Martha Dunlap

1924 - 2023

Our beloved grandmother, Martha Dunlap, passed peacefully from this earth on May 21, 2023, from natural causes.

She was born Martha Kaasa on Aug. 7, 1924, in Cabri, Saskatchewan, Canada, to a Scottish mother and a Norwegian father. Her mother gave birth at home and her father walked for over two days to record the birth with the Canadian government, resulting in an "official" birthday of Aug. 10, 1924. Martha loved having an official and unofficial birthday and used that to extend her birthday celebrations in her later years.

Martha and her brothers, Maynard and George, lived a frontier lifestyle; gardening, farming,and hunting to survive. She loved to tell the story of how the family raised two orphaned black bear cubs (Amos and Andy) they had found abandoned in the woods. Later in their childhood the family settled on the plains of the Peace River Valley in Alberta, Canada.

Martha moved to Edmonton as a young adult to work as a nursing assistant for the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It was there that she cared for a young, American tradesman that had been injured while working on the Canol pipeline. Her infamous line, when asked how she met Clyde Dunlap, her future husband, was "in bed!" The two had a whirlwind romance after Clyde was healed and she claims he wooed her by going dancing for 45 nights straight. The two were wed in Clyde's hometown of Sacramento, California, on June 30, 1943, and son Jack and daughter Jill joined them in 1944 and 1945. The young family joined the flood of workers moving north to build infrastructure after the war. Clyde came to Alaska in 1948 and Martha and the kids joined him in 1951. Clyde found work with Local 375 Plumbers and Pipefitters and Martha landed a job with local optometrist, Dr. Curtis Johnson. Martha worked there until settling with the State of Alaska Community Health Department where she finished her career in 1985.

Martha and Clyde embraced Alaska and its lifestyle. Each summer, Martha and Clyde raised an amazing garden at their small home on 23rd Avenue. While she never entered any of her cabbages to the Tanana Valley fair, anyone who visited her was convinced she would have swept the competition. They camped and fished throughout the state and dabbled in goldmining in the Wiseman area. Even into her later years, Martha never turned down an opportunity to work at the fish wheel or take aim at a bull moose during hunting season.

Over many Gold King games at the Big Dipper, Martha and Clyde forged a tight bond with a young married couple, Richard and Myra Neff. After Clyde's death in 2007, Martha would often join the Neff's out in Arizona over the winter. Her determination, age and Alaskan-size pluck made her a bit of a star among the "young" folks in Yuma. She loved dancing, socializing, and riding on the back of Richard's Harley Davidson.

In her later years, Martha settled in Tok with her daughter Jill and great-granddaughters, Becc and Melody. She was a social butterfly and entertained and cooked for everyone well into her 90's. She also loved a good visit in the afternoon with a coke and whiskey "5 o'clocker."

Martha was preceded in death by her son Jack Dunlap and her husband Clyde Dunlap. Her daughter Jill Kranenburg joined her in heaven exactly one week after her passing, the two of them inseparable in so many ways. She is survived by her grandson Robert (Robb) Dunlap, his wife Michaeleen and daughters Creighton, Bronwyn, Ava, and Addison; grandson Scott Kranenburg and children Becc, Melody, Blair, Samantha and Charles; and granddaughter Marna Sanford and husband Ed; also by adopted family Richard and Myra Neff and children Kambriea John, Kaleah Neff and Kedrik Neff.

A joint memorial service for Martha and her daughter Jill Kranenburg will be held on July 1, 2023, at 2 p.m. at the Tok School multipurpose room.