Archives West Finding Aid

(From the collection guide for Cage 671, the Peck Collection of Northwest Coast Indian Life, 1958-2000.)

Charles Peck was born May 22, 1914, in Hazard, Kentucky. He graduated from West Virginia University School of Forestry in 1939 and received a master's degree in public administration and economics from the University of Colorado in 1963. In 1967 he joined the Agricultural Extension Service at Washington State University as an Information Specialist. He served as a county extension agent for WSU in Cowlitz, Mason and Spokane counties. In 1970 he produced a series of photographs expressing the meaning of responsible land use management, with the Queets River basin serving as the site for his study.

Elizabeth (Tuckwiller) Peck was born in 1918. She graduated from West Virginia University with an A.B. in Music Education in 1939. She received her master's degree in 1973 from Washington State University Department of Music. Elizabeth also taught at the Queets-Clearwater school and was an avid seamstress.

In April of 1970 Charles and Elizabeth moved to Queets, Washington, for a planned six-month sabbatical leave. Their six-month sojourn lasted 17 years. As Charles said:

"Little did we know that the central issue of the sabbatical would swiftly gravitate to trying to develop a comfortable and lasting rapport with the Quinault Indians of Queets, and to learn something of their culture. We were to find such work often sobering and difficult, but always exciting. We were to find trust developing slowly. But finally were able to make friends with the generous and gifted people."

While in Queets they lived among the Pacific coast Native American tribes of Washington state, documenting and recording their history and music. Elizabeth's musical interests helped ease fears among tribal elders that their musical heritage would, in short order, become irretrievably lost: she preserved and documented some of this heritage in hundreds of hours of recorded material and in the work she did for her master's thesis, "Songs of the Bogachiel." There she attempted to understand the power of a family song from a Quileute point of view, focusing on the role of song ownership.

Charles photographed a variety of subjects, but he especially enjoyed photographing Indian children. He published some of those photos in an ABC book for children. His photos have been displayed throughout the Northwest, including Portland and Seattle. In addition to his photography he became known on the reservation for his drum-making skills and as an avid fisherman.