Lael Warren Morgan

May 12, 1936 -

Jul 26, 2022

Lael Warren Morgan died on July 26, 2022, from chronic illnesses.

Morgan was born on May 12, 1936, in Rockland, Maine, the first child of Hazel and Eugene Warren.

In 1958, she married Dodge Morgan, a former Air Force officer and in1959, the couple moved to Anchorage, Alaska.

From 1963 to 1965, the Morgans sailed over 25,000 miles from Maine, via the Panama Canal to Hawaii and Juneau, in a schooner. Returning to Alaska, the couple separated but remained married until 1971, when they got a better than amicable divorce.

She worked for the Juneau Empire, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Jessen's Weekly and the Los Angeles Times. The paper awarded her for best photo feature. Notably, Morgan worked for the Tundra Times, an Alaska Native newspaper based in Fairbanks, which was battling to protect Native rights. She also was a freelancer who worked for state and national publications.

In 1988, she and a partner established Epicenter Press.

She was a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Morgan had over 16 books to her credit, including "Good Time Girls of the Alaska Yukon Gold Rush," which, in 1998, placed her seventh on the Los Angeles Times' best nonfiction list, and won her the distinction of being named Alaska Historian of the year. Her "Art and Eskimo Power: The Life and Times of Alaska Howard Rock," was named to a list of 67 best nonfiction books of all time by Alaska historians.

She is survived by her brother, Lee Warren (Georgia); nephew, Curt Warren (Tatjana) and their two sons; and niece, Kim Warren and her two sons, all of Utah; and adopted daughter, Diana Campbell (Mack), of Fairbanks, Alaska.

A Zoom memorial will be held at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. The link is https://vimeo.com/event/2332055.

A celebration of life will be held at Pike's Waterfront Lodge in Fairbanks, on Saturday, Sept 3, 2022, at 6 p.m., in the Binkley Room. Her ashes will be buried at Birch Hill Cemetery on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2022, at 2 p.m.