But First, A Little Background

The four intrepid travelers on this trip are Mary Alice Lee, her sister Virginia "Ginger"Lee Danzer, Kelley Sinclair Allton and me, Ginny Reilly.

Kate Plein's sister Margaret Hegans married Edward W. Reilly of St. Louis and had seven children: John, Edward P., Lawrence, Alice, Catherine, Margaret and Agnes. Mary Alice & Virginia are Alice's daughters. Kelley is Lawrence's granddaughter. I'm the granddaughter of Edward P. Reilly.

Let's see if I can make this more confusing. I'm a first cousin once removed to the Lee sisters. So is Kelley. But Kelley and I are second cousins. Mary Alice & Ginger are Kate's grandnieces. Kelley and I are her great-grandnieces.

The four of us share an affliction common to our female Reilly ancestors. It's called wanderlust. We look for any excuse to travel. We can't help but feel a kinship to Auntie Plein, who once went off for a great adventure in a new frontier.

A Bio of Mary Catherine Hegans Staley Plein

Auntie Plein or Mary Catherine Hegans was born in New Orleans in 1861. Her mother Mary Gaffney was a young widow with a son, Thomas, when she married Peter Hegans. They went on to have 5 more children: Edward, John, Mary Catherine, Margaret and Mathilda. The family lived in St. Louis, MO.

Mary Hegans died within a few years of giving birth to Mathilda, who was born in 1868. Peter Hegans died, we believe, in 1884. The boys stayed with him, and the girls were largely farmed out to other families. Mathilde was adopted by a well-off couple named Finnegan. She later became a nun. Margaret lived with a number of families, and we have no idea who raised Mary Catherine.

At some point, Mary Catherine married Milton Staley. There was a daughter named Nathalie, born in 1882, who may have been adopted. Somewhere along the line, Mary left Milton, met Joseph Plein (pronounced "pline") and followed him to Nome, Alaska in search of gold. We don't know when or if the Pleins were legally married. She wrote a letter to her sister from Nome in 1900, seeming to apologize for the hurt she caused her family. It was signed "M.C. Staley."

The Pleins eventually made their home in Fortuna Ledge/Marshall, where they pursued their mining interests, and Aunt Kate functioned as kind of a town nurse. She is recalled as having saved lives with her medical skills. She also taught school for a time at a nearby village called Russian Mission. She died in Marshall on Jan 28, 1932 and had a funeral befitting a beloved figure. Joseph Plein died in 1939 in Sitka, AK.

Wandering Foot
Auntie Plein wrote a lot of letters, which the Lee sisters saved and plan to donate to the museum in Nome. The letters give some indication of what life was like in the Alaskan Territory in the early part of the 19th century. There were sled dogs and hog-killings and foxes . The summers were full of gardening (they grew cabbage, turnips, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and radishes) and the long winters were punctated with parties, carnivals and balls. She writes of their mining endeavors in Marshall, which at times made the Pleins very prosperous. She had no romantic ideas about Alaska, but was drawn to its wildness. She writes in a letter dated 1918, "The great charm of this country is I think its unsettled state. You don't know what you may do tomorrow ... I surely have a wandering foot. If I had my way, I'd be on the go all the time."

Our Mission in Marshall and Nome
In Marshall, we hope to find the Plein house, and possibly the site of the Plein's gold mining efforts. In Nome, we hope to find Plein records - business, probate, marriage, etc. Ginger, Mary Alice and I have already spent many hours researching the Pleins, but hope to have more questions answered during our trip to Alaska.