Mrs. Mabel Fenner
Staff Photo
Many Sides of Kodiak Life
Concern Deputy Magistrate
By Mariam J. Angell
Through the people of Kodiak
whose interviews have appeared in
these pages, a profile of the town
begins to take shape. Many more
parts need fitting in the frame
before the outline can be consid
ered complete, and finally, we
hope it will be our good fortune to
fill in the whole picture.
One missing chink, until now,
was Mrs. Mabel Fenner whose
titles sketchily explain her im
portance in Kodiak life: she is Dep
uty Magistrate, Judge of the Court,
Special Master and recently ap
pointed Deputy Clerk of the Su
perior Court. Before putting these
titles into detail we asked from
where she had come to Alaska,
and when, and what had sparked
her interest in a career such as
this.
Demurring that her life cer
tainly had not been exciting or un
usual, Mrs. Fenner told us she was
born and raised on a ranch-farm in
Oregon, near the small town of
Mount Vernon, “There were five
girls and one boy in our family.
We rode a great deal; in fact, a girl
friend and I rode ten miles every
Saturday to take music lessons; we
didn’t make good as pianists but
we became good horsewomen. As
I remember, we probably did it
to get out of housework.”
After graduation from high
school in Mount Vernon her high
school teacher and his wife per
suaded Mrs. Fenner to take the
state teachers’ examination. She
was successful and taught for sev
eral years in rural schools where
often all eight grades were com
bined in one room. “One thing
I’m happy to say, one of the school
teachers here in Kodiak is one of
my former pupils—Mrs. Elodia
Metzgar. I had between 17 and 20
students; one later became an in
structor at the University of Wash
ington and another is a doctor of
medicine in Portland, Oregon. I
don’t take credit for them; I’m
just very proud of them.”
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“While I was still teaching, some
people in Mount Vernon started
prodding me to run for County
Clerk. I had no knowledge of the
job except that I knew they re
corded all county documents, but
I ran and was elected. They told
me I was the first woman and the
youngest elected officer in county
government on the Pacific coast;
I was 22 at the time. The term then
was two years but it was later in
creased to four; I was re-elected
for a second term so I served six
years all together. It was my
duty to sit in on Circuit Court
cases, swear in the jurors and
witnesses, and listen to the cases.
“iNearly all the other work was
typing and I had never typed. They
told me they guessed I could learn.
The state had passed a bounty law
on coyotes and one of my duties
was to pay the bounties. The price
on females was higher; a few trap
pers brought them in and I always
trusted them to tell me the truth
until I realized there were always
more females than males. It oc
curred to me that by the law of
averages there should be more
mates than they said there were,
so I asked the sheriff to check on
the sex. It was surprising how the
male coyotes increased.
“Then the legislature passed a
dog licensing law. The state sent
us reams of leather—all widths—
and a riveting machine. I was sup
posed to make the dog collars.
Well, I did but I wasn’t very good
at that, so I wrote the Secretary
of State. He replied that I
shouldn’t have to make dog collars.
There was quite a to-do about it;
the story hit the front pages of
the Portland paper.’’
For a time after this Mrs. Fen
ner was bookkeeper for a garage;
still later, while visiting her sis
ter in Aberdeen, Washington, she
met and married her husband. In
the next few years the Fenners
moved to Caspar, Wyoming, where
their son was born, and then to
Port Angeles, Washington. In 1942
Mr. Fenner came to Kodiak and
worked at Ft. Greely; Mrs. Fen
ner and their son, Don, followed
a year later.
“Those were the days of OPA,”
Mrs. Fenner continued, and when
the Clerk of the Board retired,
there again, someone prodded me
to take the job, and there again, I
knew nothing about it. It was a
funny thing: I took over on New
Years Day, 1945 and was given ex
plicit instructions to keep open
that day though there was no busi
ness all day. I worked at this until
OPA went out in 1947. The next
year I went to work as billing clerk
and cashier for KEA, and was
there until my appointment as
U. S. Commissioner in 1954.”
As U. S. Commissioner, Mrs.
Fenner also became Probate Judge,
Ex-Officio Justice of the Peace,
Coroner, and Recorder of the
Court. In the days before state
hood, a circuit court, complete
(Continued on Page 8)
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