Wright, Arthur R., 1890-1948

Arthur R. Wright (1890-1948), the son of miner Henry Wright and his Athapascan wife Annie (nee Glass), was born at Old Station, Alaska, on the Yukon River. Before Arthur's second birthday, his father placed him with the Rev. Jules Prevost of the Episcopal Mission at Tanana and left Alaska, never to return. Arthur was raised bilingual in Athapascan and English, and assisted Rev. Prevost in translation. In his late teens and early twenties he traveled Interior Alaska with Archdeacon Hudson Stuck as attendant and interpreter, then studied agriculture and carpentry at schools outside of Alaska. On his return to Alaska in 1914, he was put in charge of the boys' work and agriculture at St. Mark's Mission in Nenana, and in 1922 was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church. That same year he married Myrtle Rose, a missionary nurse, and the couple was posted to the mission at Tanana Crossing. Arthur and Myrtle were subsequently posted to the missions at Nenana and Minto. In 1935 they resigned from missionary work and operated a transfer business in Nenana until Arthur's death in 1948. (From Afterword by Joan E. Weis in First Medicine Man: The Tale of Yobaghu-Talyonunh by Arthur R. Wright [Anchorage, Alaska: O. W. Frost, 1977, pp. 53-56].)