Marriage
Ami met Billy Brown when he was working as plumber in her mother’s house. The meeting was described by Brown as ‘love at first sight’, despite the age difference between the two: Billy was 26 and Ami 15.
Brown and Branson started seeing each other behind her family’s back, and by the time Earlene Branson found out her daughter’s relationship with the older man, young Ami was already deeply in love with Billy.
Threatening to elope with Brown if her mother tried to impede the marriage, Ami was able to marry Billy on 16 June 1979. Despite the circumstances of the union, Ami’s family wasn’t worried about him: ‘I wasn’t really that concerned about it, because I assumed Billy was an honest, reputable person. And that he wouldn’t keep Ami from us’.
The Branson family’s good opinion of Billy changed for the worst sometime after the couple’s wedding, when Brown’s deception about his background was discovered: ‘He lied about his age! He gave the impression that he was very wealthy, and came from a wealthy family. He seduced us with the trappings of wealth’.
Billy allegedly didn’t inform his bride’s family that he was a divorced man with two children, and Ami apparently didn’t finish her studies due to her premature marriage.
Children
Ami and her husband Billy welcomed their first child Matthew Jeremiah in 1982, when she was barely 18 years old. One year-and-half later in August, their second child Joshua was born.
Despite the family’s apparent happy life, Billy found himself discontented with his plumbing company and his 9-to-5 job. Informing Ami of his desire to leave Texas and change his lifestyle, she agreed with him and the little family left their hometown to roam as nomads throughout the country.
In an interview with People, Ami declared her feelings at that time of uncertainty: ‘We didn’t really know where we wanted to go, but we knew we weren’t where we wanted to be’.
The couple sold their truck and boarded a ship to Alaska, where a friend of Billy offered the couple and their two sons to stay at his abandoned cabin, located on Mosman Island, miles away from Wrangell.
Isolated and with no means of communication, the young family remained stranded on the remote place for more than 18 months, until a skipper offered to return them to the city. However, neither Ami nor her husband wanted to live in civilization anymore, apparently smitten with the detached-from-society lifestyle: ‘After we realized we weren’t going to die, we fell in love with everything.’
The couple settled in the Alaskan wilderness, and welcomed another five children, whose names are: Solomon Isaiah, Gabriel Starbuck, Noah Darkcloud, Amora Jean and younger daughter Merry Christmas Kathryn Raindrop.
The family lived in various places in Alaska, including Haines, Hoonah and Juneau.
Although the couple and children apparently lived off hunting and fishing, it’s known Ami’s husband Billy took small jobs around the city, also publishing various kids books to provide for his family.
The family eventually settled in Haines, where they lived for severalyears, and allegedly build a cabin that ultimately burned down. They currently live in Hoonah.
