About book Tisha: The Wonderful True Love Story Of A Young Teacher In The Alaskan Wilderness (1984)
2.75 starsYears ago I read Benedict Freedman's 'Mrs. Mike'. I loved the simple story of a marriage between a young woman and a Canadian Mountie. A clean romance, it went on my keeper shelf and I have read it several times since. In the meantime, the title of this book kept coming up on my recommended shelf here on Goodreads so I decided to give it a try.TISHA takes place in 1927 in the Alaskan Territory. It is about the one year that Anne Hobbs, a nineteen-year-old, spent teaching in the gold-mine town of Chicken, Alaska. 'Tisha' refers to the word 'teacher'; it is what Anne is called by the some of her students who had a hard time with the English language.Depending on what you read, it appears as though it was co-written by both Anne and Mr. Specht. From my understanding, this is a highly fictionalized story so take it with a grain of salt. Most of the families were dirt-poor and the white population was motivated by prejudism. Anne believed that she was there to help all children, including the Native Americans and Eskimos. The hatred she found among the townspeople alienated her personal life and followed her into the schoolroom.TISHA contains some romance but it was very mild. Instead, read the book to educate yourself about a part of the world few people visit. But unlike 'Mrs. Mike', be aware that this story explores a darker side of life in this northernmost wilderness. Unfortunately, we will never know how much of her story was based on imagination and what was actually set in fact.
This is my mom's book. She let me borrow it about 20 years ago - around the same time we moved out of Alaska. For about the past 10 years or so, she has been asking for it back, so it was time to read it.I loved this book. I grew up in Alaska, so I was not blown away by the descriptions of the cold weather, deep snow, or dark winter. Those were facts of life. I've even ridden in dogsleds before. So instead I read those passages with a bit of nostalgia. Of course, I lived there in the 70s and 80s and I lived in Fairbanks so I had quite a bit more comforts!But this book is more than a story about the hardships of 1920s Alaska. When Anne Hobbs moved to Alaska, she not only encountered harsh winters and a very different way of life, but also prejudice and racism against the Native Alaskan people and anyone who had any native blood. This would not stand for Anne. She, being part native American herself, felt a deep compassion for all people, and couldn't see how the Athabaskans should be treated any differently than the whites.In doing this, she risked everything. The other settlers in the town disagreed with her decisions and made life difficult for her. She risked losing the man she loved, the children she loved, her job and future teaching, and so on.It is an adventure story with the harsh Alaskan frontier has a backdrop - not only cold weather, but dramatic dog sled races. And it is a love story.
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Language WarningThis is an amazing true story of adventure, love, and life. Tisha is an adventurous, resilient, and big-hearted young woman assigned a teaching job on the Alaskan Frontier in the 1920's. She faces the challenges of her job in a matter of fact and mature way. Very inciteful look at attitudes toward learning disabilities, race relations, and women's roles. The book is realistic to the setting and times, so the language is very rough and there are racial slurs. In spite of this, the book is captivating.
—Anna
Not great writing, but fascinating documentation of time, place, attitudes - particularly racism against indigenous peoples of the north. I'd hoped to learn more about life in the "Indian camp," but that wasn't Hobbs' story. Typical of the time, I suppose, that when our protagonist decides she wants to adopt two "half-breeds" it doesn't occur to her to seek permission from their people. And enlightening to note that she had the most success as a parent when she stopped trying to make those kids act white. Highly educational book - and at times quite a page turner too.
—Chris
The story of Annie Hobbs, who went to the remote village of Chicken, Alaska in the fall of 1927 to be the school teacher for a year. During the year she confronted the prejudices of the village towards the Indians and the half breeds. She also learned a lot about herself and what she was capable of doing. The title is a fracturing of the word Teacher as used by several of the children. I enjoyed this. It was sitting on my bookshelf and my memory is that I'd read it as a teen during my "I want to be a teacher when I grow up" period. I read a number of Teacher books during those years. So I pulled this off the shelf recently and thought I'd re-read it. I have to say I'm impressed that a single woman at age 19 would choose to leave the "civilized" Northwest to travel to the Alaskan frontier on her own to teach. I'm also impressed by her strength to see those that the village shunned as people to be respected in the face of the persecution she took for standing up for them. Basically she got to a point of saying, "I don't care what anyone else thinks (even if it costs me my job), I'm going to do what I believe is right." Good for her.
—Sue
