Tag Archives: Alaskan Teachers

Alaskan Pioneer and Chalkboard Champion Orah Dee Clark

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Orah_Dee_Clark[1]Many talented educators were pioneers as well. A fine example of this is educator Orah Dee Clark, a teacher who is best known for being the first superintendent for the first school in Anchorage, Alaska.

Orah was born in 1875 in Firth, Nebraska. She started her teaching career in 1906, when she was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to teach in the Territory of Alaska. She worked in a number of remote outposts, including Kodiak, Anvik, Tanana, and the Aleutian Islands. In 1915, she was named the first superintendent of the first school in Anchorage. After leaving her position in Anchorage, she helped establish schools up and down the railroad belt in towns including Wasilla, Eske, Fairview, and Matanuska. She also taught in Unga, Kennicott, Ouzinkie, Takotna, Kiana, Nushagek, and Moose Pass. This amazing pioneer concluded her fifty-one-year career when she retired in 1944. A champion of Native Alaskan rights, Orah always believed that all children should be integrated into schools that fostered individual growth. Throughout her career, she was a strong advocate for schools where Native Alaskans and white students would attend school together.

Clark Middle School in Anchorage was opened in 1959 and named in her honor. In the early days of the school, Orah visited the campus often. It is said the students enjoyed talking with her between classes and after school.In 1962, Orah was awarded the Scroll of Honor by the Cook Inlet Historical Society. In 1980, the school where she served as the first superintendent, the Pioneer School House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2009, Clark was inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. Her personal papers are held in the collection of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and the Anchorage Museum holds a collection of photographs she once owned. Every year, the Anchorage Women’s Club awards a high school scholarship for boys and girls named after Clark.

This remarkable educator passed away in 1965.

Carrie McLain: A Pioneer Teacher in Northwestern Alaska

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51f8ZZ5X-FL._SL500_SS500_[1][1]Carrie McLain was born in 1895 in Astoria, Long Island, New York. When she was just a child of ten, her father moved Carrie and her four siblings to the fledgling village of Nome on the ice-crusted coast of northwestern Alaska. There she grew to adulthood, became a pioneer teacher, married, and reared a family of one son and three daughters. McLain tells the fascinating story of her provincial life in Pioneer Teacher: Turn of the Century Classroom in Remote Northwestern Alaska. Anyone interested in learning more about rugged existence on the frigid Alaskan frontier would be interested in reading this slender volume  (it’s only 70 pages, including photographs). Pioneer Teacher can be found on amazon.

Etta Schureman Jones: The Teacher who Became a Prisoner of War

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9780882408101_p0_v1_s260x420[1]Etta Schureman was over forty years old when she and her sister ventured into Alaska Territory to teach Native Eskimos in primitive rural schools. After one year, the sister returned to the Lower 48, but Etta, who had met the love of her life and married, settled permanently in Alaska. Eighteen years later, Etta and her husband, Foster Jones, were working together  in the remote Aleutian island of Attu when Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan on December, 7, 1941, “a day that will live in infamy.” They were slated to be evacuated by the U.S. Navy when the island was invaded by Japanese troops. Although the couple were in their sixties, they killed Foster and removed Etta to an internment camp in Japan, where she was incarcerated with a small group of Australian nurses who were also prisoners of war. The Attuan natives, about three dozen of them, were also taken to Japan, with the apparent intention of assimilating them into the Japanese population. Although the surviving Attuans were repatriated after the war, Etta never saw her students or their families again. Etta’s intriguing tale of survival is told brilliantly by Mary Breu in her book Last Letters from Attu: The True Story of Etta Jones: Alaska Pioneer and Japanese POW. A fascinating read, to be sure. You can find this book at amazon at the following link: Last Letters from Attu. I have also included a chapter about this fascinating teacher in the book I am currenlty writing, Chalkboard Heroes.

Tisha: The Wonderful True Love Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness

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9780553265965_p0_v1_s260x420[1]If you haven’t read this book yet, run, don’t walk, to your nearest brick-and-mortar bookstore and buy it right away! I absolutely loved this action-packed true story about a young teacher, Anne Hobbs, who travelled to the Alaskan wilderness in the 1920’s to teach in a frontier school. Besides encountering the expected lack of teaching materials and frigid temperatures, she heroically battled prejudice against the Native Alaskans. As much an adventure story and a romance as it is a chronicle of early Alaskan history, this tale will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don’t miss it! If you are good at deferred gratification, you can also order Tisha on Amazon.com, but don’t wait too long to read this exciting story!