Who Is Mollee Roestel? Meet Marty Raney’s Wife

Mollee Roestel is the wife of Marty Raney, the builder, mountaineer, and star of the Discovery series Homestead Rescue. While Marty helps struggling families on television, Mollee is the quiet foundation of the Raney family story.

They have been married for about fifty years. Together they chose one of the hardest ways of life in America, an off grid homestead in remote Alaska, and raised four children there. Mollee rarely appears on screen, but without her, there would be no Raney story to tell.

Quick Facts

Early Life and Family Roots

Public biographies report that Mollee Roestel was born on January 31, 1956, in Washington state, and that she is about six months older than her husband. Some other pages give her birth year as 1957, so the exact year is not fully settled across sources. What sources agree on is her American upbringing and the large family she came from.

She was one of seven children born to Lorel Wayne Roestel and Beverly Roestel, whose maiden name was Watkins. Her father served in the military. Reports name her siblings as two sisters, Sheryl Ripley and Pam Hillemann, and four brothers, David, Larry, Garry T., and Terry Roestel. Her parents married in 1947 and stayed together until her father’s death in Spokane on February 28, 2020, at the age of 95.

When Mollee was about six years old, her family moved to the Snoqualmie Valley in Washington. She spent most of her growing up years there, in a green valley east of Seattle, with mountains close by. It was not Alaska, but it was not big city life either. That background may help explain why the hard, quiet life she later chose did not scare her.

Details about her schooling are not well documented. She married young, and her adult education came mostly from life itself – building, raising children, and surviving in places where a mistake in winter can cost a great deal.

Marriage to Marty Raney

Mollee met Marty Raney after he left Washington for work in Alaska. As a teenager, Marty had headed north and found work in logging camps in Southeast Alaska. Sources differ slightly on the wedding date. Most say the couple married in 1974, while some give the exact date as March 1, 1975, and others list March 1, 1974. All sources agree on the larger fact. This is a marriage that has lasted more than fifty years.

There is a common online rumor that Marty Raney had a second wife. Family profiles are clear that this is not true. Marty Raney has been married once, to Mollee Roestel. The confusion seems to come from the size of the family on television, where viewers see his children, a daughter in law, and a son in law, and mix up the branches of the family tree.

The newly married couple did not start life in a normal house. Reports of their early years describe a floating logging camp near Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. A floating camp is exactly what it sounds like, a small working community on the water, far from towns, with few comforts and no easy way in or out.

After about a year, they moved to a 160 acre homestead near Haines, Alaska. The land was about 100 miles from the nearest town and fully off grid, with no power lines, no running water system, and no road based help in an emergency. Later, family stories describe another period at a remote floating logging camp about 100 air miles from Sitka. These were not holidays. This was daily life, in bear country, through Alaskan winters.

Raising Four Children in the Wilderness

Mollee and Marty raised four children – Melanee, Miles, Misty, and Matt. Their first child, Melanee, was born on October 16, 1976. Because of problems during labor, Mollee was airlifted to Whitehorse in the Yukon, Canada, where Melanee was born. She is the only Raney child not born in Alaska. One older source mistakenly lists Miles as a daughter, but family profiles agree the four children are daughters Melanee and Misty and sons Miles and Matt.

The children grew up without the normal comforts most American families take for granted. Their childhood was built around work, weather, and the outdoors. They learned to hike, fish, hunt, build, and handle themselves in wild country. A family story told often is the hike over the Chilkoot Pass, the famous steep trail from the gold rush era. On one telling, Melanee was eight and Miles was six on that hike. Another family account says the youngest child was only two when the family made the crossing. Either way, it shows the kind of childhood Mollee helped lead.

Two of the children became television names beside their father. Misty Raney is a farmer, builder, and carpenter who splits her time between Alaska and Hawaii. She is married to Maciah Bilodeau, a carpenter and surfer. Matt Raney is a hunter and builder who works in the family business, Alaska Stone and Log. He is married to Katie Raney. The other two children chose privacy. Melanee worked as a guide and is an accomplished outdoorswoman, but she declined to join the television show, saying in one widely told account that she does not own a television and does not want to be on one. Miles is a traveler and adventurer who also stays out of the spotlight.

Mollee and Marty are also grandparents. Family profiles report five grandchildren across their children’s families, including Melanee’s three children and Matt’s children, Indy and Ruby, and Misty’s son, Gauge.

Life Off Grid and Her Role in the Family

People who write about Mollee often use the same idea. She is the silent foundation. Marty is the loud, energetic builder on camera, climbing, cutting, and solving problems at speed. Mollee’s strength was the steady one – keeping a home and family working in a place where everything, from water to heat to food, had to be earned by hand.

She has said in comments reported by family profiles that she prefers the serenity and solitude of off grid life to the chaos of a big city. That preference was tested for decades. Living near Haines meant living among a high number of Alaskan brown bears. It meant long winters, short building seasons, and total self reliance.

In later years, the family base shifted toward the Wasilla area, and the Raneys became known for the homestead that viewers see in Raney Ranch, the spin off series about their own land. Mollee supports the family’s homesteading work and, according to cast profiles, has helped with the family rental and homestead ventures in Alaska. She appears only occasionally on television, and she is not a regular cast member.

Her husband’s career gives a sense of the world she shared. Marty worked as a Denali climbing guide, appeared in survival programs, built with stone and log, and wrote and sang songs about Alaska. Homestead Rescue premiered on the Discovery Channel on June 17, 2016, and turned the family’s skills into help for other homesteaders across America.

Why She Stays Out of the Spotlight

It would be easy to assume that everyone in a television family wants to be on television. The Raney family proves the opposite. Half of Mollee and Marty’s children stay off the show, and Mollee herself appears only rarely. Her life was complete long before cameras arrived in 2016. She had already raised four children in the wilderness and kept a marriage strong for more than forty years by then.

That choice also protects something the family values. Their story sells self reliance, skill, and family unity. Mollee living those values quietly, instead of performing them, may be the strongest proof that the Raney way of life is real and not just made for television.

For fans who want to know her better, the honest picture is a good one. Mollee Roestel is a Washington raised woman from a family of seven children, a wife of more than fifty years, a mother of four, a grandmother, and a pioneer of the family’s Alaska life. She does not need a camera to be the center of that story.

FAQs

When did Mollee Roestel marry Marty Raney?

Most sources say 1974, and some give the date as March 1. A few pages list 1975. All sources agree the marriage has lasted more than fifty years and that Mollee is Marty’s only wife.

How many children do Mollee and Marty Raney have?

They have four children – Melanee, Miles, Misty, and Matt. Misty and Matt appear with Marty on Homestead Rescue, while Melanee and Miles keep private lives.

Does Mollee Roestel appear on Homestead Rescue?

She appears only occasionally. She is not a regular cast member, and she prefers life away from the cameras, even though she supports the family’s work.

Where did Mollee and Marty live after marriage?

Their early married life included a floating logging camp near Prince of Wales Island and then a 160 acre off grid homestead near Haines, Alaska, about 100 miles from the nearest town.

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Final Thoughts

Mollee Roestel’s story is not a celebrity story in the normal sense. It is a story of endurance. She left a normal start in Washington, married Marty Raney as a young woman, and built a family in floating camps and on remote land where the nearest town was 100 miles away.

Television found the Raney family late, and it found Marty first. But anyone who looks at the full picture can see Mollee at the center of it – wife, mother, grandmother, and the steady partner who made the Alaska life possible. Meet Marty Raney’s wife, and you meet the foundation of the whole Raney story.