Etta Jones was not a World War II soldier or a war time spy. She was a school teacher whose life changed forever on that Sunday morning in June 1942 when the Japanese military invaded Attu Island and Etta became a prisoner of war. Etta and her sister moved to the Territory of Alaska in 1922. She planned to stay only one year as a vacation, but this 40 something year old nurse from back east met Foster Jones and fell in love. They married and for nearly twenty years they lived, worked and taught in remote Athabascan, Alutiiq, Yup’ik and Aleut villages where they were the only outsiders. Their last assignment was Attu. After the invasion, Etta became a prisoner of war and spent 39 months in Japanese POW sites located in Yokohama and Totsuka. She was the first female Caucasian taken prisoner by a foreign enemy on the North American Continent since the War of 1812, and she was the first American female released by the Japanese at the end of World War II. Using descriptive letters that she penned herself, her unpublished manuscript, historical documents and personal interviews with key people who were involved with events as they happened, her extraordinary story is told for the first time in this book.

An account of the struggles and oppression of the Pribilof Aleuts of Alaska written by a woman who became their passionate advocate. From June of 1941 through the following summer, Fredericka Martin lived with her husband, Dr. Samuel Berenberg, on remote St. Paul Island in Alaska. During that time, Martin delved into the complex history of the Unangan people, and Before the Storm draws from her personal accounts of that year and her research to present a fascinating portrait of a time and a people facing radical change. A government-ordered evacuation of all Aleuts from the island in the face of World War II, which Martin recounts in her journal, proved but the first step in a long struggle by native peoples to gain independence, and, as editor Raymond L. Hudson explains, Martin came to play a significant role in the effort. “Particularly because so few books about the Pribilofs have focused on the people of the islands, Before the Storm offers an especially welcome perspective to our understanding of the unusual history of the Aleuts there.” —Alaska Journal of Anthropology

The harvest is plenty but the gatherers are few. A Filipino-American couple proved that a few could yield fruitful result through their unique way of modern day witnessing that is dramatic and practical. Their scintillating account in reaching out to compatriots kababayans is gleaned in their descriptive narration and inspiring messages of love that encapsulates their cultural background, contemporary events and vision. This inspirational-historical book provides a pragmatic model of discipleship in reaching ethnic constituencies in America.

Explores the history, culture, and lifestyle of Alaska's Aleutian Islands and features dozens of full-color photographs of the region's natural and man-made features.

Translation from Russian