Alyce Laura Anderson
1868-08, Bishop Hill, Illinois — August 11, 1940, Seldovia, Alaska
Buried in Seldovia City Cemetery Plot #54ALYCE ERICKSON ANDERSON, the daughter of Lars and Elizabeth Erickson, was born August 1868 in Bishop Hill, Illinois. She married Oscar William Anderson in Kirkland, Washington on June 24, 1890. Their daughter Juanita Amelia Lenore Anderson was born September 1890. The family lived in Washington but before the turn of the century, Alyce was living in Alaska. She was first teaching in Juneau, but in 1909 the Governor of the Alaska Territory asked her to open a school in Unga.
Prior to that time in unincorporated communities in Alaska, the only schools were what was then known as “The Bureau of Indian Schools,” for Indians only, though an occasional white child attended them. The 1905 “Nelson Act” of the US Congress, provided a mechanism for funding “white and mixed-race” schools in unincorporated towns. The school in Unga became the first of many new “Nelson Schools” to be built around the state. Alyce taught there from 1908 to 1911.
Juanita Anderson recalled “In 1911, my mother, Alyce E. Anderson, was in Seattle in late September when Governor Hoggat wired asking her to proceed to Ninilchik to open the first school there. She was delayed for several weeks in Seward awaiting the monthly trip of the mail boat to the Westward. She arrived in Seldovia only to learn that it was late in the season and there would be no boats going up the Inlet even as far as Ninilchik. Several days later the “Alaska” (gas-boat) captained by Bill Murphy came down the Inlet to Seldovia for supplies to be taken to Kenai, and he agreed to put mother off at Ninilchik….After being on the gas boat almost 24 hours, she was landed at Ninilchik….Most of the population spoke only Russian…people barely left their own community and except for a few Russians from Russia and two or three others, no one had been farther away than Kenai, or maybe Seldovia or Port Graham. The Russian School was rented for the school, and a two room cabin was made available for the teacher to live in….
The only mail to arrive at Ninilchik during the winter was brought by Mr. Woodwind from Homer once a month. During the cold winter months he traveled along the beach most of the way with the dog team, later in the spring with a two wheel cart, traveling at low tide, and sometimes with a dory and Evinrude (outboard) engine….The need for a school house and teacher was imperative, and….the windowless school house on the bluff above Ninilchik was built. It consisted of a wing for a teacher’s residence, a very small bed-room, and small kitchen but with a nice long living room (somewhat narrow) with a wonderful view out over the Inlet. The kitchen opened into the school room proper, and behind the class room was a long narrow room extending across the rear of the school house proper. This was for manual training, and all of the boys in school the year following were given an opportunity to learn how to use tools and to construct useful things. The girls were taught sewing. Chris Buschmann, General Superintendent of what was then the Northwest Fisheries, and who was a brother of August and Eigel Buschmann, well-known in the salmon industry of Alaska and whose father, Peter Buschmann, for whom Petersburg is named, was approached about taking the entire supplies for the new school north. The sailing vessel “St. Paul” was used….[He] agreed to take the supplies north to Kenai free of charge, and …discharged it to scows which were then towed to Ninilchik and unloaded on the beach….The lumber was taken up the hill as was coal in later years by windlass….The building was occupied…the Spring or Fall of 1913 or maybe the Spring of 1914. Mother taught at Ninilchik 8 years, I think. 1911-1919.” Alyce then went on to teach in Chignik and later in False Pass and on Sanak Island in the Aleutians. She also owned interest in a hand-packing salmon cannery in Ninilchik and she owned a fox ranch near there.
In 1929, Alyce became the first woman to visit the “Valley of 10,000 Smokes”, which she considered her most interesting experience in Alaska. She eventually retired to Seldovia, where her daughter Juanita was living. Juanita had married Ralph Anderson and they had two sons, Ralph and Theodore (Teddy) who grew up in Seldovia. Alyce died in Anchorage, August 11, 1940 following surgery.
Alyce Erickson Anderson and Oscar William Anderson, who both died in 1940, are buried in adjacent graves in the Seldovia City Cemetery, Plots #53 and #54.
