Louise Light, 1932-2009

By Heather Lende

Louise Hammond Light, granddaughter of master Chilkat blanket weaver Jennie Thlunaut and daughter of Chilkoot leader Austin Hammond, was memorialized in the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall Sunday by Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp #5, of which she was a lifetime member.

 Friend Dan Harrington officiated at a Christian service afterward and then family and neighbors gathered for a potluck luncheon at the American Legion.

Light, 76, died June 15 in the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage of complications from arthritis, among other ailments; she had been ill five years.

Former Haines Assembly of God pastor Eldon Hicks was with Light and the family when she died.  “We all got our prayers in. He was a real comfort,” said daughter Diane Light.

 Louise and husband David Light divided their time between Anchorage and their home in Haines since the 1970s. David Light is a Native historian who wrote a history of the ANB.

Louise Light was born September 13, 1932 to Austin and Katherine James Hammond in Juneau and raised at Marks Trail, a Tlingit settlement on Douglas Island, by her father’s mother, Jenny Marks. She graduated from Mount Edgecumbe and attended nursing school in Sitka and Seattle. She worked as a nurse at Mount Edgecumbe Hospital in Sitka and the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. 

She was not the weaver her relatives were, but she was good at finding natural materials needed to do the work.

“We would go and gather cedar bark and the (mountain goat) wool for her grandmother’s blankets. We had fun in Sitka pulling the cedar bark off the trees,” Diane Light said.

 Her mother also enjoyed preparing and canning salmon, picking berries, traditional Tlingit foods, and playing Bingo. After her husband retired, they traveled around Europe and North America.

A quiet woman devoted to her family, she attended school and sporting events for her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Recently, Diane Light said her mother went to a math class award ceremony in Anchorage for a great-grandson. “It wasn’t a very big award, and she might have slept through it, but there was no way she was going to miss it.”

Light was an Eagle, Wolf, Kaagwantan, and a child of the Lukaax.adi named Seek Kawasgein. In addition to the ANS, she was a member of the local American Legion Auxiliary, the Chilkoot Indian Association, Goldbelt Corporation, Sealaska Corporation, Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska and a former Klukwan Inc. shareholder.

In Anchorage she kept up with the news from Chilkat Valley and daughter Diane Light said she looked forward to reading each issue of the Presbyterian Church newsletter.

Louise and David Light were married in the church in September 1957.

Lee Heinmiller said that Louise’s health suffered after the death of son Harold, who disappeared about 16 years ago canoeing in the Chilkat River. “She went out to the river for weeks afterward, looking for his body but it was never found.

Her family scattered half of her ashes in the river and buried half in the family plot at Jones Point.

Louise Light also was preceded in death by her parents and sisters Elizabeth Lindoff, Dorothy Brakes, and Phoebe Warren. She is survived her husband David, children Kathy Barley, Diane Light, Mark Light and Elaine Light, seven grandchildren and eight great- grandchildren as well as a sister, Josephine Winders.

Cards may be sent to David Light, 3444 East 17^th Street, Anchorage, AK 99508.