Description: In 1892, accompanied only by her sewing machine, Anna DeGraf headed to Alaska in search of her son. She was fifty-three years old and walked with a crutch. She walked because not even mules could climb the mountain trails. Mrs. DeGraf was one of the first white women to live on the northern frontier. She watched the frenzies of the gold rush, and observed "We got used to 30 and 40 below zero, and didn't think much about such weather, but when the thermometer dropped to 60 and 70 below, one could feel it". She befriended showgirls, native peoples and miners; she was known as "Mother" to tenderfeet and lawmen. She ate salad under the midnight sun and hostessed a Shakespeare reading on Christmas eve. She ran a number of stores, outwitted a number of crooks, and wasn't eaten by bears. After twenty-five years, Anna DeGraf returned to the lower 48 for good, having heard of her great granddaughter's birth, and wrote her memoirs at age eighty-six, hoping (in vain) her lost son "may read these words". Hers is the story of America's last frontier. It's also a memoir by and about one of history's most extraordinary people. And her daily life is almost Bunyanesque in its vitality - though the tales are true. The manuscript, illustrations, and a poke of Alaska gold, were found in a trunk many years after her death by members of her family.

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