Rex Hanks News Today

After working and searching for a couple of months, he found property that pleased him near the waterfall at the mouth of Happy Creek

By the end of 1958, the little graveyard’s inhabitants numbered four.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Thirty-five-year-old Rex Hanks homesteaded in the Happy Creek valley in 1946. He remained a bachelor until 1953, when he married registered nurse Irmgard Matz in Seward. Together they had two daughters, both stillborn. Rex built a modest home for himself and his wife south of the creek and near the beach above Cook Inlet.

The main action of this story takes place in Happy Valley, located between Anchor Point and Ninilchik on the southern Kenai Peninsula

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Happy Valley resident Rex Hanks began his own private cemetery in the winter of 1951. By the end of 1958, the little graveyard’s inhabitants numbered four. The problem was that Hanks and his wife didn’t own the cemetery land. Kenai Peninsula road-builders had other plans for that location, so all the graves had to be moved.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This first chapter of the Rex Hanks story includes many other individuals and numerous actions and transactions. It is helpful, therefore, to know a little background: The main action takes place in Happy Valley, located between Anchor Point and Ninilchik on the southern Kenai Peninsula. Of the “characters” in this tale, Rex Hanks, in May 1946, was the first to file on a homestead. A week later, his friend, Clyde Thomas, filed on an adjacent homestead. Two years ...

On Aug. 3, 1948, Lawrence and Lorna made their official move from Kenai to Anchor Point aboard a vessel called the John Adams

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Lawrence and Lorna Keeler, along with their three children and Lawrence’s older brother Floyd, left Oregon on June 3, 1948, and began driving to what would become their new home on the southern Kenai Peninsula. By late June, Lawrence and Lorna were in Kenai, working in a cannery to earn enough money to afford transportation to the Anchor River.