Aimee's Second Chance

"We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less second chances." Harrison Ford

Oct 18, 2024

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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!