We read the recent commentary by Michael Carey, “Our deaths, our graves and how we’re remembered.” The pathway to a gravestone often tells a more detailed story of society than the person buried there. Time tends to add a haze of romance and forgetting.
By all accounts, Soapy Smith of Skagway was a rogue, a scoundrel and even accused of murder. He eventually died in a gunfight with what’s-his-name. We could look up what’s-his-name, who by all accounts was an upstanding citizen, and also died as a result of the gunfight and pretend we knew his name but who are we kidding — most don’t know his name.
In 1989, when I visited the Skagway graveyard, there was a deep path to Soapy Smith’s grave. What’s-his-name had an imposing tombstone, but there was no worn path to it.
— Dorrance Collins and Faith Myers
Anchorage
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