Summary: Annie was born in Juneau Alaska in the late 1890s and adopted by Henry and Celina Lovely. That family had lived in Minnesota and Washington before Henry came to Alaska in August 1895. Celina and her daughter followed several months later. Henry had been a seaman but worked as a carpenter and prospector while in Alaska. Annie’s older step-sister, Alphonsine, who was born at Moorhead, Minnesota, in 1886, married Charles W. Carter in Juneau in May 1902 against her father’s wishes.

Shortly after Alphonsine’s wedding Henry, Celina and Annie left Juneau and moved to Warm Spring Bay. After a failed land deal there the family moved to Fairbanks. On July 22, 1902 gold had been discovered north of Fairbanks and the Lovely’s were drawn to the new mining town. In 1910 a major gold discovery set off another stampede down the Yukon River to the new community of Ruby. It’s not clear if Henry joined that rush but by 1912 the Lovely family was living in the young gold rush town.

The first Catholic mass in Ruby was celebrated in August 1912 by Father Hormisdas Ferron in the Lovely’s Home. In 1913 Father Julius Jett bought a one story frame building and converted it into a church. Henry became caretaker of Ruby’s Catholic Mission.

Annie met and married gold miner A.J. Day in Ruby.

Sources: Juneau-Douglas City Muesum, Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks