Hi, there!

Doing a page like this is hard for me, because I rattle on when I start writing, so I have to really restrain myself. I promise to try to be as brief as I can. :)

Photo below right: My sister Suzi and I, when I was four years old and she was two.

First I will give you a few facts.  I was born in Oklahoma, but basically raised in southern California (Fontana), I married there at 17, and raised three sons, Billy, Dan and David.  My husband (now my ex-husband) worked for Kaiser Steel, and we left there after it closed down, with an early retirement.   It wasn't enough alone, but we lived in our motorhome for a year, then we bought a winter place in Quartzsite, Arizona where we sold gold we mined during the summers and crafts I made, at an outdoor market three days a week.  Unfortunately, in another year Kaiser went bankrupt and we lost a lot of the retirement and at least one of us would have to go to work.  Up to this time my work experience consisted of 10 years part-time at a school, and owning my own craft business for six years... very successfully, I might add. 

I had an offer to manage a recreational gold prospecting equipment store in northern California (a small gold mining town called Happy Camp), and with my previous work history I was concerned about taking this on, but they seemed confident that I could; so I took it.  Basically I was made a partner for taking on all of this business.  I ran it for six years, starting with only one employee, and when I left it was the second-largest in the industry, had grown to encompass worldwide mail order and wholesale business, manufacturing of equipment, and had 18 employees.  

It was called Pro-Mack Mining Supplies, and it was owned by Dave McCracken, who was quite well known as an author of instructional books and videos about gold prospecting, and his wife Maria.  Of course, when I left it I was completely exhausted...  However, after six months of not working, I went to work for them as managing editor of Gold & Treasure Hunter magazine.  I'd been writing for the magazine since it's inception, and loved it.  I then took over the layout & Design of it, and added most of the advertising work, also. 

Then I created a large website for them, and added their other businesses to it (they had five businesses altogether). I worked on the magazine and the website until after I separated from my husband four years later.  They didn't want me to take it to Alaska, although I could have done it from there.  It went bankrupt less than a year after I left.  The website for the other businesses is still online, and I updated it for them several years ago from Alaska, but became so ill I had to give it up, along with other work.  The website still has the same general design look I gave it, but Dave and his new webmaster are really adding some neat features to it now.  You can see it at http://www.goldgold.com

My interest in gold prospecting began many years ago, and I have been a gold prospector since my youngest son was 10 years old.  He is now 42... you figure it out. :) I have also been active in trying to get recreational prospectors to band together to keep their rights from being taken away for most of that time, but after 12 years of devoting a lot of time to it, I have backed way up on that.  Besides, I have my husband Jim who does that for me - well among other reasons.  I do what I can without causing stress. That's where I draw the line anymore.  I still feel strongly about it, and feel that we are losing our heritage.  Most of the western states were settled by gold prospectors, and owe their existence to them.  That heritage is being lost, piece by piece, without reason.  

Ahhhhh... almost.  But that is all I am going to say on the subject.  Jim and I both speak at meetings and we write letters.  Jim does a whole lot more, too.  We now host the Alaska Gold Forum which Jim founded, and with Jim's creation of this message board, for the first time Alaskan prospectors can gather together to talk, compare, ask questions, furnish information, keep one another informed and provide information for anyone interested in gold prospecting in Alaska.  They post some very interesting messages, and some great photographs... And, it is not limited to Alaska or Alaskan prospectors.  In fact, there are many, many prospectors in other areas of the country (and the world) who regularly post messages there. One of the largest prospecting forums on the Internet, it has more than 3,600 members.  It is a very good forum that is ALL positive, no bickering, and full of good information.  I hope you'll check it out.  Photo above: Alaskan gold miners

The end of my 43-year marriage was a very difficult time for me, and all of my family.  But, I see now that it was for the best for everyone.  It was in the deep despair that followed this that I found my Lord, Jesus Christ, and became a Christian.  I have put up a testimony page telling about this, and will be putting up more. You can find links to any of these on this page. 

That brings me to my arrival in Alaska,  I began this web site shortly after arriving there in the Fall of 1998.  In the spring of 1999 I married by present husband, Jim.  He is a wonderful man, and I love him dearly.  You can see more information about him on the page I created for him, Jim's page.

After I quit working outside the home in 2001 I started my own website and graphic design business from home.   You can see my business site on here now at this page, which includes some samples of work I have done in the portfolio pages there.

A full year after updating this page last, I was diagnosed with lung cancer, and much of my life since then has been chronicled in my Journal pages.  Basically, I went through a year of chemotherapy and 37 radiation treatments in 2003, and on December 3rd of that year.  Jim had been having some health problems for a couple of years, too, and he had to retire from his work, so just two weeks after finishing chemo we got into the van and headed down the Alaska Highway, with as much of our belongings as we could carry and pull in a trailer at -40°.  I was so ill that the trip took us a total of ten days to travel to Oregon over an ice-covered road.  We arrived there about the 13th of December, and had to wait several days to get into the house we'd bought sight unseen, over the Internet.

We lived there in Central Oregon, about 30 miles south of Bend, for exactly two years.  Unfortunately, the weather and other conditions there were not as we expected them to be, and living there became dangerous to my health.  Already impaired, and still ill, we made the decision to move back to northern California, to Happy Camp, where I knew what the conditions would be, and there would be no major surprises in them.  In December, 2005, we moved to Happy Camp and rented a home for eight months, and have just moved into a home we bought the end of August 2006.

I still have lung cancer, but then I also am still alive, three full years after they said I should be dead, so I try to look on the good side of it.  And despite what you might think, there are blessings to be found.  In fact, Jim and I both feel we are greatly blessed.  I feel blessed every day when I can open my eyes and get out of bed!

Well! That was a real quick way of glossing over a lot of years!  This page, however, needs to include the people that are near and dear to me.  I am basically the person I have become because of the influence of my grandmother, my mother and my aunt.  I was very close to all of them when I was young.  My grandparents died more than 15 years ago now, and they were very special so I've created a special page for my grandfather and another for my grandmother is being worked on. 

The closest one who is no longer with us is more difficult for me to talk about and this one was hard to come to terms with because it was my oldest son and firstborn child, William Charles Stumpf.  He died at age 35. Your firstborn child has a special place in your heart, as each of your children do, and to lose one is indescribably painful.  You can feel your heart breaking over and over, and you know it will never get any better.  It never does, you just get more used to it. 

 It has now been fourteen years since that terrible telephone call came in the night, and I still find myself occasionally thinking of it with a shock... as if it were happening fresh, all over again.  Most of the time I can think and even talk about him rationally, and I am finally at peace with his leaving, a peace I found only in my walk with the Lord.  I do miss him sorely, though, and I always will...

Those who are still with us and mean a lot can mostly be found within the pages of this website.  My husband Jim has his own separate section of the website at Jim Foley's Alaska that he's designed, worried over and wrangled with, to make it all work.  Most of our families are now included in our Family Pages.   I have not had time to complete all that I want to for all of them, but I keep working on it. 

Webpage designing is a lot of work and it is often frustrating, especially when you have a huge site like this one has become.  However, it is also a source of great pleasure and reward.  The pleasure comes from the satisfaction you feel when something you have created comes together in the way you want.  Being creative is always pleasurable.  The reward comes from people like you (whoever you are, reading this), who write to tell me how much you've enjoyed it, how some of the inspirational pages touched you or made a difference in your life; how the information helped on a school class assignment, or whatever. The personal message of any who visit here is a wonderful reward for doing something I enjoy as much as this.

 Please let us know what you think of our site, we'd love to hear from you!

Copyright 2001-2006, all rights reserved.
James and Marcia Foley

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page updated November 1, 2006