Aimee's Second Chance
"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less second chances." Harrison Ford
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Publication Date: October 18, 2024
The Frank H. and Aimee Mishou Collection, 1909-1967
From 1935 until 1945, Frank was a U.S. government teacher, community worker and reindeer herd supervisor in the Alaska Territory interior. When he and Aimee were married in Fairbanks in 1936, she joined him in Stevens Village, where they lived until 1939. The next year they were assigned to Ekwok, and in 1942, they were transferred to Beaver, where they remained until 1945.
When Frank and Aimee left Alaska, they returned to Arlington, VA, where Frank resumed his teaching career in nearby Falls Church.
Sometime after 1967, Frank and Aimee donated six boxes of newspaper clippings, correspondence, books, maps, pamphlets, scrapbooks, photographs, manuscripts, academic papers, and 8mm films to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections and Archives, creating the Frank H. and Aimee Mishou Collection, 1909-1967.
The photographs that follow are part of that collection. I’d like to send a huge thank you and shout out to the archivist staff there, especially Fawn and Monica, for their help in securing copies of these photos, and, of course, to Frank and Aimee for creating the collection in the first place, and then placing it where I could find it.
On a personal note, finding these photos has made me sincerely happy.
Throughout much of the research for this project, there seemed to be a dark cloud hanging over Aimee — something she herself said she felt for the first four decades of her life. The few photos which I did find of her during that time — nearly all press photos — showed a sad, somber and unsmiling young woman who seemed to be carrying more than her share of the weight of the world on her thin shoulders.
So, imagine the joy of coming across these images of Aimee with a big bold smile on her face, embracing a life that was, from the outside, so unconventional and unexpected, yet seemed to make her truly happy.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
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Copyright 2024 Lori Olson White
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Love those smiles!
When we lived in Anchorage we met a man who would visit the native villages to take school photos. He said the whole town would welcome them (he and the pilot). They would provide a huge feast and then the next day the village showed up in their finest for a village photo, a school photo, multigenerational family photos, and of course family photos.
I also met a woman in her 60s (?) who was from a village near Barrow, Alaska. She went South towards the capital to boarding school. Her parents paid for her to attend school. Others from her community attended the government boarding school. She said it was a fantastic opportunity and because she was taught English, typing, and shorthand she was able to get a job at the base in Barrow.
We also visited Homer, Alaska and met family members whose parents homesteaded in Homer after WW2. The lived in a sod house till they could afford to build a wooden/log house. We also attended a exhibit of families where they displayed family photos and reminisced about living as pioneers in Homer.
We had friends from Saudi Arabia who went to a native village North of the Artic Circle in Alaska for a year. He taught and she served as a nurse. She said that when they woke up in the mornings there would be ice inside their living unit. This was around 2010 or so.
Since moving to Washington we met a school teacher who taught up in one of the villages with one other teacher. I think she lasted one year. She said the isolation got to her.
I can not imagine living in that ramshackled wooden structure out in Alaska 90 years ago.