Adeline Smith

Adeline Smith (March 15, 1918 – March 19, 2013) was an American elder, lexicographer, activist, and cultural preservationist. She was a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, one of four indigenous Klallam communities in the Pacific Northwest.

Smith was one of the last two native speakers of the Klallam language who spoke it as her first language.^[1] Smith spearheaded efforts to revive the Klallam language. Adeline Smith created the first Klallam alphabet with Timothy Montler, a professor of linguistics at the University of North Texas.^[1] Smith and Montler also developed the first Klallam dictionary, which was published in December 2012.^[2] She contributed 12,000 words and phrases to the dictionary, making her the largest contributor to the collection.^[1] Her revitalization work has proven successful, as the Klallam language is now taught to public and private students from preschool through high school.^[1][3]

Smith also championed the preservation of Tse-whit-zen, a historic Lower Elwha village which dates back to approximately 2,700 years, and the restoration of the Elwha River.^[1] The removal of the dams, beginning in September 2011, drained Lake Aldwell reservoir, which had been created before she was born. The destruction of the dams and drainage of the lake uncovered the previously submerged Klallam ceremonial creation site.^[1]

Biography

Early life

Smith was born on March 15, 1918.^[1] She was raised on a family homestead on the Elwha River, just outside of Port Angeles, Washington.^[1][3] Her family only spoke Klallam at home and Smith did not have an English language name until she first enrolled in public school when she was seven years old.^[3] Her great-grandparents passed down the family's unwritten, oral history from as far back as the late 18th Century.^[3]

She was forced to leave Chemawa Indian School, a boarding school in Salem, Oregon, shortly before her graduation due to the death of her mother.^[3] She moved to Seattle with her niece, Bea Charles, when she was 18 years old to find work, despite the widespread discrimination against Native Americans at the time.^[3] (Bea Charles, who died in 2009, later became a noted Klallam linguist).^[4]

Smith worked a series of jobs, finding employment as a waitress and an employee of Goodwill Industries.^[3] During World War II, Smith worked as a welder at a submarine factory in San Francisco and at a Boeing plant in Seattle.^[3]

Klallam linguistic preservation

Smith was working a job in Neah Bay, Washington, as a salal picker when she decided to permanently move back to the Lower Elwha Klallam reservation outside Port Angeles.^[3] She had worked outside the reservation for more than forty years when she returned to the reservation.^[3] Once she was back with the Lower Elwha, she began teaching Klallam history and culture.

Smith began trying to revive the Klallam language in the 1990s.^[3] She co-created the first Klallam alphabet with Timothy Montler, a professor of linguistics at the University of North Texas.^[1] She also worked with Montler throughout the 1990s, 2000s, and early 2010s to create the first Klallam language dictionary.^[3] Smith contributed 12,000 words to the dictionary, making her the largest single contributor to the new lexicon.^[1] To research entries for the dictionary, Smith transcribed Khallam language recordings, which were made by the late ethnologist John Peabody Harrington in Khallam communities in 1942.^[2] The transcriptions took her months to complete.^[2]

The "Klallam Dictionary", a 983 page book, was published by the University of Washington Press in December 2012.^[3] It is one of the largest books ever published by the UW Press.^[2] The dictionary was unveiled at a celebration ceremony held at the Port Gamble S'Klallam longhouse on November 28, 2012.^[2] The ceremony was attended by members of the Lower Elwha, Jamestown S'Klallam, and Port Gamble Klallam communities.^[2] Members of the three tribal governments held up portraits of Smith, who could not attend, to honor her contributions to the dictionary.^[2] Smith held her first copy of the dictionary in January 2013.^[3] Copies of the dictionary were distributed to all Klallam tribal government offices and schools.^[2]

Smith trained new teachers in the Klallam language and culture.^[3] Today (2013), the Klallam language is taught in both private Klallam tribal and public schools in the Port Angeles area due to her efforts.^[3] Classes are taught from the elementary to high school levels.^[3]

She was the subject of a documentary, "The Life of a Klallam Girl Growing up on the Elwha River".^[3]

Smith continued to create written accounts of the Klallam's oral history and stories until shortly before her death in 2013.^[3]

Elwha River restoration

Adeline Smith appeared in U.S. federal court in cases on behalf of her Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Her efforts are credited with helping to win the 1974 Boldt court decision, which upheld the rights of the Lower Elwha and other tribes to half the catch of a salmon run under past treaties.^[3]

In 1992, Smith lobbied the United States Congress in the run-up to a vote to tear down dams along the Elwha River.^[3] She lived to see the removal of the dams, including the Elwha Dam, from the Elwha River beginning in September 2011, and the return of the first salmon to the river.^[1][3][5] The removal of one of the dams in 2012 drained Lake Aldwell, a man-made reservoir created in 1913, exposed the previously submerged Klallam ceremonial creation site in July 2012.^[1][6]

Preservation of Tse-whit-zen

Smith championed the preservation of Tse-whit-zen, a historic Lower Elwha village located at the base of Ediz Hook, which dates back to approximately 2,700 years.^[1] The site is the largest ancient Native American village discovered in Washington state to date.^[1] As a child, Smith had been warned by adults never to walk on or play on the site of Tse-whit-zen, which is considered sacred by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe.^[1]

Smith campaigned against the construction of a drydock, which would have been used to build floating bridge pontoons.^[1] The graving yard project, which constructed by the Washington state government, required the removal of a large burial site at Tse-whit-zen. More than three hundred bodies were exhumed and removed from the site before Washington Governor Gary Locke intervened and permanently halted the construction in 2004.^[1] The three hundred remains were reburied by the Lower Elwha. The state government turned over ownership of Tse-whit-zen to the Lower Elwha Klallam.^[1]

Legacy

Adeline Smith died from heart failure in Puyallup, Washington, on March 19, 2013, just four days after her 95th birthday.^[1][7] She was buried in Neah Bay Cemetery.^[7] She was predeceased by her three children - Mark Suppah, Roy Smith Jr., and Patricia Forbe; her husband, Roy Smith; and a previous husband, Roosevelt Suppah.^[3]

Her death left just one living, native speaker of the Klallam language, Hazel Sampson, who is 103 years old as of March 2013.^[1] Smith was also the last Klallam native speaker who taught her language on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.^[3] Smith had planned to make audio recordings of additional Klallam stories in the Spring of 2013 at the time.^[1]

References