Jesuit honored for helping other Alaskans

Editor's note -- the following is part one of a two-part look at the life of Louis Renner, an influential Jesuit Alaskan. He recently was honored with an Arts and Humanities award and he recently published Alaskana Catholica. On Sunday's Religion page, the work that went into publishing Alaskana Catholica will be detailed.

By NAOMI KLOUDA-For the Frontiersman

At the close of the 19th century, Jesuit priests began to collect Alaska ethnographic and linguistic data into notebooks, and so quietly laid the foundation for future scholars.

The problem was that many writings were never published. One such case involved the 2,344-page, seven-volume Koyukon dictionary begun by Julius Jette S.J., in 1902.

He labored nearly 30 years and never felt he had the spellings just so, or the alphabet quite right, though modern Koyukon experts say his dictionary remains the best of its kind, filled with extraordinary detail.

Another Jesuit, Aloysius Robaut S.J, one of the first to enter the territory in 1887 and take up a lifelong interaction with Athabaskan tribes, likewise labored on an Athabaskan dictionary.

The older priest traded long insights with Jette that no doubt contributed to the richness of Jette's work. But 14 years of Robaut's writings burned in a fire, forcing him to start over without his original notes.

Louis Renner, S.J., recognized last fall by Gov. Tony Knowles in an Art and Humanities Award for serving 44 years in Alaska as a "friend of the humanities," has made it one of his missions to bring these stories to the modern world.

The former University of Alaska Fairbanks professor does it through clear-eyed scholarship that explains and introduces these men to new generations.

Native Athabaskan linguist Eliza Jones, for example, was able to consult with seven volumes of Jette's work to "fill in the blanks" with her own knowledge and create a modern Koyukon dictionary readied for press last year.

Renner was one of the few scholars who rescued Jette from obscurity.

The Arts and Humanities award nomination letter, submitted without Renner's knowledge by the Fairbanks Diocese, described a humble priest whose body of work had yet to be sufficiently acknowledged.

"Besides his Emeritus status at UAF and the receipt of his books and writings in the Vatican Library, Father (Renner's) accomplishments are known best only by his colleagues and friends," wrote Patricia Walter.

Renner wasn't able to attend the awards ceremony in Anchorage Oct. 25. He is at work on an endeavor that should pave the way for generations of future Native, Catholic and secular historians: In June he was appointed writer in residence at Gonzaga University's Foley Library in Spokane, Wash., to write his "Alaskana Catholica."

"The end of my four decades in Alaska seems," Renner reflected in a letter, "like little more than the ending of a fine summer day, so quickly and pleasantly have they passed." Yet he expressed enthusiasm for this next project, with a deep sense of "esteem and respect for the traditional spiritualities and cultural values of Alaska's Native peoples."

Renner was born April 25, 1926 in Bismarck, N.D., the second eldest of seven children. His early years were spent on the farm where he gathered eggs and milked cows from a young age. Like other rural residents during the Depression, the Renner family lived without indoor plumbing or electricity, "other than the little car headlight bulb made to glow by a car storage battery kept charged by a wind-charger mounted on the farmhouse roof." For grade school, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school. His parents felt it necessary to obtain a good education for their children, though the Depression years made this expense difficult.

Renner spoke the family German until the age of 7. He quickly excelled with the Benedictine Sisters in English lessons and by the time the family moved to Tacoma, Wash., and Renner completed eighth grade, he graduated valedictorian of his class.

World War II raged during Renner's Bellarmine High School years in Tacoma.

During his junior year in 1944, he expressed a strong urge to join the Navy. A teacher, Joseph Lynch S.J., suggested he should perhaps consider entering the Jesuit novitiate at Sheridan, Oregon.

"I have never forgotten the profound peace that came over me when I first walked through the novitiate doors. Immediately I knew the Jesuit life was for me," he wrote many years later.

Naomi Klouda is a former Frontiersman reporter.