This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: NELSON Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/ZaB.2ACE/1364 Message Board Post: Anchorage Daily News (AK) - January 26, 1992 GEORGE E. NELSON Longtime Alaska homesteader George Everett Nelson, 71, died of pneumonia Jan. 11 at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Va., while visiting his daughter, Reta. A memorial service will be held at 1:45 p.m. Friday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Lodge 9365 in Wasilla on Knik Road. A buffet will immediately follow at the lodge. Mr. Nelson was born July 20, 1920, in Bradford, Pa. He graduated in 1940 from Leesburg High School in Leesburg, Fla. He was a U.S. Army Air Corps veteran during World War II. Mr. Nelson moved to Alaska in the 1950s. He owned and operated Nelson's Trading Post near Fairbanks for about 10 years. He started a homestead at Strelna Lake on the Chitina-McCarthy Highway, Nelson's Lakeside Campsites, in 1967 where he owned a trading post, campsites and fished for rainbow trout. He was a sheetmetal worker on the trans-Alaska pipeline in the heating and air conditioning business and was a well-driller. Mr. Nelson liked outdoor life and did personal farming on his homestead. He enjoyed gardening and harvesting his crops. He was a charter member of the Loyal Order of the Moose in Leesburg, Fla. Mr. Nelson was very helpful in directing tourists and friends in the Chitina area and enjoyed square dancing. He is survived by his wife, Velma of Wasilla; his daughters, Reta Lawrence of Hampton, Va., and Susan Neip of Chitina; his sons, Dennis of Tacoma, Gary of Herndon, Va., Francis of Palmer, and Daniel Keyes of Pennsylvania; his sisters, Jacqueline Sewell and Jean Dann, both of Moose Pass, and Carol McCall and Virginia Getford, both of Florida; his brother, William of Leesburg; and 19 grandchildren.