- Date Of Birth: June 16, 1927
- Date Of Death: April 11, 2019
- Resting Place: Anchorage
- City: Skagway
- State: Alaska
Lone E. Janson was a freelance historical writer in Alaska, published in numerous magazines and publications since the early 1950s. As a teenager working in the Vancouver shipyards during World War II, she dreamed of going to Alaska, where she sought adventure to feed her writing dreams.
As soon as the war ended, she traveled by steamship to Skagway, Alaska, where her first job was cook on the White Pass and Yukon Railroad. For two years, she worked her way around Alaska, including a short stint working as housekeeper in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau. In 1946, she and a friend hitchhiked the Richardson Highway to Valdez and flew from there to Cordova to work on a floating cannery in Prince William Sound. In Cordova she married a commercial fisherman, and raised her family until the early 1970s. In 1973, with her husband, Richard Janson Jr., who had worked with fisheries unions and then Native issues, she moved to Anchorage where she continued her writing career. She was well-known as editor of the “Alaska Native Management Report,” and later “Highlights of Native Business.” Lone is best known for her first book, “The Copper Spike,” for which she was honored by the Alaska State Legislature in 1976. She later published “Mudhole Smith, Alaska Flier,” and “Penny In My Shoe.” She was a member of the Alaska Press Women, and in 1982 was awarded “Alaska Historian of the Year” by the Alaska Historical Society.
Lone was predeceased by her husband, Richard Janson Jr.; and infant daughter, Joy. She is survived by two children, Roy H. Hansen (wife Agnes Hansen) of Valdez and Anne M. Darrow (husband Nelson Wayne Gibson Sr.) of Anchorage; 11 grandchildren; and 20 great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Alzheimer’s Association.
