met John Kilbuck at his return to Kansas. Marriage and family In 1885, John Henry Kilbuck (age 23) and Edith Romig (age 19) married. Two years before, when John was still in the seminary, Sheldon Jackson had invited the Moravian Church to send missionaries to Alaska. It wasn't until 1885 that the Kilbuck newlyweds and John's friend and classmate William Weinland and his new wife set out with Hans Torgersen for Alaska to establish the first Moravian mission station, named Bethel, which has since grown into an important city along the Kuskokwim River . The Kilbucks served as missionaries and educators in Alaska for most of their adult lives. Their four children, all born at the Bethel Mission, carried the traditional Kilbuck middle name of Henry, to honor Major William Henry who had saved the life of their ancestor, Chief Gelelemend, in 1775. John and Edith Kilbuck's four children were Katherine Henry (b. 1886), William Henry (b. 1887), Joseph Henry (b.1889), and Ruth Henry (b.1891). All four children spent their early years with their parents in Alaska, then attended Moravian schools in North Carolina Career in Alaska The Kilbucks went to Alaska as part of the first group of missionaries, establishing a mission at what became Bethel. They spent their adult lives in southwestern Alaska as missionaries and teachers among the Yup'ik people. In 1896, they were joined by Edith's younger brother Joseph H. Romig and his wife Ella. The Kilbucks were perhaps the most influential missionaries during the period around 1900. They quickly learned the Yup'ik language. John developed his missionary work based on existing Yup'ik villages, rather than establishing separate mission stations, as had been done by Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador. He adopted Yup'ik as the language of the Moravian Church in Alaska, a policy which continues to the present in Yup'ik-speaking areas.The diaries of the Kilbucks provide much of what is known of Yup'ik life in the late 1800s. The Kilbuck Mountain Range in southwestern Alaska bears their name. Reverend John Hinz, another missionary, had begun to translate scripture and other material into Yup'ik written with Roman (English) letters. Uyaquq, a local "helper," convert and later missionary, translated some of these texts into Yup'ik using a script which he had created to write Yugtun. Hinz and the Kilbucks supported both of these efforts. The Hinz script became the standard for writing Yup'ik until about 1970.