PORT ANGELES — Although the life of Beatrice Edith Charles has come to an end, her memory will live on in the hearts and minds of the people of the Klallam tribes.
About 300 people from across the North Olympic Peninsula filled the gym in the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Center west of Port Angeles Saturday to pay their respects to the Lower Elwha elder who helped save the Klallam language and who was a tireless promoter of Native American rights, as well as children’s education and health.
Most of the people present were from the Lower Elwha, Jamestown S’Klallam, and Port Gamble S’Klallam tribes — who each credit Mrs. Charles as being a key figure in the revitalization of their culture and language.
Mrs. Charles, 89, who died in her home on the Lower Elwha reservation in her sleep Monday morning, was buried in the tribe’s cemetery after the memorial service.
She was born May 14, 1919, in Pysht.
“Her journey is not over,” said Mrs. Charles’ great-grandson James Sullivan.
“Her journey has just begun and we have to stay strong, stand strong, and be proud of who we are and what she gave us.”
Living a life focused upon improving the lives of the Klallam tribes, the woman known by many as “Aunty Bea” was worthy of a long list of honors, those who knew her said.
But it was her efforts in the preservation of the Klallam language during the last few decades of her life that she was remembered for most on Saturday.
Lessons, language
Speaking in both English and Klallam, Lower Elwha tribal members who learned their native language from Mrs. Charles and other elders, spoke of the lessons she had taught them.
“She always said, if you are to be a teacher of the Klallam language, you must work until you die,” said Jamie Valadez, a Klallam language teacher at Port Angeles High School.
Those were words that Mrs. Charles, who was part of the last generation of Klallam to learn their language at home, lived by.
Linguist Timothy Montler of the University of Texas said that Mrs. Charles was always dedicated — even up to a few months before her death — to working with him to preserve the language.
“She worked very hard,” he said. “She was brave, strong and very wise. She always wanted to work more.”
Recording
In the early 1990s, Mrs. Charles and three other elders — her aunt Adeline Smith, Ed Sampson, and Tom Charles — began working with Montler to record and transcribe the Klallam language, which had almost been forgotten.
Of those four elders, only Smith, 91, remains.
Montler has since developed a Klallam alphabet based on the American Phonetic Alphabet, which has been used to teach the language to other generations of not only the Lower Elwha, but also the Jamestown and Port Gamble tribes.
Valadez was one of the first to learn the language from Mrs. Charles and the other elders in 1991.
Soon after, she became a certified Klallam teacher and has taught the high school’s class since it began more than 10 years ago.
Language classes also are taught in Lower Elwha pre-school and after-school programs and in classes in Port Gamble and Jamestown.
Valadez, who sang “Amazing Grace” with three other Lower Elwha women in both Klallam and English, said 380 students have gone through her course.
Klallam language speakers with the Port Gamble and Jamestown tribes also came to honor Mrs. Charles.
“She told us a lot of things, but she always told us we are one people and we always will be,” Francine Swift, of the Port Gamble tribe, told the Peninsula Daily News.
“We live separately, but that’s not our fault.”
Jamestown S’Klallam
Jamestown Chairman Ron Allen said the last members of the Jamestown tribe that spoke Klallam as a first language have all died.
It was people like Mrs. Charles who are helping them remember the words of their ancestors, he said.
“She affected our community as much as the Lower Elwha,” Allen said.
A former Klallam language teacher, storyteller Elaine Grinnell, 72, of the Jamestown tribe, said the language was nearly lost because the children of her generation weren’t allowed to speak it in school.
“The government figured if they drop the language, they drop the culture,” she said.
“It doesn’t take long to lose a language.”
When Montler began recording the language from elders, the irony wasn’t lost on Ed Sampson, who died in 1998, Grinnell said.
“They asked me to forget my language, and they are having me bring it all back,” he once told her, she said.
Treaty rights
Mrs. Charles was a champion of treaty rights and preserving her culture before she became known for being one of the last people to have learned Klallam as her first language.
Grinnell and Valadez said Mrs. Charles testified in the federal court case U.S. vs. Washington state — which reaffirmed the fishing rights of Washington state tribes in 1974 — served on the national Indian Health Board, and was a dedicated promoter of education for Klallam children.
“She planted the seed a long time ago” for education, Grinnell said.
Mrs. Charles also testified in Congress for the Elwha Restoration Act in 1992, said Russell Busch, attorney for the Lower Elwha.
Speaking to Mrs. Charles before her speech to Congress, he said, “I asked her, ‘Are you ready for this? She said, ‘I’ve waited all my life to do this.'”
Work will continue
Montler said his work on preserving the Klallam language will continue.
He is nearing completion on the language’s grammatical structure and a dictionary with close to 10,000 entries.
“Her work was very important,” Montler told the PDN.
“Her work will continue. She will be remembered.”
Lower Elwha Tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles also said her memory will live on.
“It’s a sad day,” she added. “It’s a great loss.”
Mrs. Charles is survived by her aunt Adeline Smith; sister, Bernice Anderson; son and daughter-in-law, Charles and Paula Williams; daughter, Lorna Mike; nine grandchildren; and “numerous” great grandchildren, said a booklet for the memorial service.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Elmer Arthur Charles; sons Gordon Sampson and Carl Charles; parents, Ernest Sampson and Sadie Elliot; and brothers, Ernest, Wilber and Charles Sampson.
Grinnell said other Lower Elwha elders — Hazel Sampson, Josephine Williams, Nellie Sullivan, Rene Charles and Annie Bennett — also worked to preserve the language in the 1970s. They have each since died, she said.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
