My Great-Great-Grandfather was Fred Vaughan who owned a roadhouse and hotel in Valdez Alaska, and he faked his own death to get away from a mean ill tempered wife.

Ok so what happened was Fred and Maude were from Canada. They moved to Oregon in the 1880’s so they could get a piece of the American dream. They settled near Portland. They had a daughter named Evangeline. One day Fred told his wife Maude he was going to Alaska for some business reasons His business dealings brought him to Valdez. After sending some time there Fred did not want to go home. So Fred was sitting around a bar and was talking about how awful his wife was and that he did not want to go back to Oregon.  A reporter for the local news paper said that for $50.00 he would write a story about how Fred had drowned in a boating accident. Fred paid the money happily and the reporter wrote the story and then made sure that copies of the paper were sent to Portland Or.

Well now that Maude was widowed and Evangeline orphaned Maude saw no reason to stay in the US and wanted to go back to Canada. Evangeline did not want to, she wanted to stay  in the USA. Maude gave Evangeline two options, she could get married or come back to Canada.  Evangeline chose to get married. So they found some guy and she married at 16 years old.  Well of course the guy was a real ass and would get drunk and beat her. By this time they were living in Seattle.

Evangeline had a job selling sandwiches to the  dock workers at  lunch time. She met  a  guy who offered her a job on a steamer heading to Valdez Ak. One day  Evangeline just never came home ever again. She worked as a kitchen helper and cabin maid on the steamer.

When she got to Valdez she went to the local paper and asked to talk to the reporter who had written the story of her father’s death. See Evangeline never thought that her father was dead.  When she asked where his grave was the reporter hummed and hawed and she finely ask where he was and the reporter told her he owned a road house and hotel in town.

When she walked in the door of Fred’s roadhouse his chin almost hit the floor. The first thing  Evangeline said was “you bastard how could you run off  and leave me with that bitch.” Actually Fred and Evangeline were very close and they ran the roadhouse together for years. Later Evangeline became a teacher and remarried and became my Great- grandmother.