Volume 40 Number 5 September-October 2002 Some give by going to the Missions Some go by giving to the Missions Without both there are no Missions HAROLD ESMAILKA: A CREDIT Harold Esmailka in the Spring of 1951, poses with Father James C. Spils, S.J., on the Andreafsky River in St. Mary s. The catch of the day is an Alaskan Sheefish--a member of the whitefish family, known for it s tremendous size, fighting ability, and taste. (--Photo by Father Louis L. Renner S.J.) He s just a wonderfully nice guy. No one in the state has one bad word to say about him. He s respected all over for his honesty. He built everything he has by sheer hard work and determination. These are but some of the things one hears said about him by his fellow airplane guys. His pastor of many years, Father Joseph Hemmer, O.F.M., says of him: He fosters a great vision of the Church, seeing the Church as alive and productive in imparting and enhancing divine life. He shows a constant concern for all Church needs, whether spiritual or temporal. His origins were humble, but before he was fifty years old, he was thanks to his innate drive and keen business sense a millionaire. However, being wholly unpretentious by nature, and gratefully aware of the ultimate source of his success, he would be the last one to boast about having made it, about having arrived. His life s story a story of unfailing faith and fidelity to God and to fellow man is as interesting as it is inspirational. Harold Esmailka was born of Koyukon Athabaskan Indian ancestry on the south bank of the Yukon River, in a wood-cutting camp (wood for steamboats), 11 miles above Kaltag, on October 6, 1930. As an infant he was adopted by Peter and Martha Esmailka, who gave him all the love and care any child could wish for. From his earliest years, though living in the village of Nulato on the middle Yukon, he was trained in the old ways, the traditional Native subsistence way of life. This consisted mainly in hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering. However, he was also exposed to book learning, inasmuch as he attended the day school in Nulato run by the Sisters of Saint Ann when he was not in some fishing, hunting or trapping camp. On June 1, 1942, Harold s adoptive father died. Shortly before his death, he urged Martha, who had spent some time downriver at the Holy Cross Mission boarding school, to send Harold and his sister, Mary, down to that school. Recalled his mother many years later, The Father (James C. Spils, S.J.) came to me and asked, Are you going to send the kids down, Martha? I got nothing. How will I send them down? I told him. He just start to laugh. You get them ready and God will take care of it, he told me. That summer found Harold and his sister at Holy Cross. From time to time he visited his mother, but the visits were short ones. Brother George J. Feltes, S.J. a master mechanic and teacher of shop wanted him back at Holy Cross to learn to be a mechanic. Harold proved to be a good learner, and it is to Brother Feltes and the training that he received from him that he attributes in very large part his success in life. (When, in 1983, Brother Feltes left Alaska to retire in California, Harold as an expression of his indebtedness to him for the training he had received from him gave him an extremely generous monetary gift.) In April, 1951, Harold--well grounded in mechanics in
general, and in engine maintenance in particular, and thinking airplanes left Holy Cross to join the Army. Before joining the Army, however, he spent the April of 1951 as a member of Father Spils building crew working on the construction of the new St. Mary s Mission boarding school on the banks of the Andreafsky River. He did all the wiring in the big building. Helping build St. Mary s was, in part, his way of showing his gratitude for what Father Spils and Holy Cross had done for him. Harold served in the Army from May of 1951 to May of 1953. While in the Army, when on furlough, he visited Holy Cross, rather than Nulato, for to him Holy Cross was home. After Harold had served his two years in the Army, his brother, Eddie Hildebrand, obtained a job for him working for the Morrison-Knutson Construction Company. Harold became a member of the Operating Engineers Union 302. He worked out of the Union for ten years, from 1954 to 1964. As a Union laborer, Harold worked for a time on heavy construction in Fairbanks and on Johnson Island in the Pacific. By 1954, though he had not yet learned how to fly, he had earned enough money to buy his first airplane, an Aeronca Chief with a 65 hp engine. In Nenana--where they were detained for a few hours because of poor weather in Fairbanks--posing with the Cessna 207, are the late Bishop Michael J. Kaniecki, S.J., and Father Louis L. Renner, S.J. They were on their way back from Ruby. Note the fine coat of paint the plane is wearing! When Harold Esmailka gave the 207 to Bishop Kaniecki, he told him: When you are ready to have that ugly old airplane painted, I will pay for it, but under one condition: that you have your coat of arms put on it! Bishop Kaniecki did not want to have his coat of arms on the plane, feeling that would be too forward. Harold paid for the paint job anyway. (Photo by Brother Ruzicka, O.F.M.) By 1957, Harold had his Super Cub. In it, on Christmas Day, 1958, he flew Father James Plamondon, S.J., from Koyukuk up river to say the Christmas Mass at Ruby. Harold himself was spending the winter in Nulato. Bertha, his sister, and her family were living in Ruby. He spent the night with them. That night it snowed. The next morning he ran up to the Northern Commercial Company store to borrow a push broom to sweep the snow off the wings of his plane. It was at the store that he first laid eyes on Florence Lorine Gurtler, home for the holidays from Copper Valley School, which she was attending at the time. On November 5, 1960, in Nulato, with Father John B. Baud, S.J., officiating, Harold and Florence were married. In Florence, Harold found a most capable and like-minded partner, whether there were concerns of faith or of family or of business. The couple made their home in Ruby. In 1964 they bought the store there from Johnny May, and began, as co-owners, to operate it as The Ruby Trading Company. (The name of the store was not an arbitrary one; for up until the latter 1960s, about 75 percent of its transactions were conducted through barter: fish, furs, firewood and services for store goods.) They bought the store, because Harold s sister, Bertha and her husband, Claude, who lived in Ruby, were killed in a boating accident and left behind a large family. The Esmailka s helped to take care of the children the first winter after the death of their parents. (Regarding Johnny May, it is worthy of note that, in 1989, when he was suffering from cancer, Harold and Florence moved to Fairbanks to take care of him, so that he would not have to be put into a care home. They nursed him back to passable health, then took him into their Ruby home until his death in 1995.) Children were not long in coming to Harold and Florence. Harold, Jr. nicknamed Punky was born on August 10, 1961. Taking after his father inasmuch as he, too, was mechanically inclined and airplane-minded he earned, early in life, while still in his teen years, his pilot s license. Unlike his father, however who was never involved in a serious airplane accident Harold, Jr., though a naturally skilled pilot and gifted athlete lost his life, in 1979, when the plane he was piloting crashed, killing him and two others. In addition to leaving behind his parents, Harold, Jr. left behind also three sisters: Cynthia, Ginger, and Agnes, Aggie (adopted), and a brother, Thomas, Tommy. As in the case of most families with children, so in the case of the Harold and Florence Esmailka family: there have been times of great joys, and times of great sorrows. Apart from the tragic death of Punky, there was the drowning CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NORTHERN ALASKA 1312 PEGER ROAD FAIRBANKS, ALASKA 99709-5199 A special Mass is offered every day of the year for you and your intentions in one of the Missions. Please pray that God may bless us and our work.
St. Peter in Chains Catholic Church, under a winter dusting, in Ruby Alaska. (Photo by Father Louis L. Renner, S.J.) death of Tommy. Sad as this event was, Harold and Florence being both people of deep faith were inclined to see in this the intervention of a kindly Providence. Tommy was severely afflicted with apoplexy. In 1996, Aggie, Ruby s postmistress at the time, while on duty in the post office, was brutally murdered. The perpetrator of the crime was apprehended and convicted. The crime being a federal offense, the death penalty was legally justified. Harold, however in keeping with his nobility of character and deep faith urged that the culprit s life be spared. His wish was granted. Said Harold, We re not vindictive people. (Grateful for having himself been adopted into a loving and caring family, he adopted Aggie s oldest daughter, 15- year-old Jenasy. A few years later he generously paid for her training as a professional nurse.) The Esmailka s daughters Cynthia and Ginger, after receiving a good formal education and hands-on practical training, went on to happy marriages and successful business ventures. It was, in large part Harold who helped them get started in business. In 1988 Harold and Florence adopted as their son a newborn infant boy, whom they named John Charles; and the following year they adopted as their son another newborn infant boy. Him they named James. In both cases the natural mothers wanted very much that Harold and Florence be the adoptive parents of their infant sons. Family and business in that order are two key concerns, key words without which one could not even begin to write a biographical sketch of Harold Esmailka. And business means, of course, primarily airplane-related business. Harold s business ventures began with a single airplane. At first he flew charter flights out of Galena. Before long he had a fleet of Cessna 207s. In 1974 Wien Air Alaska Again we assure you that we never, under any circumstances, sell, exchange, or give out the names of our benefactors. This has been and continues to be our sacred pledge. subcontracted him to haul mail from Galena to outlying villages. He went on to buy, develop and sell various air services, among them Vanderpool Flying Service, Vanderpool Air Taxi, Aniak Flying Service, Grayling Air Service, and Alaska Air Central. In the spring of 1982 he sold the company he owned at the time, but remained on for a year as its president and Chairman of the Board, to make sure the business remained stable. (In 1983, identifying the little boy, Harold, in a photo, his adoptive mother with a touch of maternal pride and, one senses, an admonition to humility said, He s the big shot now! ) By 1984 Harold s Air Service was a reality. It serviced 63 villages and had a fleet of 28 aircraft. This included a turbine DC-3 (incidentally, the only certified one in the world at the time) and a helicopter. After Harold s Air Service, came Friendship Air Service and Tanana Air Service, both owned by Harold and under his leadership. Given Alaska s weather extremes and wild, rugged terrain, and the countless hours and air miles flown by his fleets of commercial planes, it is remarkable and cause for much gratitude on his part that there has been only one fatality involving a commercial plane of his. One of his pilots, flying an Islander, 22JA up the Nowitna River was killed, while attempting to land on a sandbar. At present, Harold already into his 70s, is still in the airplane business, as owner of Tanana Air Service. What motivates him? Is it simply that operating such a business is in his blood, or that the revenue it generated is timely, given the fact that he and Florence have to provide for the two young adopted boys mentioned above? Fr. Ted Kestler, S.J., Superior of the Jesuit Missions in Alaska, visits with his old friend, Martha Esmailka-Joe, in the village of Nulato, on the Yukon River. (Photo by Father Brad Reynolds, S.J.) We invite you to visit our Diocesan Home Page: http://www.cbna.info
Harold s life s story is, unquestionably, a success story. He has made the most of his natural gifts and of the training he received early in life. And in Florence, he has been blessed with a highly competent, supportive wife. But Harold, being a man of deep faith and close to the Church all his life, recognizes beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is to God that he ultimately owes his life s successes and blessings, and that, therefore, to Him alone the ultimate debt of gratitude is owed. Harold s spirit of gratitude has manifested itself in many concrete, tangible ways. Having himself been adopted into a loving and caring home, he, in turn, over the years, adopted four children and provided them with such a like home. When his adoptive mother was in her latter years, he insisted that she let him build her a comfortable modern home. In 1982, when the small priest s quarters at one end of the Ruby church needed additional space, he was one of several who saw to it that a bedroom was built and the costs taken care of. In 1984, shortly after Michael J. Kaniecki, S.J., was ordained bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, he received from Harold a Cessna 207. It is Harold who plays a key role in seeing to it that the new much-needed Ruby church becomes a reality in 2003. It is Harold who commissioned the noted Alaskan artist, John Van Zyle, to produce the big mural that will grace the new church. Thanks to Harold s generosity, priests, sisters, and brothers on official Church business have for decades flown as his guests on his airplanes. At times of major feasts, he and Florence have had a special eye out for the needy of the village. Having generously received, Harold has generously given. The full extent of Harold s charities is known to God alone and that is the way Harold would want it. The village of Ruby, his Native people, and the State of Alaska, too, have been well served by Harold. He has been a member of the Ruby City Council, of the School Committee, of the Dineega Corporation, of Alaska Air Carriers, of the Denali State Bank Board, of the Monroe (Fairbanks Catholic High School) Foundation, as well as a member of other committees. He has supported local creative artists by commissioning works from them. He was a financial partner, not surprisingly, of the newly founded magazine, Alaska Flying. Harold Esmailka: a credit to the people of his origins, a credit to his Church, and a credit to his Creator and Lord. -Father Louis L. Renner, S.J. In St. Peter s Church, Ruby, on the first Sunday of October, Godparent s Day, godparents are gathered around their pastor, Father Joseph Hemmer, O.F.M. The annual celebration of Godparents Day is meant to impress upon godparents the seriousness of their role. Harold, the godfather of a great many, is standing on the left in the second row and his wife Florence is seated to his right of him in the first row. (Photo by Brother Kirby Boone, C.F.X.) Ruby (pop. 188) on the middle Yukon, as seen out of the right window of the Cessna 207, piloted by the late Bishop Michael J. Kaniecki, S.J., and also photographer in this case. Ruby, originally a mining camp, is today mostly a Koyukon Athabaskan Indian village. God would not inspire me with the desire to do good on earth after my death, if He did not intend me to realize this desire. I wish to spend my heaven doing good upon the earth. I will let fall a shower of roses. There will be abundant grace for everyone. --St. Thérèse of Liseux, patroness of the Alaskan Mission.
In Commemoration of Jubilee 2000, the Diocese of Fairbanks published, in 2001, a 96-page volume entitled, A Brief Illustrated History of the Diocese of Fairbanks: Profiles of Prelates and Churches, Past and Present. The book begins with a Foreword and a digest history of the Diocese of Fairbanks by Madeleine D. Betz. Betz is also author of the second and largest part of the book, Churches of the Diocese. This part has photos--most of them in color--of the 49 parish churches in use today. The photos are accompanied by a brief history of the given parish. The third section of the book, Former Mission Churches has photos of five one-time parish churches, with a brief parish history of each, written by Betty Johnson. Many will find the photos and brief histories of these five formerly active churches and parishes-- Akulurak, King Island, Kokrines, Marys Igloo, and Pilgrim Springs--of special historic interest. Part one of the book, Prelates Past and Present, authored by Father Louis L. Renner, S.J., profiles men who have held ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the geographic region that today comprises the Diocese of Fairbanks. The men in question are: Bishop Modeste Demers; Archbishop Charles J. Seghers; Prefect Apostolic Paschal Tosi, S.J.; Prefect Apostolic Jean B. Rene, S.J.: Bishop Joseph R. Crimont, S.J.; Bishop Walter J. Fitzgerald, S.J.; Bishop Francis D. Gleeson, S.J.; Bishop George T. Boileau, S.J. (Bishop Boileau, though he died before becoming Ordinary of the Diocese of Fairbanks, is included since he was ordained bishop with right of Please send me copy(s) of A Brief Illustrated History of the Diocese of Fairbanks --$25.00 Name Adddress City, State, Zip succession to that post.); Bishop Robert L. Whelan, S.J.; and Diocesan Administrator Richard D. Case, S.J. A black and white photo and a biographical sketch constitute the profile of each of these prelates. The volume ends with photos and brief biographical sketches of authors Betz and Renner, as well as of their collaborator, Betty J. Johnson. It was Johnson who did the final editing and preparing of this book for publication. The truly attractive layout and design of the book is owing to the extreme care lavished upon it by Mr. Dixon J. Jones--a gratis contribution on the part of Designata/Dixon J. Jones--to the Diocese s Jubilee 2000 celebrations. Copies of A Brief Illustrated History may be ordered from The Alaskan Shepherd, 1312 Peger Road Fairbanks, Alaska 99709-5199 for $25.00 a copy. This includes postage and handling.
CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NORTHERN ALASKA 1312 PEGER ROAD FAIRBANKS, ALASKA 99709-5199 Dear Friends of the Missions of Northern Alaska, August 15, 2002 Over the years many of you have written to us who serve the Lord and His people here in the Far North to express to us your admiration for what we do in this missionary diocese to make known the Good News, to bring the Mass and the sacraments to the Lord s widely scattered flocks entrusted to our care. You have graciously thanked us for ministering to the people of northern Alaska in spite of difficulties of all kinds. We are touched by such expressions of sincere admiration and gratitude. They hearten us, and are very much appreciated. Remember: what we do, you do; where we go, you go. In a very real sense you are our co-workers, our coministers. With your prayers for us and our works, and with your generous financial aid, you help us carry out our basic ministries, and you share in them--and you will share in the rewards. As you are making possible our ministries, you are, at the same time, laying up treasure for yourselves in heaven. A few years ago, with a small donation, a kind benefactor of the Catholic Missions of Northern Alaska established the Alaskan Shepherd Endowment Fund. The principal of this fund cannot be touched; only the interest earned by it can be used for current needs. This fund is our one best hope for a sound, long-range fiscal future. We feel the time to build it up to where its earnings will finally get this needy 409,849 square-mile missionary diocese on a more or less stable financial foundation is now. Accordingly, I now invite you, ask each one of you to help us get that Alaskan Shepherd Endowment Fund into high gear by giving it a significant boost--to the extent that your means allow, of course. Know that in the fund your gift will keep on giving into the far-distant future, making you a permanent part of what we are and do for the Lord and His people here in northern Alaska. On this occasion I want to thank personally each and every one of you who has ever contributed, no matter how small a way, to our ever so vital Endowment Fund. And I want to thank you in advance for your response to this, my urgent appeal to help us build up that fund. On this occasion, too, I want likewise to thank our Diocesan Treasurer, Mr. George W. Bowder, and the members of our Diocesan Finance Advisory Board for having managed so carefully and so well our financial matters. They have proved to be good stewards of our limited resources. And, finally, I want to thank in a special way those of you who have included the Catholic Bishop of Northern Alaska (our legal title) in your bequests and wills, and those of you who, at the time of the deaths of dear ones, have suggested that in their memory contributions be made to the Missions of Northern Alaska or to the Alaskan Shepherd Endowment Fund. God bless us everyone! TO: CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NORTHERN ALASKA 1312 Peger Road, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709 DATE Dear Bishop Kettler: Enclosed is my special donation of $ to your all important Alaskan Shepherd Endowment Fund. I am happy and grateful to be able to be a part of your missionary diocese and its ministries. Very gratefully yours in Our Lord, Donald Kettler Bishop of Fairbanks NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP Please make checks payable to:catholic BISHOP OF NORTHERN ALASKA