Posted by Howard Richman on May 02 2008 at 09:59:17:
An obituary in today´s Seattle Times features homeschool grad, Lily Alford, shown in the above accompanying photo. Here is a selection:
Thanks to the pioneer way she was raised, there wasn´t a thing Lily Osterback Alford couldn´t do — fish, field dress a caribou, operate a ham radio, knit and crochet....HowardHer life started on a chilly Feb. 10, 1909, in a cave dug for shelter by her father while he and his family were on a hunting trip in Cold Bay, Alaska....
Her father, a handsome Finnish sailor, had left his homeland hoping to find a fortune in the Alaska Gold Rush. Instead he found her mother, an Aleut native who spoke only Russian. Despite the language barrier, the couple married and raised eight children in isolation on Wosnesenski Island, just off the south coast of the Alaska Peninsula.
On the island the family raised blue foxes, sending their pelts to London furriers. The children were home-birthed and home-schooled, with homemade clothes and shoes. "Papa" mended their broken legs, filled their cavities and made ice skates out of old metal files and leather straps. He also built fishing boats with driftwood, according to family members.
They grew or caught food, powered lamps with propane and shopped from catalogs. The children, who had no toys, entertained themselves outdoors. Mrs. Alford also loved books and was often caught reading with a flashlight under the covers at night, a granddaughter said.
As a teenager, she earned a ham-radio license. Then, in 1931, she was thought to be the first person to broadcast news of the eruption of Mount Pavlof. That´s when U.S. newspapers dubbed her the "Queen of the North."
Several years later, Mrs. Alford married her first husband on a whim, and their first daughter was born in Alaska. Fighting came to the Aleutian Islands during World War II. To escape being evacuated, for their safety, with other Aleuts to a relocation camp, Mrs. Alford and her husband moved to Portland, where their second daughter was born. Later they moved to California, then to several places in Washington, before settling in Seattle, where their youngest daughter was born. The couple divorced in 1958.
For four years, Mrs. Alford supported her family in the Green Lake neighborhood by pressing draperies at a Seattle laundry....
In 1962, Mrs. Alford married truck driver Harold "Red" Alford Sr. The two finished raising her youngest daughter, cared for nieces and nephews along the way, and had a great garden and a full cookie jar. Her husband died in 2004.
As she aged, Mrs. Alford kept reading, knitting and sewing, and stayed active in the Aleut Corporation, a native business organization that promotes the welfare of its members....