Adeline Smith

Adeline Smith (March 15, 1918 – March 19, 2013) (

Smith was born on March 15, 1918.[1] She was raised on a family homestead on the Elwha River, just outside Port Angeles, Washington.^[1][3] Her family spoke only Klallam at home and Smith did not have an English language name until she first enrolled in public school when she was seven years old.^[3] Her great-grandparents passed down the family's unwritten, oral history with events from the late 18th century.^[3]

Smith was forced to leave

In the 1990s, Smith began trying to revive the Klallam language, which had fallen into disuse.[3] She co-created the first Klallam alphabet with Timothy Montler, a professor of linguistics at the University of North Texas.^[1] She worked with Montler throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and early 2010s to create the first Klallam-language dictionary.^[3] Smith contributed 12,000 words to the dictionary, making her the largest single contributor to the new lexicon.^[1] To research entries for the dictionary, Smith transcribed Khallam language recordings, which were made by the late ethnologist John Peabody Harrington in Khallam communities in 1942.^[2] The transcriptions took her months to complete.^[2]

The Klallam Dictionary, a 983-page book, was published by the

Smith continued to create written accounts of the Klallam's oral history and stories until shortly before her death in 2013.^[3]

Elwha River restoration

Adeline Smith appeared in

In 1992, Smith lobbied the United States Congress in the run-up to a vote to tear down dams along the Elwha River.^[3] She lived to see the removal of the dams, including the Elwha Dam, from the river beginning in September 2011, and the return of the first salmon to the river.^[1][3][5] The removal of one of the dams in 2012 drained Lake Aldwell, a man-made reservoir created in 1913, revealing the Klallam ceremonial creation site in July 2012. It had been submerged since the reservoir was filled.^[1][6]

She is featured in the film "Unconquering the Last Frontier" by Robert Lundahl, narrated by actor, Gary Farmer, and seen on Public Television. In the film, Adeline recalls her early years growing up along the Elwha River, and relates stories about the devastation of the fisheries there, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's efforts to remove two industrial power dams and restore the river ecosystem.

Preservation of Tse-whit-zen

Smith championed the preservation of

The three hundred remains were reburied by the Lower Elwha. The state government turned over ownership of the area of Tse-whit-zen to the Lower Elwha Klallam.[1]

Legacy

Adeline Smith died from heart failure in Puyallup, Washington, on March 19, 2013, just four days after her 95th birthday.^[1][7] She was buried in Neah Bay Cemetery.^[7] She was predeceased by her first husband Roosevelt Suppah, their son Mark Suppah; and by her second husband Roy Smith, and their children Roy Smith Jr., and Patricia Smith Forbe.^[3]

With Smith's death, Hazel Sampson, 103 years old in March 2013, was left as the last living native speaker of the Klallam language.^[1] Smith was the last Klallam native speaker to teach her language on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.^[3] Smith had planned to make audio recordings of additional Klallam stories in the Spring of 2013.^[1]

References