Born: 24 November 1933, United States
Died: 25 September 2021
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Marie Desma Wilcox was the last native speaker of Wukchumni, a dialect of Tule-Kaweah, an indigenous language spoken by the Tule-Kaweah Yokuts of California. Her life’s work focused on preserving this endangered language.
As the youngest of seven children, Marie’s early life began on a ranch in Visalia, California. Her grandparents raised her in a one-room house in the Venice Hills. After completing eighth grade, she worked as a farmhand and a fruit packer. She had four daughters and a son with Joe Garcia.
Marie’s mission centered on preserving the Wukchumni language, which she learned from her grandmother. Following her grandmother’s passing, Marie dedicated herself to creating a comprehensive Wukchumni dictionary, with assistance from Nicholas Luna, an Apache. She recorded the pronunciation of each word in the dictionary. In 2014, a documentary in the New York Times drew attention to her work, reigniting interest in reviving the language among her family and tribe members.
Marie and her daughter became teachers, passing on their knowledge of Wukchumni. At the time of her death, Marie was teaching classes at the Owens Valley Career Development Center. Although copyrighted in 2019, her dictionary remains unpublished.
In 2014, it was estimated that the Wukchumni tribe had fewer than 200 members. During the early 2010s, Marie became the last fluent speaker of the language after a relative’s death. However, at her passing, there were at least three remaining speakers, including one of her daughters. Marie Desma Wilcox’s legacy lives on through her unwavering dedication to preserving a language of profound cultural significance for the Tule-Kaweah Yokuts tribe.