Two children who died at Carlisle returned to Shishmaref and Unalakleet, BSNC says

Tummassak of Shishmaref and Edward Angalook of Unalakleet were returned to their home communities in October, more than a century after they died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, Bering Straits Native Corporation said in an account published Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Unalakleet held a celebration of life for Angalook on Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Covenant Church. Tummassak's family and community gathered Oct. 4 at the Shishmaref Lutheran Church to honor her.

The two were among four Alaska Native students the Army listed in its Notice of Intended Disinterment From Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery, published May 28. The notice named 12 students in all who died between 1879 and 1918 while attending the school. The four from Alaska were Mabel Stock, Edward Angalook, Lucy Spaulding and Tummassak, also recorded as Tomicock. Each request came in writing from the closest living descendant. The Army said it would begin Sept. 1, then transport the remains and reinter them in cemeteries the families and tribes chose, at government expense.

The federal record did not say which communities the four children were going home to. BSNC's account names Shishmaref and Unalakleet for two of them.

The Office of Army Cemeteries asked the Alaska Native Heritage Center's research team to help find the students' families and home communities, BSNC said. Nyché Skavaq Sivulliuqti Andrew, a BSNC descendant, is on that team.

School records posted by Dickinson College's Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center match BSNC's dates. Tummassak's student card, under the name Tomicock, records her arrival Nov. 14, 1897, at age 12. The school's death register lists her death April 8, 1900, at 15, from consumption. BSNC gives the cause as tuberculosis.

Angalook's records show he arrived Nov. 23, 1903, at 18 and died of tuberculosis Sept. 24, 1905. The death register gives his age then as 20, as BSNC does.

The Dickinson archive now marks Tummassak, Angalook and Lucy Spaulding "Returned to home community." It does not say where Spaulding went. The archive spells the fourth name Mabel Stack, records her as Tsimshian and dead Aug. 14, 1904, and lists her plot as "Unknown." Whether she was returned is not established.

The Army began the Carlisle disinterments in 2017 at the request of families and tribes. Its Carlisle cemetery page says it returned 58 students to relatives and tribes between 2017 and 2026. The Army says it is still working to identify children in graves marked "Unknown."