Uncrowned Community Builders

The Midway exhibits at the Pan American Exposition included "representations" of the cultures of numerous peoples of color.While the Uncrowned Queens Project has focused on the Darkest Africa, Old Plantation and Negro Exhibits, we have always recognized and appreciated the need to tell the stories of the other groups on the Midway. Shortly before the February launch of the Uncrowned Queens website, we received an e-mail from a woman in Portland, Oregon. Read Sandy's story.

Sandra Orock Hall and Barbara Seals Nevergold.

Since this series of e-mail messages, Sandra and Barbara have communicated regularly. Sandra shared the photos and story of her great-grand mother and her grandmother, including the fact that her grandmother, conceived at the Pan Am and born in May of the following year, was named Rosie Midway Spoon. Barbara sent Sandra articles and pictures from the Pan Am scrapbooks that provided additional information to her about the Esquimaux Village. In March, Barbara met Sandra and her family during a visit to Portland. The two women found that they had much in common, in particular their love of family history.

As her family's historian, Sandra has researched her family history and is dedicated to "honoring the ancestors" and passing this history on to her children and other young relatives.The Uncrowned Queens Project extends its heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to Sandra Orock Hall, Researcher of the Inupiat Eskimos and Family Historian, for sharing her family history with us and allowing us to honor, Unaquthlook and Rosie Midway Spoon as Uncrowned Queens of the 1901 Pan American Exposition Esquimaux Village. The ancestors are pleased.