Beth Ann Mishko
Beth Ann Mishko died of ALS, in the South Peninsula Hospital at Homer, Alaska in the first hour of Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016.
Beth was born Beth Ann Gill on Oct. 18, 1947 in the elevator of Mercy Hospital in Auburn, N.Y. Her family was in dairy farming as tenant farmers in five central New York counties.
Beth moved from Solvay, N.Y. in April, 1990 to join her husband; John Mishko at Kalifornsky Beach, Alaska — near the Kenai River. They developed a second and final home on Old East End Road, outside Homer. Beth continued in her nursing occupation from New York, working at the Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna during the weeks her husband worked on the North Slope.
She is survived by her husband John B. Mishko; son Alex, his wife Lisa, and granddaughter Hannah; son Bryan, his wife Holly and granddaughters Misha and Pippa; daughter Rebeka, her husband Storm Heames, granddaughter Isis Holcombe and grandsons River and Atticus Heames; brother Paul F. Gill Jr. and his wife Eleanor; stepsister Deborah Beckley; stepmother Phyllis Gill; Stepfather Joseph Milano and many more sisters, stepbrothers, nieces and nephews.
Beth was predeceased by her father, Paul Francis Gill Sr., and her mother Marion (Delano) Milano (born Cora Mildred Rosecrans); grandparents John and Mary (Ryan) Gill, and Kearney and Mary (Smith) Rosecrans.
Beth attended West Genesee High, School in Camillus, N.Y., and Mohawk Valley Community College in New York; BOCES Nursing School in Onondaga County, N.Y.; and Kenai Peninsula Community College. She was a member of Phi Theta Kappa honor society, Kenai Peninsula Botanical Society, past president of the Kenai Peninsula Retriever Association, Officer in CNY competitive marksmanship programs and Onondaga Historical Society, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
Her interests and hobbies included mushrooming, native botany, ornamental landscape gardening, raising pheasants and chickens, painting and sculpture — all aspects of art, family genealogy, cooking and baking for friends and larger groups; collecting and writing cookbooks.
Beth’s employment in nursing included surgical post-op at St Joseph’s Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.; psychiatric and family recovery at Central Peninsula General Hospital in Soldotna and cooking at the Albatross Restaurant on K-Beach.
Beth’s special friends included Pat Komon Vinson, Nick and Jane Varney, Jeanne Sheridan and Ann Halicy. Her husband John added, “Beth engaged in drag racing and road rallies, water skiing, ice skating, cycling, kayaking, and Girl Scouting as a child and as an adult leader. (She) loved canoeing and fishing; both in Central New York lakes and rivers, and in the Swanson and Kenai rivers in Alaska. She surrounded herself with animals from dairy cows to pheasants to Peninsula Retrievers. She could cook big on campfires or indoors for large charity events. She wrote poetry, sculpted, painted and drew. She could shoot, paint a whole house, build a barn and win prizes at the state fair for cooking and canning. She was known to be a knock out in a Paris gown at a formal Military Ball and chew tobacco for a Forester’s College spitting contest on a geology field trip the next morning. She could be an understatement or tell an Irish whopper with the best of them. You can love her for 50 years and still be left wanting more.”
Beth will be buried in a plot near her father in St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in Auburn, N.Y. — where more than 70 other of her relatives are buried. A second identical stone monument will be at her Alaska homestead property at Falcon’s Ridge, McNeil Canyon near Homer, Alaska. She specified two other places where a little of her ashes will be spread. Both are places where she spent time with her father Paul Gill, Sr. and with her husband John Mishko.
Those times will be announced later at Chittenango Falls, N.Y., and on the waters of Kachemak Bay, Alaska.
Arrangements were made by Peninsula Memorial Chapel and Crematory. Please visit or sign Beth’s online guestbook at AlaskanFuneral.com.