Alma Rachel (Moats) CAMERON

CAMERON, MOATS, STEWARD, BLUE, FRANK, DARNELL

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 11/3/2008 at 10:21:47

Anchorage Daily News (AK)
December 11, 1993

Longtime Anchorage resident and homemaker Alma Rachel Cameron, 72, died Dec. 7 at Providence Hospital. A funeral will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Bethel Chapel, 239 Price St., with the Rev. Robert Evans officiating. Pallbearers will include Gene Cameron, William Cameron, David Cameron, Ken Steward, Ben Steward and Nick Steward. Burial will be in Willow. Visitation will be held Monday from 5 to 8 p.m. at Evergreen Memorial Chapel, downtown.

Mrs. Cameron was born July 1, 1921, in Vincent, Iowa. She was the youngest of four children born to Clayton and Mae Moats, and was raised by her widowed mother in Webster City, Iowa. After graduating from Eagle Grove High School, she earned a teaching certificate and taught in a one-room schoolhouse. In October 1940, she married Benjiman E. Cameron and set up household in Vincent. There, three children were born to them, and in 1952, she and her family packed their belongings into a trailer and drove for 18 days up the Alaska Highway. They arrived in Anchorage Aug. 5, 1952. For the first three years she was in Alaska, Mrs. Cameron helped her husband during the day delivering the mail to Star Route B customers in and around Anchorage. At night, they cleaned the post office. They then lived for a winter at the Federal Aviation Administration station at Farewell, southwest of Fairbanks. In May of 1957, a fourth child was born. With this addition to the family, Mrs. Cameron began teaching again full-time to "train up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," her family said. Five years later, another child was born. With five children, all a variety of ages and interests, Mrs. Cameron "had her quiver full," they said. She directed home and family interests and watched each child grow up, get an education, fall in love, get married and leave her home to begin homes of their own. In 1976, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron purchased a winter home in sunny Hawaii and spent many winters there. In 1989, due to Mrs. Cameron's poor health, they moved back to their permanent home in Anchorage where family and friends would have better access to them. Her family said, "She was a devoted wife and loving mother who ran her race with patience and love and finished with honors."

Mrs. Cameron is survived by her husband of 53 years, Benjiman of Anchorage; three sons, Gene, Bill and David Cameron, and two daughters, Nadine Blue and Cindy Steward, all of Anchorage; three grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and her cousins, William Moats of Minnesota, Barbara Darnell of Arkansas and Laverna Frank of Iowa.