Career in Alaska
The Kilbucks went to Alaska as part of the first group of missionaries, establishing a mission at what became Bethel. They spent their adult lives in southwestern Alaska as missionaries and teachers among the Yupik people. In 1896, they were joined by Edith's younger brother Joseph H. Romig and his wife Ella.
The Kilbucks were perhaps the most influential missionaries during the period around 1900. They quickly learned the Yupik language. John developed missionary work around existing Yupik villages, rather than establishing mission stations, as had been done by Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador. He adopted Yupik as the language of the Moravian Church in Alaska, a policy which continues to the present in Yupik-speaking areas.
Reverend John Hinz, another missionary, had begun to translate scripture and other material into Yupik written with Roman (English) letters. Uyaquk, a local "helper," convert and later missionary, translated some of these texts into Yupik using a script he had created to write Yugtun. Hinz and the Kilbucks supported both of these efforts. The Hinz script became the standard for writing Yupik until about 1970. It was replaced by a script developed by a group of native Yupik speakers and linguists at the University of Alaska.
John Henry Kilbuck died in 1922 in Akiak, Alaska. Edith died in 1933.
Read more about this topic: John And Edith Kilbuck
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