The Voice of Lila Ann Smith
December 21, 1941. Chichigof Village, Attu
. . . . .A powerful tempest blew through Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
Chichigof Bay was lashed to its angriest state. Gulls, poor things, were blown into
buildings and killed.
Spray lifted from the waves, was picked up by the vastness of
the wind and hurled landward. The mornings, when light is arriving so late anyway,
remained darker longer, as if the sun itself was impeded by these winds.
The Attuans struggled to Chapel, braced almost double into the wind, some of the
little ones almost being swept from the grip of their parents.
But the deafening clamor of the wind is beyond words. This is a land where winds
reign without challenge.
**
January 1, 1942. Chichigof Village, Attu
. . . . . Though New Year's Day, it is also a Thursday, and because we use one calendar
and the Attuans another it causes confusion at times.. . . . .
. . . . As for me, I became a student, under the instruction of Friend Annie,
Lena Ivanof, Anise Sergief, and Fekla Andreanof, in the art of starring. It is a
much-anticipated Orthodox Christmas activity when villagers, carrying a Holy
Bethlehem Star aloft on a pole, go house to house caroling. The aforementioned
ladies are the honored keepers of the star, responsible for it looking absolutely
its best on Orthodox Christmas, January 7.
Each village, they tell me, has a traditional star, kept in storage for all the
year, until the day of starring approaches. "Our" star is eight-pointed and a
grand four feet in diameter. In the center is the nativity scene--all of this,
joyfully hand decorated with crafts produced by the village seamstresses
and designers. The design of the star itself allows the outer portion of the
star to revolve, while the center stays stationary. . .
There is snow now, though not a great accumulation. Narrow, bare footpaths
thread this way and that between the houses, and from the village to the
schoolhouse and church. It is cold, to my mind, all the time, and Osmond
devotedly attends our stove, a small affair which burns both wood and
coal--several tons of which were landed from the Northern Supplier.
That day feels distant to me now. Was it a century or a day ago?
Though I experienced joy in teaching (first) the Athabascan people
of Three Rivers Station, and certainly on Attu, still I have to soon inform
Mr. Smith that I must return to Delbert [Iowa] after the end of this school
year.
I must choose the right moment. I'm hoping that Mr. Smith's thirst
for foreign adventure is now somewhat quenched. Mine was some four
decades plus a year ago.
Iowa is as proximate as I want to be to this new war. Once you have seen
one war, there is absolutely no necessity or forbearance for repeating the experience.
* *
excerpts from THE WAR JOURNAL OF LILA ANN SMITH, Irving Warner, Pleasure
Boat Studio. 271 pp. 2007, October
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