Gordon Marsh

[Louanna Furbee]

>Hi Lance,  Seconding Bob's comments, I think you should put together
>what you turn up into an article or report.  I think that it was
>someplace in Texas where Marsh retired (maybe to a Greek Orthodox
>(Russian Orthodox?) home for retired clergy?  Dave Rogles tried to
>run him down at one time.  You might try him.  I don't hae his
>address, but I think Jill Davidson Greer does.  Her e-mail is JGreer
><jgreer at mvip.net>.  Good luck.  Louanna



>Lance,
>
>Looks like you've done more research on him than anybody else I know.  John
>Koontz found, I think, that he had gone to a retirement home in the SW.
>That's where he probably died.  Why don't YOU write up his bio?  You might
>even find people in Alaska who knew him there.
>
>Bob
>
>
>>I was wondering who out there has done research on the life of Gordon
>Marsh, Chiwere scholar extraordinaire. I remember seeing a short
>biography on him in an article in a book of biographies of either
>linguists, anthropologists, or scholars of American Indians. I
>photocopied the article, but unfortunately it as well as all of my
>research materials remain in storage in the lower 48 (I am in Alaska
>now). I also learned more about him in a series of letters with some
>scholars (Nancy Lurie? Mildred Mott?). I have microfilms of his work
>(also in storage) from the American Philosophical Society, which was
>done by Marsh in several seasons of fieldwork in the 1930s-- he even had
>a special typewriter created for it. His major professor at Columbia was
>Franz Boas. Unfortunately as he did his fieldwork, Boas retired, so
>Marsh lost his major prof. Boas had been interested in collecting
>everything Native American, but the new paradigm in anthropology and at
>Columbia was more along the lines of social theory, and Marsh could not
>find anyone on the faculty who was interested in what he was doing. In
>frustration, Marsh turned in his typewriter, his notes, etc. to the
>American Philosophical Society, and went to Alaska to become a Russian
>Orthodox monk! Years later he went to the southwest, Arizona and/or
>Texas. I received an email from some former parishioners who remembered
>attending his Masses in Texas, where he is said to have died in the
>1970s or 1980s.
>
>As I was doing my research, the thing that really bummed me out was
>finding that William Whitman published Marsh's work verbatim as his own
>in 1947. In any case this is the impression I get, since Whitman did not
>list Marsh as a coauthor, the work is verbatim from Marsh's fieldnotes,
>Whiteman only acknowledges Marsh in an offhand manner, he uses Marsh'
>orthography, and in fact the last page of Whitman's article is
>incomplete... with the rest of the page still to be found in Marsh! At
>most Whitman should be listed as the editor of that work, not the
>author.
>
>Anyway, I would like to know if anyone has followed Marsh's work (Dr.
>Furbee? Anyone?). I would like to see an article or something done to
>set the scholarly record straight, not to bash Whitman but to give Marsh
>proper recognition. I am sure all scholars know how important this is,
>and how if the same thing happened to you, you would like if someone
>eventually set the record straight for you.
>
>Lance Foster

--
Prof. N. Louanna Furbee
Department of Anthropology
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University of Missouri
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