On this day in Mendocino Coast history…
November 26, 1966 – Jennie K. Mantyla of Comptche passed away at a Ukiah hospital at the age of 83 following a long illness. She had been bedridden for twelve years and had spent four years in the Redwood Coast Hospital in Fort Bragg before being transferred to Ukiah.
Studio portrait of Jennie Mantyla, 1907.
Jennie was born in Finland in 1892. When she was 10, she immigrated to New York where she met her future husband Matt Mantyla. They married in 1909 and moved to Fort Bragg, where Jennie’s widowed sister, Ann Williams, lived.
Over the next few years, the growing Mantyla family lived in Rockport, Dehaven, and Little River, but eventually settled in Comptche where they lived for the next 50 years. Elsa Thompson in the Mendocino Beacon remembered Jennie as someone who “made many friends with her generous hospitality and kindness. She was a wonderful cook and well liked by everyone.”
Jennie was survived by her husband Matt Mantyla, Comptche; son Charles Mantyla, Comptche; daughter Hazel Paoli, Mendocino; daughter Mabel Silva, Yuba City; and granddaughter Gloria Grey, Oakland. She was buried at Rose Memorial Park in Fort Bragg, and pallbearers were Miles Paoli, Allen Tahja, Matt Mankinen, Walter Newman, Oscar Mattila, and Walter Stenback.
Sunday at 11am! Cemetery Tour – Take a hauntingly beautiful walk through a pioneer cemetery, while your “spirit guide” (a trained Kelley House docent) brings to life some of the colorful residents of this 19th Century logging town with their storytelling. Tours can be booked online through Airbnb or by emailing tours@kelleyhousemuseum.org in advance. Drop-ins welcome. All tours meet by the flagpole on the Kelley House lawn. $20 per person.