The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-03-04

son. Last year one of these classes was devoted to Alaska, another to South America and a third to the French lam guage. The club has also lectures, es- says and poems given by it's members; and it is, in short, thoroughly up-to-date as to club organization and club life.
 l was struck by the high character of the women 1 met at the club this after noon. The women here are typical of those of other parts of Alaska. They are well dressed, well bred and well edu- cated. Not a few are college graduates; and all show more hospitality than Is common throughout the United States Many of them have lived in Alaska for years and their stories of conditions, present and past, are especially interest," ing.
 It was not until 1898, when gold was discovered in the Klondike, that many women came to Alaska. Those who were here before that were chiefly the wives of government officials or of officers of the army and navy, some of whom lived at the posts and others at the chief towns along the coast. There were also the missionaries, who had stations at Sitka and other places in southeastern Alaska, and occasionally the wife of sea captain or trapper
 The first woman to establish a home on Cook inlet was Mother White, the wife of a whaler who made voyages to Bering sea and the Arctic ocean. He brought his wife with him and she built a log cabin store and roadhouse on the shores of Cook inlet, about POO miles from the site of the new town of Anchorage. It was there that Miss Martha White was born. She was the first white child to see the light of day in that part of tne world, and when the work began on the government railway she was chosen to drive the first spike.-
 It Is more than 20 years since Mrs. White established her store and road house. She dealt with the Indians and trsprers, and later on started fish can nery and saltery. In one year she put up 2000 barrels of salted salmon. She made considerable money, which she invested in mining. She was part of the gold stam- pede to Sunrise, on Turnagain arm, where she made so much that she might have retired in comfort Then bad luck came She put her winnings into un successful properties and lost them. She went back to the roadhouse business and established little hotels at Hope City and Sunrise These were success, and she gradually accumulated some property. In the meantime, her daughter was growing up and Mother White decided to leave Alaska and go to the states to educate her. She moved to Chicago and opened a little store there, which supported her until a few years ago, when Martha education was finished.
 And then came that longing to go back to Alaska that permeates the souls of all who have made their homes here for any length of time. It so obsessed Mrs. White that she left her daughter in Chi cago and went alone to the north. With tears in her eyes, she told me how she came back to the mining camps of Hope and Sunrise and how they affected her. Many of the old prospectors whom she had known were still there, and she felt that here was her home and her friends. The result was that she came back to Alaska, bringing her daughter with her, and when the work on the railroad be- gan she was one of the first on the ground at the new town of Anchorage. She came in with a stock of lumber and canvas, and before rail was laid or any excavation made she had put up tents for eating and lodging down on the flats. Her sleeping tent was equipped with hunks one over the other like those of sleeping car and each bed brought her @ dollar a night. When the new site for Anchorage was chosen she built frame hotel on the main street, and she is doing so well that she will probably nave to put up larger pullulHS III the near future.
 Another woman who has made good in Alaska is Mrs. Pullen of Skagway, who, by her kindness to the old miners and stranded prospectors, has earned the title of Mother of the North She has beautiful hotel at the head of the Lynn canal where the glacial Skagway river flows in. The place is surrounded by mountains that reach to the clouds, and it Is not far away from the mighty ice rivers of Glacier bay. Mrs Pullen has recently bought farm which covers the