In
1901 Suzanne Rognan Bernardi and her brother, O. Jack Rognan, came to the
Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost point of Alaska. They became U.S.
Government Service teachers in the village of Kingegan (later known as
Wales) until sometime in 1902. She and her brother took a number of photographs
during their stay in Wales, and Suzanne Bernardi made souvenir photo albums
and gave them to friends. She pasted the photos in albums with handwritten
narrative that varied in each album. There are only a few albums that have
survived, and one of them made its way to New Mexico.
The
original owner of this album was Essie Fletcher who lived in Alaska with
her husband, a mining surveyor. Essie was 92 and living in a nursing home
in California, when Lois Minium, a resident of Albuquerque, purchased a
small collection of eleven objects from Mrs. Fletcher. Lois Minium donated
the collection, including a small photo album, to Maxwell Museum in 1989.
During
a research visit to Alaska in 2001, the photo archivist at the Maxwell
Museum discovered that the photo album was one of the original albums created
by Suzanne Bernardi.
Tale
of a Whale by Suzanne Bernardi
