Ruth Allman

Ruth Collin Allman , an Alaskan pioneer, author, and educator was the niece of Alaska territorial judge James Wickersham. Ruth was born in Boston in 1905 and raised in the Territory of Alaska. She graduated from the University of Washington School of Music, and for twenty years she taught art and music in the Juneau schools. In 1949, she married Alaska pioneer Jack Allman. They lived in Southeast Alaska in Excursion Inlet and established Tongass Lodge, a remote base for hunters and fisherman...See more

Ruth Collin Allman , an Alaskan pioneer, author, and educator was the niece of Alaska territorial judge James Wickersham. Ruth was born in Boston in 1905 and raised in the Territory of Alaska. She graduated from the University of Washington School of Music, and for twenty years she taught art and music in the Juneau schools. In 1949, she married Alaska pioneer Jack Allman. They lived in Southeast Alaska in Excursion Inlet and established Tongass Lodge, a remote base for hunters and fisherman forty miles northwest of Juneau. It was here that Ruth developed many of her sourdough recipes including her "flaming sourdough waffles." After her husband died in 1953, Ruth devoted herself to being hostess and caretaker of the House of Wickersham, the judge's home on the hill overlooking Juneau and what shortly thereafter became the state capital. Ruth Allman passed away in 1989 at the age of eighty-four. She was one of Alaska's foremost sourdough historians. Her Alaska Sourdough cookbook has been in print for over thirty-five years and remains a perennial bestseller. See less