Ethel McGawn Buchanan - Sitka Borough AKGenWeb

Alexander

In August 1913 Ethel and Lenoir Buchanan sailed up the Inland Passage to Sitka Alaska. They were school teachers and had jobs in Alaska to teach the native children in the school there. You can read about their trip and teaching in letters that my Grandmother wrote at the time. The letters were good enough that they were published in the newspaper in Three Oaks, Michigan, where Ethel's parents lived.

You can read about the trip, all the things they saw then, and teaching in the school in Alaska. By February 1914 their first child Gertrude Martin was born. She was born in the school house where they lived in apartment, delivered by her father.

Ethel McGawn was raised in a small town in Three Oaks Michigan. Her father was a Banker there and held other important positions over the years. She went to college in Cheney, Washington, and when there met her husband, Lenoir Buchanan. He was called “Big” because he was so tall. He was 6 feet, 6 inches tall Ethel was 5 feet, 2 inches tall. They were both graduated and teaching school in Washington. Ethel saw an ad in the Cheney paper asking for couples to teach in Alaska. Lenoir agreed and they applied for the positions. They took a Steamship from Seattle in the fall of 1913. Ethel was so enthralled with the trip she wrote letters home to her parents describing their trip. The letters were good enough that they were published in the newspaper in Three Oaks.

At Christmas time she decided to send her family in Three Oaks a large Salmon for the holiday. It was quite large packed in ice and transported on a train to her parents’ home. It was so large they did not know quite how to cook it so they built a large fire in their front yard and cooked it outside and gave away fresh salmon to almost anybody who came by and wanted it. Years later that is what many of the people in the town were remembering and talking about whenever they saw her.

Mr. Lopp was the Superintendent of the school. Lenoir was paid $100 per month; Ethel was paid $75 for the same work. In February of 1914, Gertrude was born in the upstairs of a state-run schoolhouse, where her parents were teaching native children in Sitka, Alaska. Her parents lived in the top floor of the schoolhouse. Ethel, her mother, taught grades 1 through 3 and Lenoir taught grades 4, 5, and 6. They did not have a lot of supplies and or books in the school for teaching the children. Lenoir wrote to the Sears Catalog company and asked for several of their catalogs. He used pictures for the catalog to teach the children English words.

Lenoir and Ethel together brought their baby into the world. Lenoir had originally assisted his grandmother in North Carolina when she made rounds working in the mountains there as a mid-wife. When the infant was a few days old a woman came up from the Native buildings and took the baby down to the village to be greeted by the people living there. She was passed around for many of the people to meet her.

When Gertrude was four months old, her mother became ill and left her father, taking a boat to Seattle WA, where she checked into a hospital. She woke up a few days after she had been there and heard the staff discussing who would take the cute little red headed baby after her mother died. Ethel left the hospital, took her daughter and boarded a train to Chicago. Ethel was still ill, and so on the train Gertrude was cared for by a number of people. Ethel's parents met the train in Chicago, took Ethel off the train into an ambulance. Ethel's mother, Gertrude McGawn, began walking around looking for the baby. She found a lady walking up and down on the platform with a baby and claimed her grandchild. Her grandparents took them home and began the process of helping to raise Gertrude.

Ethel (McGawn) Buchanan