Hillaire, Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen Hillaire was born 7 February 1927 to Joseph and Edna Hillaire. She was a member of the Lummi Indian Tribe and grew up on the Lummi Reservation. Joseph was a renowned orator and carver and played an important role in the creation of the first tribal government. He was the secretary of the Lummi Indian Business Council. Mary graduated from Bellingham High School in 1950, she received her Bachelor of Arts from Western Washington University in 1956, she received her Bachelor of Social Work in 1957 from the University of British Columbia, and a Master of Education from Western Washington State College in 1967. She was the first native women to obtain a position with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. This placed her in a difficult position within her community. In 1971 she was the first woman faculty hired for The Evergreen State College (TESC). While at TESC she developed the Native American Studies program. She designed programs focusing on what she felt were the core learning components of native culture: music, talk, dance, and art. She actively recruited native students by physically taking applications directly to native communities. She also presented TESC with the idea of the Long House. She advocated a necessary space; "not a place to learn about indians, but a place for indians to learn." Although she excelled at creating quality programs, she had a difficult time with necessary paperwork. Often other faculty assisted her with this. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1980. She worked as long as she could remaining a faculty member until her death 2 October 1982.

In her own words she describes her life in this way:

"From energy a creature was formed, placed in thought upon the land, and charged to establish and to maintain. This energy was drawn in love into family way, and I took my position as the central figure in a family of thirteen children, born to parents who are both now dead. My mother, the late Mrs. Edna D. Scott, housewife and informer; my father the late Joseph R. Hillaire, carver and thinker.

My home was the land, my religion, the people; and my school all things of the sky, on the earth, and in the sea- a union from whence life springs. My parents relinquished me to take my lessons from the universe where, regardless of which direction I listened, looked, or touched, I found all fused into one on the growing horizon of my understanding guided only by the quality of my parents' daily living as they held their private lives openly." - Mary Hillaire

From the guide to the Mary Ellen Hillaire Papers, 1950-1983, 1970-1982, (The Evergreen State College Archives and Special Collections)