Obituaries: Paula Allen and others
Published: Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 5:02 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 5:07 a.m.
Paula Allen
In the 1960s, when some in academia still denied the existence of American Indian literature, Paula Gunn Allen embarked on a career that proved them wrong -- and altered the required reading lists of literature classes on U.S. college campuses.
Allen, a leading scholar and feminist, died of lung cancer May 29 at her home in Fort Bragg. She was 68.
The former UCLA professor helped define the canon of American Indian literature, encouraged its development by anthologizing new American Indian writers and nurtured a broader audience for the work.
"This is great literature -- American literature," Allen said in a 1990 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. "What I want from readers is a fundamental recognition that American Indian culture is alive and thriving."
In a 2003 Press Democrat story, Allen told of going as a child to a mission school in Albuquerque, N.M., for a "formal, white Christian education." She added that her learning was balanced by stories from her mother "of fairies and elves, snakes and spiders, of grieving and laughing."
As a woman she discovered the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "House Made of Dawn" by American Indian author N. Scott Momaday. She recalled that "it was the first book I ever read about me."
Author Greg Sarris, who worked with Allen for 10 years at UCLA and who now is tribal chairman of the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria, said Friday night that Allen's contribution was "monumental," especially in providing a feminist perspective on American Indian literature.
"She was at the forefront of a movement that we generally regard as the American Indian literary renaissance," Sarris said.
Over three decades, Allen wrote 17 books, including works of poetry, a novel, literary criticism, essays, short stories and works of scholarship. In 1983, she published "Studies on American Indian Literature, Critical Essays and Course Designs," a seminal work that laid the foundation for the study of American Indian literature.
"It was the first time anybody had some kind of a guideline if they were looking to establish a course in Native Literature," said Patricia Clark Smith, professor emerita at the University of New Mexico and a longtime friend. "That was completely her vision."
With her 1986 book, "The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions," Allen countered the stereotypical view of American Indian women with provocative essays examining female deities, the honored place of lesbians, and the importance of mothers and grandmothers to Indian identity.
"When Paula was writing this, the portrayal we had of Native women was the docile squaw, or the savage woman, as this kind of sexual prey," said Mary Churchill, a former student and longtime friend who teaches at Sonoma State University.
In 1990, Allen received an American Book Award for editing "Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Short Stories by American Indian Writers," which the New York Times said was "written with intelligent passion."
In the 2003 biography "Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat," Allen's Pocahontas bears little resemblance to the Disney version. In her nativized story of Pocahontas, the young girl is a Beloved Woman, an honor given to females with spiritual power who are trained from birth in diplomacy and politics of the Algonquin tribe. She is an ambassador whose actions fulfill a prophecy of the birth of a New World.
The book is an example of the way Allen, a fearless, independent thinker, defied convention, Smith said. "And people were always saying, 'You can't do that.' But she did."
Born Oct. 24, 1939, in Grants, N.M., Paula Marie Francis grew up in Cubero, N.M. Her father, Elias Lee Francis, a former lieutenant governor of New Mexico, was of Lebanese descent. Her mother was Laguna Pueblo, Sioux, Scottish. Allen called her birth a multicultural event.
At the University of Oregon, Allen earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1966 and a master's of fine arts in creative writing two years later.
At the University of New Mexico, Allen completed her dissertation on American Indian literature and earned a doctorate in American studies in 1975.
She taught at several schools, including San Francisco State University; UC Berkeley, for four years beginning in 1986; and nine years at UCLA as a professor of English and American Indian studies.
"I think that Native American literature is useful to everybody who's trying to move from one world to another," Allen once said.
"And in America, certainly that's two-thirds of us."
Allen, who married and divorced twice, is survived by a daughter, Lauralee Brown of Mill Valley; a son, Suleiman Allen of Berkeley; two sisters; one brother; and two granddaughters. Son Fuad Ali Allen died in 1972; another son, Eugene John Brown, died in 2001.
-- From staff and wire reports
Alfred Cathcart
Alfred Barney Cathcart, a Korean War veteran who spent the last decade volunteering at the Pacific Coast Air Force Museum, died May 31 following surgery to treat stomach cancer. He was 77.
Cathcart worked as a volunteer coordinator and education program director and was most recently the crew chief for a T-37, a training aircraft named "Tweety Bird." The museum is based at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.
"When he retired, he needed something to keep him busy," said his daughter, Christy Somers of Santa Rosa. "He was the kind of guy that just wanted to jump in and get involved."
Born in Oakland, Cathcart was raised in Santa Rosa and graduated from Santa Rosa High School in 1949. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Santa Rosa, where his mother's family had settled more than a century ago.
He worked for Santa Rosa Auto Parts for several years and Adam Hill Co. in Alameda until his retirement in 1996.
Cathcart poured his energies into the museum, where he worked alongside other veterans who shared a love for restoring and preserving vintage military aircraft. For the past five years, he used his experience as a former bomb site mechanic in the 452nd Bomb Wing to restore a rusted scrapyard aircraft into a renovated T-37.
"It was a junker," said friend Barney Hagen, 69, of Santa Rosa. "It had laid out in the desert for years, and it was ready to be ground up and turned into beer cans."
As the education coordinator, Cathcart wanted children to understand the history of famous fighter planes. He made school tours possible through community fund raising, Hagen said.
Hagen, a Pacific Coast Museum volunteer for 10 years, said Cathcart frequently talked about his grandchildren and remembered times when they would run up to their grandfather as he worked on "Tweety Bird."
"They were the highlight of his life," Hagen said.
Besides bowling and listening to jazz, Cathcart loved watching his grandchildren compete in all their baseball, basketball and soccer games.
Cathcart remained active even after suffering a quadruple heart bypass in 2000 and a ruptured colon in 2003. His decision to undergo surgery for stomach cancer is a testament to his fighting spirit, his daughter said.
"What he showed us in courage and character and devotion is remarkable," she said. "When he made a commitment, there was no question he would do it."
In addition to his daughter, Cathcart is survived by his sons, Mike Cathcart and Craig Cathcart, both of Petaluma, and seven grandchildren.
A private family ceremony will be held Monday, and burial will be at Santa Rosa Memorial Park. A public memorial will be held Thursday at the Pacific Coast Air Museum, 2230 Becker Blvd., Santa Rosa.
Donations may be made to the Pacific Coast Air Museum Building Fund.
-- Tracie Morales
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