Who was Dorothy Page?

Answer 1

Dorothy G. Page [January 23, 1921-November 16, 1989] became ka the Mother of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. She took her first steps in that direction, in 1966, when she presided over the Wasilla-Knik Centennial Committee. In that capacity, she helped organize the 100th anniversary of the purchase of Alaska from Russia. She decided, at the same time, to honor the historic role of mushers and sled dogs since aboriginal times. Dog sled races had once been run along the Iditarod. And so she also saw the event as support for National Historic Trail status to the Iditarod. Page and Joe Redington, Sr. [February 1, 1917-June 12, 1999], ka the Father of the Iditarod, had their 25 mi/40 km stretch of the 1,049 mi/1,600 km Trail all ready for racing day, February 1967. The first decade was rough, and there were some years in which the race wasn't held. But the route was extended to Nome, by 1973, and the winner's purse was increased to $51,000. Since then, the Iditarod has become ka the world's largest dog sled race. Dog mushing has become a major recreational sport, in Alaska. And the sled dog population has been saved from its dwindling numbers, and sorry existence, of the 1960s. For in that decade snowmachines and snowmobiles quickly took the place of sleds, for Alaskans getting around and staying in touch. After her death, Page was honored in the naming of the Dorothy G. Page Museum in Wasilla, and in the Dorothy G. Page Halfway Award of the Iditarod. The latter is given to the first musher to get halfway through the race. For all of her enthusiasm and support, Page had never mushed. And so the ultimate honor was a posthumous naming as Honorary Musher in the 1997 Iditarod. Dorothy Page also may refer to the stage name of Dorothy Lillian Stofflett [March 4, 1904-March 26, 1961]. She was a movie actress and cowgirl singer, in the 1930s. Page's career began before she turned 21, with her portrait gracing the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. She thereby became ka as one of the country's ten most beautiful women. A music major in college, she won the Youth of America singing contest in 1929, and quickly became a radio singing star. In 1935, she directed her musical talent away from radio, and into an acting career in Hollywood. But her film career never took off in the way that her modeling and radio careers had. In 1938-1939, she was chosen to play a singing cowgirl in Westerns. But moviegoers were used to singing cowboys in previous productions. And so Page retired from singing/acting, and turned to a highly successful career in real estate. In the last decade of her life, she was diagnosed with cancer. The best treatments were deemed to be in Ft. Myers. So Page left California for LaBelle, Florida. There, cancer was the cause of death on March 26, 1961.