The grave of Mary Pedro at historic Clay St. Cemetery in Fairbanks lists her cause of death, and her relationship top Felix Pedro, credited with the first gold find in the interior of Alaska, and the event that led directly to the founding of Fairbanks.
The tombstone inscription reads as follows:
"To the memory of
MARY PEDRO
Wife of Felix Pedro,
the discoverer of gold on Pedro Creek.
It was his discovery that started the
development of the vast interior of Alaska
and the beginning of Fairbanks.
Mary lived in Fairbanks for over 25 years.
She was born in Ireland in 1850,
and died in Fairbanks on May 20, 1930 after a long illness.
Memorial Inscription courtesy of the City of Fairbanks and Northern Lights Memorial Park"
From Find-A-Grave: (
visit link)
"Mary Ellen (Doran) Pedro was born in Ireland about 1860 to 1862.
She immigrated to America in 1876. She married Felix Pedro (born Felice Pedroni in Italy) in 1910 in Fairbanks, Alaska. [Pedro] found gold July 22nd 1902 near Fairbanks, with the discovery of gold in the stream bed now called Pedro Creek.
Pedro managed to obtain the state mining commission, and within a few months he became the President of the new Mining District of Fairbanks, founded in his cabin on September 8th 1902.
The search for gold brought good results, and soon a cluster of houses sprang up on the site, this was the first core of today's City of Fairbanks.
Felix returned to Italy in 1909 to get married, but the girl he wanted turned him down, once back in Alaska he married an Irishwoman, Mary Ellen Doran.
Shortly afterwards, for reasons that have never been made clear, he lost his mining commission and thus also his wealth, becoming poorer than when he arrived in Alaska.
He died in 1910 at the age of 51. The cause of death was listed as a valve disorder of the heart. Mary had his remains shipped from Fairbanks via river boat and steamer to San Francisco and were eventually interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, San Mateo County, California, January 31, 1912.
The body of Felix Pedro, rediscovered after 70 years, now lies in the Fanano Cemetery in Italy, where it was laid to rest on October 12th 1972.
Mary Pedro had been ill the last 20 years of her life. She was a patient of the St. Joseph Hospital in Fairbanks on the 1920 and 1930 (taken in Nov) census for Fairbanks.
She died May 20, 1930 in Fairbanks, Alaska and is buried in the Clay Street Cemetery, in Fairbanks.
Mary's original grave marker was a wooden cross but it had been destroyed over the years. In July of 2001 the City of Fairbanks and Northern Lights Memorial Park placed the present headstone on her grave."