[1][4] Her family, who had arrived as pioneers in Anchorage in 1917, settled in a small cottage-style house located at Ninth Avenue and P Street near the Cook Inlet.

[5] She later found work at the Port of Anchorage's seafood cannery before becoming a secretary at Fort Richardson, which is now part of Elmendorf Air Force Base, during the early 1940s.

[1][5] Ermalee Strutz met her future husband, Wally Hickel, soon after the sudden death of his first wife, Janice, from an infection in 1943.

[3] Hickel, who was raising six sons at the time, stuck largely to ceremonial roles during her first tenure as Alaska's first lady from 1966 to 1969.

[3] She hosted dignitaries, including aviator Charles Lindbergh, whose pants she ironed shortly before his address to the Alaska Legislature.

[5] By contrast, Ermalee Hickel took a much more active role during her second tenure as First Lady from 1990 to 1994 by focusing on social issues.

[3] She was known to eat lunch with inmates at juvenile detention facilities and Alaska Pioneer Homes for the elderly, as well as soup kitchens in Juneau, the state capitol.

[3] Notably, Hickel persuaded the governor to support the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend after traveling and hearing, first hand, how many Alaskans relied on the program.

[3] First Lady Hickel lobbied to successfully enact new benefits for families to care for disabled children or adults living at home.

[6] In August 2008, then-Governor Sarah Palin honored Ermalee Hickel, as well as former first ladies Neva Egan, Bella Hammond, Susan Knowles and Nancy Murkowski, at an official ceremony and luncheon to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Alaskan statehood.

[8] Hickel and former Alaska First Lady Bella Hammond partnered to re-establish Backbone Alaska, a political group which had originally been established in 1999 by former governors Wally Hickel and Jay Hammond to oppose perceived oil company concessions by then-Governor Tony Knowles' administration during the merger of BP and ARCO.

[8] Bella Hammond's and Ermalee Hickel's newly resurrected Backbone Alaska also sought to counter the influence of the oil industry in Alaskan politics.

[8] The first ladies' support for the Bipartisan Working Group was backed by other prominent Alaskan political figures, including Vic Fischer.

[4] In a statement marking her death, Alaska Governor Bill Walker praised her contributions to the state, calling her "a giant of history.