Bone, Mary Worth

Mary Worth Bone (1866-1948) was the wife of Scott C. Bone (1860-1936), a newspaperman, editor-in-chief of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (1911-1918), Alaska booster and the 10th Territorial Governor of Alaska (1921-1925).

Both the former Mary Worth and her future husband were Indiana natives and Scott C. Bone would begin his long newspaper career in Indianapolis. In 1888, he became the news editor of the Washington Post, eventually rising to managing editor. Bone left the Post in 1905, to establish the Washington Daily Herald, which he ran before accepting the position in Seattle. The couple raised seven children, Robert, Roger, Paul, Carroll, Scott W., Mildred (later Mrs. John C. Starr) and Marguerite (later Mrs. Alfred Wilcox). From 1914-1915, Bone also served as the chair of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce's Alaska Bureau. After leaving the P-I, Bone worked as the publicity director for the Republican Party, overseeing the successful presidential campaign of Warren G. Harding. A political appointee of Harding's, Bone's most notable act as Territorial Governor of Alaska appears to have been his ordering a relay of dog teams to bring medicine for a diptheria epidemic in Nome, an event which inspired the annual Iditarod race. After his tenure as governor, Bone settled in California, living in several cities and acting as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Atascadero Development System, before his 1936 death in Santa Barbara. As a letter from Scott C. Bone in the collection indicates, his son, Carroll Alfred Bone (1898-1971), did not share either his father's journalistic or political ambitions, but was deeply interested in music and "temperamentally constituted" for a career in show business. To this end, Carroll, at various points as a young man, lived in New York City, and later in Long Beach and Los Angeles, California where he apparently attempted to pursue a career in songwriting and as a vocalist, while working at various jobs (some of which may have been arranged by his well-connected father). His 1930 national census entry indicates that he was living in Los Angeles and employed as a railroad clerk. Caroll A. Bone died in Los Angeles on 21 April 1971.