Background
Theodora Kracaw was born in Colorado, the daughter of Phebe Jane (née Johnston) and Charles Emmett Kracaw.
Theodora Kracaw was born in Colorado, the daughter of Phebe Jane (née Johnston) and Charles Emmett Kracaw.
She later moved to California, where she studied at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1920 she earned her Master"s degree in clinical psychology. They had two children, Theodore and Clifton, before Brown"s untimely death in 1923. Encouraged by her mother-in-law, the widowed Theodora went back to study anthropology at U. C. Berkeley.
One of her professors was Alfred Louis, a leading American anthropologist of his generation and himself a widower.
Alfred adopted Theodora"s two sons, giving them his last name, and Alfred and Theodora had two more children, writer Ursula K. and English professor Karl. In 1959, she published The Inland Whale, a retelling of California Indian legends, and in 1961, she published her acclaimed biography of Ishi.
She also wrote a biography of Alfred after his death in 1960. Two movies were made based on her account of Ishi: Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (1978) and The Last of His Tribe (1992).
