Virginia Abston was born Virginia Johnson in Karluk, Alaska, to Tom and Annie Johnson. Her father was from Sweden, and her mother was a Norell, also of Swedish descent. Virginia grew up at Park’s Cannery, where her parents worked, and she had to leave for school since there was no school in the area. She spent her childhood in various places for schooling, including Bainbridge Island and Homer. Virginia married and had children, and she later went to college when her son started kindergarten.

Weston Fields was interviewed by Anjuli Grantham at Bear Island, Uyak, Alaska, on July 31, 2015, as part of the Kodiak Historical Society’s West Side Stories project. Weston was born in Long Beach, California, in 1948 and moved to Kodiak with his family when he was one. Although they moved to work at a church in Kodiak, his father, and the family soon switched to seining, beach seining, and eventually setnetting.