ELLA ROBERTA BLACK HENRY

Ella Roberta Black Henry, 98, died Jan. 26, 2005, at her assisted living home in Wasilla.

A visitation will be held from 6-9 p.m., Monday, Jan. 31, at Kehl's Palmer Mortuary. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 1, at Kehl's Palmer Mortuary. Officiating will be Robert Kuenning of Valley Church of Christ.

Mrs. Henry was born Dec. 19, 1906 in Council. She completed high school in Wisconsin.

Mrs. Henry first moved to the Valley after her father took over a farm there in 1915. When her parents died in 1920 and 1921, she was sent to live with relatives in Wisconsin, where she met and married a farmer, Francis Marion Henry.

In 1934, word got around that the government would be sending about 200 farming families from the upper Midwest to Alaska to start an agricultural colony.

"I wanted to come back and I didn't have to twist my husband's arm. We had this notion that maybe they wouldn't have taxes in Alaska," she said with a rueful chuckle, in a conversation before her death.

Mrs. Henry, part owner of her father's old farm, asked to be included in the Colony project. The government agreed, and arranged transportation to the Valley for the couple and their daughter, Elaine. The family farmed there for eight years before moving into a small house in Palmer in 1943. Mrs. Henry lived there until she moved to Wasilla in 2003.

She was a member of the Valley Church of Christ.

Her family wrote, "Mom was well-known for her great sense of humor and a fierce streak of independence. She has often remarked, 'If you can't laugh, there's no point to living any longer.'"

Mrs. Henry is survived by her daughters, Elaine Goldbach of Nevada and Ruth Bohanon of Minnesota; son, Paul Henry of Kentucky; 12 grandchildren; 19 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her infant daughter, Opal, in 1931; husband, Francis, in 1970 and three of her brothers, Herman, William and Sidney.

Arrangements were made by Kehl's Palmer Mortuary.