John P. Bagoy, Alaskan historian, 83
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Anchorage historian John Bagoy dies
The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE - John P. Bagoy, an Anchorage historian who spent years
identifying and marking unknown graves, died this week at 83.
Bagoy began his mission to pull the downtown Anchorage Memorial Park
Cemetery back from neglect after his mother, Marie, was buried there in
1982.
Bagoy, who died yesterday of a lung disease, probed records and
memories to discover who was buried where. Between him and cemetery
director Dan Warden, they had inventoried about 3,000 unmarked graves
by 2002.
Bagoy led annual cemetery tours on the summer solstice, telling stories
about pioneer families and Alaska Natives. In recent years, each tour
was advertised as his last because of the difficulty his lung ailment
posed.
But every year, he came back, even if he couldn't conduct the whole
tour. This year he made a cameo appearance, according to Warden.
"John had one of the sharpest minds of anybody I've known," he said.
"His memory of events that happened 70 years ago was phenomenal."
Bagoy was born in Anchorage in 1922. He graduated from Anchorage High
School and from the University of Oregon, and served in the Army in
World War II, finishing as a first sergeant. He started an electrical
supply business in Anchorage and later acquired an electronics store,
Yukon Radio and Electric Supply, said his son, John Bagoy Jr. of Coos
Bay, Ore.
But it's what he did after retirement that made a name for the elder
Bagoy.
After years of researching the graves of people like Jimmy Delaney, for
whom the downtown Park Strip was named, and Sydney Laurence, the
painter, Bagoy wrote a book filled with histories of Anchorage's
founding families. It is called "Legends and Legacies, Anchorage
1910-1935."
His parents, John B. and Marie Bagoy, emigrated from Croatia. His
mother owned a flower shop, Bagoys Florist, that still carries the
name, although the family no longer owns it.
Weeks before he died, Bagoy received an award from the Anchorage Museum
of History and Art for his historical work. He directed the project
that led to an Anchorage Pioneer Family Exhibit, which now hangs in at
the museum.