Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller
Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller (born Ekaterina Pelagiia Dyakanoff; December 7, 1884 – June 17, 1980) was an Alaskan Creole educator. With her husband, she built and opened the first government-funded schoolhouse in the Aleutian Islands, in 1909.
Early life
Ekaterina Pelagiia Dyakanoff was born in
Career
Dyakanoff started teaching in 1908, in
A former student, Mary Peterson, recalled Kathryn Seller's kindness later in life: "Mrs. Seller – Kathryn Seller – was my teacher. She was kind of old already, with gray, short hair. She was everything to us. She helped people that needed food...I don't know where she ordered them from, but she knew some of the people in the village who were in need because they had no money to buy food."[7]
Personal life
Dyakanoff married English-born Harry George Seller in Seattle in 1909. They had six children. Their son Alfred drowned as a boy. Their son Harry was killed in the
Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller died in San Francisco in 1980, aged 95.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d "Anchorage 1910-1935: Legends and Legacies" exhibit, Cook Inlet Historical Society, Anchorage Museum.
- ^ Harry G. Seller and Kathryn D. Seller, "Annual Report of the United States Public School at Atka, on One of the Aleutian Islands" Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Education (1914): 45-47.
- ^ Martha G. Murray and Peter L. Corey, "Aleut Weavers" Alaska State Museums Concepts (July 1997): 5.
- ^ Lawrence William Penrose, "Interesting Westerners: An Aleut Indian Educator" Sunset Magazine 49(December 1922): 26.
- ^ Kathyn D. Seller, "Photograph of Blind Sedar Nevzaroff and son Peter", Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
- ISBN 9780820322537