Canada highway in its earlier, unpaved form. They visited Vermont and explored much of the country, including most of the Canadian provinces.

They moved into Leisure Park in Hayden, Idaho in 2000. Once, at St. Marie's Golf Course in Idaho, Dot, a casual golfer, made a hole-in-one for the only time in her life.

Dot is survived by Kris and Tom Yeomans of Worley, Idaho; Jan and Dick Leander of Spokane, Washington, and countless close friends.

No date of death provided.