Ruth Nanorak Guier

Ruth Nanorak James Tadgerson Guier was born on October 10, 1959 in the Alaskan village of Tununak located on Nelson Island in the county of Bethel. She was the third born child of Lucy Chainitinuk. While her biological father was James Naneroak she was raised by Lucy and her step-father and tribal chief, Mathias James. She passed away on _November 12, 2013_ at Valley Vista in Sandpoint Idaho after a long and courageous battle with multiple cancers. She is survived in the Tununak and Bethel areas of Alaska by her many half-siblings including Elsie James Hooper, Theresa James Whitman, Freida James Bean, Philip James, James G James, Joseph James and Francis James. She was married to Thomas Drake Tadgerson in Anchorage, Alaska in 1982 with whom she had three children: Wayne, who predeceased her in 2009; Kathleen, who died shortly after birth in 1987; and Joey Tadgerson who survives her at Brimley, Michigan. In 1993, she married Jim Guier at Anchorage, Alaska. In 1994 after Jim retired from the Fort Richardson Army Base as a fire fighter in Anchorage, they moved to Clark Fork, Idaho. There they hand built their own home with the timber located on their property. He preceded her in death in 2000. As a full-blooded Eskimo, Ruth was raised speaking Yu’p’ik as her native tongue and learned English as a second language. She enjoyed the culture of her ethnicity by picking berries on the tundra, smoking fish, making and eating seal oil, tanning and beading her own ceremonial clothes. Enjoying the life found in a rural Eskimo village, Ruth was 15 years old before she saw her first car. Her early method of transportation was by dog sled which was eventually replaced by snow machines. Her later years saw her embracing life in Idaho and enjoying hunting and fishing with her husband. She also enjoyed playing bingo at the Clark Fork Grange hall, word search books, doing puzzles, and playing games on her computer. Ruth will be privately cremated with her ashes scattered over the land she came to love.