orothy Steele Johnson Markley was born in Bowler, Montana in 1911 to Marie and Charles Steele. After Charles’ death in 1912, Marie and Dorothy moved to Red Lodge, Montana, where Marie worked for a local doctor for room and board and two dollars per week salary.

Marie’s two brothers, Charles and Roy Ketchum, came to Alaska in 1914 and almost immediately obtained employment at the gold bullion mine in Knik. They sent for their sister to join them, and she arrived in 1915. She went to work in the Gitchell Roadhouse as cook and housemaid and by 1916, she was able to bring Dorothy to Knik. Dorothy’s grandmother packed her up, put name tags on her clothes, and shipped the four-year-old child off to Alaska. Railroad and steamship employees saw that the young passenger safely arrived in Knik.

Dorothy’s mother married Oscar Miller, and the family moved briefly to Anchorage, then to Eska, where Oscar worked for the Navy in the coal fields. After the Navy plant shut down they returned to Anchorage. They first lived in a tarpaper shack, until a house could be built for them at 7th Avenue and F Street.

Dorothy attended Anchorage schools, played violin in the school orchestra and in local dance bands. She graduated from Anchorage High School in 1929 and got a job as an accounting clerk with the Alaska Railroad. She married Edward Johnson in 1930, then lost her job as the result of an unwritten rule that a married woman could not work for the town or the railroad. Edward and Dorothy had a son, Edward Johnson, in 1931 and moved to Oregon looking for better jobs. Dorothy returned to Anchorage with her son in 1933. She wanted to work for the railroad, but the rule applying to married women still stood, so she obtained a divorce.

Some time later, Dorothy lost control of the right side of her head and neck and lost hearing in her left ear as a result of an unsuccessful mastoid operation. She continued to work for the railroad, however, and saved enough money to buy a lot on 7th Avenue between F and G Streets. She contracted with Herman Johnson to build her a home, the total cost of which was $4,500.

In 194l, she met and married Jacob Markley. After his discharge from the U.S. Army, Jake pursued his trade as a carpenter by building several homes in Anchorage. By that time, Dorothy was working at the Z.J. Loussac Library, then located at 5th Avenue and F Street. She and Jacob enjoyed the outdoors, and went moose hunting every fall. They owned property at Judd Lake, where they ran traplines for beaver, muskrat and mink.

Dorothy’s son, Edward Johnson married Vila and had two sons, Douglas and Jonathan. In 1992, after Jacob Markley began losing sight in one eye, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He and Dorothy moved into the Anchorage Pioneers’ Home in 1994. Dorothy’s mother Marie died in 1994 at the age of 103 and Jake also died that year, at age 81. Dorothy died at the pioneer’s home in the summer of 2006, of complications from a fall. She was 95. Dorothy and Jacob Markley are buried at the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.