The Chilkat Valley looked a lot different when Dr. Stan Jones first boarded the Malaspina ferry in 1963 headed to Haines to take over the town’s medical practice.
During a party celebrating his 93rd birthday at the Haines Presbyterian Church in early January, Jones told the story of his arrival to a town with a young population and a robust logging industry.
There were more babies and injuries.
“There was more trauma,” Jones said. “When I came here there were 500 students.”
Now, Haines is the oldest borough – that is, the one with the highest average age – in the state.
That means more deaths, and fewer babies.
In early 1989, Jones’ first wife died. A year-and-a-half later he married Kathy Pardee Jones who organized this year’s birthday celebration. The two blended their families and raised seven children together.
Jones stayed on as the town’s doctor through 1989, attending hundreds of births during that time; speculation on who the last one was, was a favorite topic of conversation among revelers.
Jones delivered his granddaughter Kendra Knight on Jan. 8, of 1985 and her brother in 1986.
“He was definitely one of the last,” she said of her brother as she watched her own son run around in the basement of the church.
“I would have liked to have had my children here,” she said.
Knight said it felt great to be born and raised in Haines, especially around the man that helped bring her into the world. And she, like others who came out to celebrate, told stories about Jones’ extroversion and seemingly endless generosity.
This includes an instance just before last Christmas when he talked a stranger in line for the ferry in Haines into loading the back of his truck up with a Costco delivery and supplies for a new mother headed back home.
“He has a way of making strangers feel like family,” Knight said.