Berntina Venes

1927 - 2015

Berntina "Bernie" Venes, age 87, of Bethel, Alaska, passed away on July 28, 2015. She was born on Nov. 29, 1927, at Napaimute, Alaska. She was the youngest daughter of Jens and Ellen Marie Sara Kvamme, Saami reindeer herders who emigrated from Norway in 1898 for the Alaska Reindeer Project. Bernie and her family spent summers on their reindeer range in the Buckstock Mountains south of Aniak. When she was very young, her family moved to Aniak, where she attended the first school established there. After reindeer herding ended, her family worked at the gold mine her father discovered on Canyon Creek. As a child, Bernie learned to garden and fish for salmon and to help dry, smoke, can and salt fish for the family's use. Bernie married Benjamin Twitchell in 1946, and they lived in Takotna, Alaska, where Benjamin homesteaded and operated a general store. When the Territorial school closed, Ben and Bernie's young family left Takotna, traveling first down the Kuskokwim River to Bethel in a home-built boat, then by plane to Anchorage, Alaska, and Seattle, Wash. The family became road gypsies for several months until they settled in Oregon, where Benjamin resumed his teaching career. After Benjamin's death in 1968, Bernie moved to Springfield, Ore., where she raised her children as a single parent. In 1974, Bernie married Elias Venes and moved to Bethel, where she helped raise the youngest Venes children. She worked with her husband to drift for and smoke fish. She loved to be on the river and to explore the side sloughs and tributaries and to be out on the tundra. Bernie had a "green thumb" and her geraniums brought color not only to her home in Bethel, but also to passersby who saw them blooming in her greenhouse windows. Bernie believed it important that her descendants know their unique family story and she raised her children to be proud of their heritage. She researched and wrote accounts of her parents' lives as well as her own childhood. She was a favorite grandmother to many and became a family institution, passing on her extensive knowledge of home and life skills. Bernie was preceded in death by her parents, Jens and Ellen Marie Kvamme; first husband, Benjamin Twitchell; her brothers, James and Albert Kvamme; and sisters, Anna Twitchell and Ellen Horner. She is survived by her husband, Elias Venes of Bethel; daughters, June McAtee and son-in-law Norman, Margie Brown and son-in-law Allen and Berntina "Dede" Steele and son-in-law Wyatt; sons, Adams Hollis Twitchell and daughter-in-law Pamela and Michael Twitchell and daughter-in-law Diana; stepdaughters, Elizabeth "Dit" Hoffman and son-in-law Bobbie, Debra "Dub" Ovitt, Arlene "Shoonty" Rost, Ruth Ingrid "Ingie" Garrison and son-in-law Pete, Genevieve Brothers and son-in-law Jim, Henrietta Knight, Josephine Daniel and son-in-law Jacob, Connie Sankwich and son-in-law Ken, Lisa Waters and son-in-law Trevis and Janet Gray and son-in-law Mike; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Bernie will be lovingly remembered and will be deeply missed by her large circle of family and friends.