The Alaska Daily Empire

WIFE OF VICTIM
GIVES UP HOPE
FOR HUSBAND

Fears Seem
Confirmed
That Gasboat Hunter
Has
Been
Wrecked.

DOUGLAS, Oct. 3. — Seen this morning by the Empire correspondent, Mrs. Laitala, wife of John Laitala, one of the men on board the gasboat Hunter which is believed to have been lost last Thursday or Friday while on the way from Taku to Juneau with a cargo of salmon, expressed but little hope that her husband is still alive.

When the news was first circulated Monday evening concerning the supposed loss of the boat and her crew of two men, Captain Tom Wiittala and John Laitala, the latter's wife expressed the belief that the boat had probably become crippled and had been run to some sheltered point where she was laying to awaiting assistance; but having heard nothing this morning, Mrs. Laitala fears the worst.

The woman says her husband has been on Douglas Island for the past twenty years, much of which time he has been in the employ of the Treadwell company, working in the mines. Being an experienced sailor, he has also engaged in fishing at intervals. Mrs. Laitala came here fifteen years ago and for several years has conducted a lodging and boarding house next door to the City Hall on Second Street. They have one son, Enoid, aged 13 years. Mrs. Laitala closed up her house early in June and, with her son spent the summer at Tenakee, returning and re-opening her house less than a month ago. She is a hard working woman and is generally respected by all who know her.

Tom Wiittala, captain of the Hunter and the other man believed to be lost, were well known here. He was the first man to go in search of the late Edward Krause when the latter escaped from the Federal jail at Juneau last spring.

Crews of other small boats which were in the neighborhood of Taku about the time the Hunter is supposed to have been lost, report that a terrific storm was raging and that the Hunter, having taken on upward of 1500 salmon, was overloaded; also that Taku arm was full of floating icebergs and that she would stand no chance whatever in the event of her striking one.

Further, it is the custom of fish launches to keep their lifeboats lashed on the decks and if the Hunter struck an iceberg, she would probably go down before there was an opportunity for launching the life boat.

C. P. Morgan, manager of the Alaska Coast Fish company and one of the most experienced small boat men on the channel, gives it as his opinion that the Hunter and her crew are yet likely to be safe; that they have put into some nook or bay in a crippled condition and are awaiting help and better weather.

Morgan cites an instance of the launch Teddy being lost for three days in the same locality when she was overlooked by searching parties and given up as gone for good when she was laying-to in a cove on account of a breakdown.