Segundo Llorente, S.J., 1906-1989 Content made availableOrdained by Georgetown June, 1934 University Press and Digital Georgetown Memoirs of a Yukon Priest Segundo tlorente, S.J. 89 Georgetown University Press Washington, D.C. Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Excerpt on back cover from Thomas Merton: The Alaskan Journals of Thomas Merton. Copyright © 1988 by the Trustees of the Merton Legacy Trust. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Copyright © 1990 Georgetown University Press All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Llorente, Segundo. Memoirs of a Yukon priest / Segundo Llorente p. cm. ISBN 0-87840-494-5 : $17.95 1. Llorente, Segundo. 2. Eskimos—Yukon Territory-Missions. 3. Jesuits-Missions-Yukon Territory. 4. Catholic Chuich- -Missions-Yukon Territory. 5. Missionaries-Yukon Territory - -Biography. I. Title. -E99.E7L565 1990 266' .2'092-dc20 89-27434 [B] CIP Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Contents Foreword ix Preface xiii 1 The Beginning 1 2 The Inside Passage 6 3 The Alaska Railroad 13 4 The Yukon River 21 5 Traveling Down River 30 6 Welcome to the Akulurak Mission 37 7 Akulurak Stories 47 8 Crossing the Line: Kotzebue 59 9 Kotzebue and Beyond 70 10 Bury Me Next to Fr. Jette 82 11 The Winter Trail 91 12 Quiet Nunakhock 108 13 Summer in Akulurak 117 14 Bethel and Beyond 121 15 Holy Cross and McGrath 133 16 Starting Over 147 17 Alakanuk 160 18 Emmonak 168 19 Eskimo Life and Lore 177 20 Kwiguk and Saint Marys 193 21 The Alaska State Legislature 201 22 Nome 211 Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Arctic Ocean 17. S. S. R. Bering Sea \ Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Chronology November 18, 1906 Born near Leon, Spain 1917-1918 Attended pre-seminary school 1919-1923 Attended seminary of the Diocese of Ledn 1924-1925 Trained at Jesuit novitiate at Carrion de los Condes in Castile 1926-1930 Studied Latin and philosophy at Salamanca and Granada 1930-1931 Studied English and taught Spanish at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington 1931-1934 Studied theology at St. Mary's, Kansas June, 1934 Ordained Jesuit priest 1934-1935 Completed theology studies at Alma College, Los Gatos, California, then left for Alaska 1935-1937 Served at the Akulurak mission 1938-1941 Served at the Kotzebue mission; said Mass and gave retreats in Candle, Deering and Pilgrim Springs 1941-1948 Served at the Akulurak mission again, with trips to Hooper Bay and Nunakhock 1948-1951 Served at the Bethel mission on the Kuskokwim River, with visits to Holy Cross, Kalskag, Aniak and McGrath 1951-1963 Served at the Akulurak mission and district headquarters at Alakanuk, on the other side of the Yukon 1956 Became a U.S. citizen in Nome November, 1960 Elected by write-in vote to serve in Alaska's newly formed House of Representatives 1961-1964 Served two terms in the state legislature in Juneau 1964-1966 Served as pastor in Nome 1966-1967 Served as pastor in Fairbanks 1967-1970 Served as pastor in Cordova 1970-1975 Served as pastor in Anchorage 1975-1981 Left Alaska, worked with Hispanics at Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Moses Lake, Washington 1981-1984 Served as assistant pastor at St. Joseph's Church, Pocatello, Idaho 1984-1989 Served as hospital chaplain in Lewiston, Idaho January 26, 1989 Died at Jesuit House, Gonzaga University, Content made Spokaneavailable ,by Washingto Georgetownn University Press and Digital Georgetown Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown Foreword The first Jesuit priests arrived in northern Alaska in 1887. At the time Alaska was a raw, undeveloped territory purchased from Russia only two decades earlier. Means of travel were what they had been for countless generations. Communications systems were primitive at best. By the time Father Segundo Llorente came to northern Alaska, in 1935, many changes, many improvements had taken place. Still, he was not too late to get a generous taste of what the early pioneers, the first missionaries had gone through. In 1935 sternwheelers still plied the major rivers in the summer and dog sleds the trackless snows in the winter. Snowmachines, bush planes, and modern jets were still wonders of the future—as were radio, telephone, and telecommunications. Llorente regarded himself as a link between the old and the new. He entered the land of the Indians and Eskimos on river boats; he left Alaska for the last time on a jet. He knew an isolation that bordered on the absolute; he lived to see Alaskan communities joined together by reliable telephone systems, radio and television. He personally knew some of the founding fathers of the Catholic Eskimo and Indian missions of northern Alaska; he was to be exercised by many of the changes occasioned by the Second Vatican Council. Moreover, he saw the Territory of Alaska become the forty-ninth state of the Union. The Alaska he first entered was a Vicariate Apostolic under the jurisdiction of one bishop. The Alaska he left forty years later was an Ecclesiastical Province with the Archdiocese of Anchorage and Dioceses of Juneau and Fairbanks. Where he found 80,000 people in 1935, he left behind close to half a million in 1975. In his Memoirs, Llorente sweeps the reader along with him as he, the church in Alaska, and the Territory of Alaska cross a great threshold. "I was encouraged by my friends," we read in Llorente's preface to his Memoirs, "to write these memories (and to tell it as it Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown MEMOIRS OF A YUKON PRIEST was). .. "Along with Oregon Province archivists at the time, Clifford A. Carroll, S.J., and Richard J. Sisk, S.J., I was one of those privileged friends who, in my voluminous correspondence and in various conversations with Llorente, repeatedly urged him to tell in writing his life's story for the general public. Only an autobiography would do in his case. His singular personality and experiences could be captured and communicated only by the man himself. At the time, however, he no longer had much desire to do writing of any kind. From Moses Lake, Washington, he wrote to me in 1979: " Concerning my translating into Spanish your life of Fr. Lafortune, please take notice ... that typing tires me. I have done so much during my lifetime that my whole body rebels, especially the fingers. If I could have a secretary that would type Spanish correctly, then I would take your book, sit in a comfy chair, and while my eyes would look at your prose, my lips would utter refined Spanish sentences between sips of orange juice. But, as it is, typing has become a heavy cross for me... Writing is an all-consuming activity, an exhausting one. Reading is a pleasure. Readers should bear this in mind/' Nevertheless, in spite of his reluctance to write, Llorente, yielding to the entreaties of his friends, did produce an autobio- graphical sketch of a kind. "I typed/' he wrote me in June 1981," what I saw and heard in my many years in Alaska. I have no idea what may become of said manuscript." The manuscript was a considerable disappointment to us. It recounted mostly objective facts. It was flat, uninspired and uninspiring. It lacked the colorful, witty, sparkling, yet broad and deep, personality that we knew to be Father Segundo Llorente. The manuscript was filed in the Province Archives at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington. That seemed to be the end of the matter. Great, then, was my surprise when in October 1989, John B. Breslin, S.J., of Georgetown University Press asked me if I would consider writing a foreword to the Memoirs. I was not sure what we were talking about and asked to see a copy of said Memoirs. Great, again—and very pleasant—was my surprise when I read what was a wholly new manuscript, written in the genuine, inimitable Llorente style: an oral style, an outpour, a torrent of words rich in concrete, vivid detail, saturated with personal opinions, reflections, observa- tions. When Llorente did the talking, it was always a pleasure to do the listening. Content made available by Georgetown University Press and Digital Georgetown FOREWORD From Llorente's religious superior in Lewiston, Idaho, John J. Morse, S.J., I learned that Llorente had spent long hours at the typewriter during the final months of his life. Who inspired him, what inspired him, drove him to produce a new, a lengthy account of his forty years in Alaska, we will never know. His own brother, Father Amando Llorente, S.J., to whom he handed the finished manuscript in the summer of 1988, does not know. It was Father Amando who brought it to the attention of Georgetown University Press. The published Memoirs are sure to inform, entertain, edify many. When death overtook Father Segundo Llorente, it did not do so unexpectedly, or as an unwelcome spectre. Ten years before he died, he wrote to me: "In the meantime we grow older and come closer to the Pearly Gates where Saint Peter will turn his magnifying glass on our poor trembling souls. But it won't be that old renegade Pete who will judge us, but our Lord Himself in person aided by our blessed Mother who will stand there also to put in a good word for us, priests of her Son the High Priest. And the Lord will be kind to us and will take us to Himself and bury us in His divine Heart.