If you've ever visited the Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, and you should, you have probably met Cindy Godbey.

You've likely known her as Dolly, the establishment's madam.

But Godbey is so much more than her alter-ego.

Godbey is a survivor.

While Godbey's role at the Red Onion is that of a kind, jolly, warm-hearted, and funny character, she has lived through the suicide of both parents when she was five years old, an act of dual self-destruction that was preceded by their attempt to murder her.

She has suffered through two sexual assaults.

Indeed, she was once abducted in Missouri by a man who turned out to be a serial killer.

That's a story in itself, which we will attend to later.

Through it all, Godbey's Dolly character is a reflection of her own generous spirit.

"I'm not an actress, I just do what I feel in my heart," she said. "If I can make one person happy every day, then I'm happy. As Dolly says, 'always live your life with passion and expect good things to happen.'"

She's always ready with a one-liner, too. For example: "My husband is a gold miner and I'm a gold digger," she quipped. Or there's this: "When I was working at the Red Onion as Madam Dolly I would say, 'I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.'"

Though Godbey, 70, is semi-retired from her acting career, it's hard to separate Dolly's sweet countenance from Godbey's kind-hearted persona. Though she has been through incidents that could utterly break a person, Godbey is a chatty raconteur who can tell vivid stories of her life through the lens of a deeply religious person who lives to make every person she meets as happy as she is.

Take, for example, the time that a busload of visitors pulled up in front of the Red Onion to enjoy the conviviality of one of Skagway's most popular institutions. As it turned out, an elderly woman with limited mobility could not join her compatriots and had to remain on the bus.

That's where Dolly came in.

"I got on the bus and said to her, 'I'm going to do a private show just for you," she recounted. "I walked to the back of the bus and then walked up to her and said, 'It's show time. My name is Madam Dolly, and mining minors is my game.'

"She was in tears. She said, 'Dolly, you have given me a private performance. You have a heart of gold and this was a golden moment. I will remember it always.' It was the Lord using me to make someone's day."

If it seems a paradox for someone who has been through so much to have a mission to make other people happy, then you don't know Dolly, or Cindy Godbey, for that matter.

"I just live to be a blessing to others and to make them happy," she says, a sentiment that is repeated in any conversation she has, even with strangers.

Which brings us to the matter of the serial killer she encountered. She had known the man but had no idea that he had been murdering women with a machete.

"He was going to cut me up with the machete," she recounted. "I screamed 'In the name of Jesus, put that machete down!' He stole my wallet and my car but he let me go. They never caught him. Jesus saved me."

Phew!

Then there was the time she was in a hot air balloon race, and the balloon suddenly caught fire. "We came in last," she said.

Or the time she was stuck to the toilet of an outhouse in -70 temperatures. She peed in an ashtray and used the warm liquid to free herself. "I could have died out there," she observed.

But among the stranger stories was when she and her boyfriend went on a fishing and gold-panning trip only to be stopped by a man who said the area they were exploring was his claim.

"All of a sudden his dog came charging at me and he bit me," she recounted with great amusement. "So, the dog bites me and he dies on the spot. He rolled over with his legs sticking in the air, like rigor mortis. It was like in the cartoons."

She has been to the Iditarod from start to finish, and the late Iditarod champion Lance Mackey was her friend.

Godbey said her life was "hell for years." But then she met her husband, Will, and she found Jesus.

Through it all, Godbey has maintained the sense of humor that made her and her Dolly character so compatible.

"I'm kind, caring, compassionate, funny, and I love Jesus," she said. "I love to be positive, always grateful. I just try to stay in the present and be grateful."

Just like Dolly.