Almeda Jones St. Clair Explained

Almeda Jones St. Clair
Other Names:	Amelia St. Clair
Birth Date:	February 28, 1868
Birth Place:	Dakota Territory
Death Date:	December 8, 1952
Death Place:	Redwood County, Minnesota
Occupation:	Educator, missionary, lacemaker

Almeda Jones St. Clair (February 28, 1868 – December 8, 1952), also known as Amelia St. Clair, was an American indigenous Christian missionary, teacher, translator, and expert lacemaker,^[1] whose lace work was shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition, and presented to Queen Alexandra.

Biography

Almeda Jones was born in Dakota Territory, the daughter of Mary Jones. She married Henry Benjamin Whipple St. Clair, an indigenous (Sioux) Protestant Episcopal clergyman,^[2] in 1889. They had thirteen children together,^[3] and celebrated fifty years of marriage together in 1939, at a community event at the Birch Coulee Indian Mission in Minnesota.^[4]

As a minister's wife, St. Clair taught and worked in various indigenous communities in the Upper Midwest. She taught lacemaking at Bishop Whipple Mission in Minnesota,^[5] initially as assistant and translator for missionary Susan Salisbury.^{[6] [7]} Her lace designs included a pillow covering made for Queen Alexandra.^[8] She also sang hymns in "the Dakota language" for community groups.^[9] In the 1930s, she and her family lived at the Flandreau Sioux reservation, and she taught at the Flandreau Indian School there.^[10]

Her son Henry died in 1931.^[11] She died in 1952, aged 85 years, in Paxton Township, Redwood County, Minnesota.^[12] Her great-granddaughter, Iyekiyapiwiŋ Darlene St. Clair, is a professor at St. Cloud State University and director of the school's Multicultural Resource Center.^[13]

External links

• "Almeda", photograph of Almeda Jones St. Clair, in the Bishop Henry B. Whipple Indian photograph collection, Minnesota Historical Society
• "Six Indian Women Displaying Lacework", including Almeda Jones St. Clair, in the Bishop Henry B. Whipple Indian photograph collection, Minnesota Historical Society
• "Mrs. Hibbard, Almeda St. Clair, Susan Salisbury, and Jeanette Crooks Campbell", a photograph in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society

Notes and References

1. News: 1901-06-12 . Short Items Gazetted . 2024-07-29 . The Redwood Gazette . 2 . Newspapers.com.
2. Shelby . G. Frank . August 1905 . A Sioux Indian Chapter . St. Andrews Cross . 19 . 11 . 13-14.
3. Book: The History of Redwood County, Minnesota . 1916 . H. C. Cooper, jr. . 431-432 . en.
4. News: 1939-11-02 . Rev. and Mrs. Henry St. Clair to Observe Golden Wedding . 2024-07-29 . The Redwood Gazette . 4 . Newspapers.com.
5. Web site: Zempel . Gavin . October 9, 2023 . Lacemaking at Birch Coulee, 1893–1926 . 2024-07-29 . MNopedia.
6. News: Eidsvig . Maxine V. . June 7, 2002 . Lace Ladies . July 29, 2021 . Ojibwe News.
7. News: 1949-10-22 . Taught to Make Lace . 2024-07-29 . Star Tribune . 9 . Newspapers.com.
8. Whipple . E. . 1909 . The Church and the Dakotas of Birch Coolie . The Spirit of the Missions . 74 . 203-207 . HathiTrust.
9. News: 1933-04-27 . 'I See By the Gazette' . 2024-07-29 . The Redwood Gazette . 9 . Newspapers.com.
10. U.S., Indian Census Rolls, 1937, via Ancestry.
11. News: 1931-09-10 . Henry St. Clair Dies in Sisseton Monday . 2024-07-29 . The Redwood Gazette . 12 . Newspapers.com.
12. Death date found on her gravestone, and confirmed in the Minnesota, U.S., Death Index, 1908-2017, via Ancestry.
13. Fulthorp, Deborah. "Iyekiyapiwiŋ Darlene St. Clair: The Sacred Story of a Dakota Woman Challenging Knowledge Inequity" in Colleen D. Hartung, ed., Women Advancing Knowledge Equity: The Parliament of the World's Religions (Parliament of the World's Religions 2023): 121.