Neva Egan | |
Office1: | First Lady of Alaska |
Term Start1: | January 3, 1959 |
Term End1: | December 5, 1966 |
Term Label1: | In role |
Predecessor1: | Marion Hendrickson (as wife of the acting territorial governor) |
Successor1: | Ermalee Hickel |
Term Start2: | December 7, 1970 |
Term End2: | December 2, 1974 |
Term Label2: | In role |
Predecessor2: | Diana Miller |
Successor2: | Bella Hammond |
Birth Name: | Desdia Neva McKittrick |
Birth Date: | October 3, 1914 |
Birth Place: | Wilson, Kansas, U.S. |
Death Date: | January 19, 2011 (aged 96) |
Death Place: | Juneau, Alaska, U.S. |
Party: | Democratic |
Children: | Elin Carol Egan (b. and d. ca. 1941) Dennis William Egan (b. 1947, d. 2022) |
Desdia Neva Egan (October 3, 1914 – January 19, 2011) was an American educator who served as the first First Lady of Alaska from the state's creation in 1959 to 1966, and again from 1970 to 1974.[1] Egan was the wife of the state of Alaska's first governor, William Allen Egan, and the mother of former Juneau Mayor and Alaska State Senator Dennis Egan.[2]
Egan was born Desdia Neva McKittrick on October 3, 1914, in Wilson, Kansas.[1] [3] She was the third of five children born to Joseph Leland McKittrick and Martha Desdia Alderson McKittrick.[1] [3] McKittrick worked at her family's grocery store to earn the tuition money to attend Kansas State College.[1] She then transferred to the University of Wyoming, where her aunt was a faculty member, in Laramie, Wyoming.
McKittrick began her career teaching music in a public school in Glenrock, Wyoming, for two years.[1] She was paid a salary of $1,000 USD annually.[1] She moved to the Territory of Alaska from Wyoming in 1937.[2] McKittrick sailed to Alaska on board a steamship called the Teachers Special, which brought teachers to Alaska to work in the territory during the winter.[3] McKittrick moved to Valdez, Alaska, where she became one of just three new teachers hired for the Valdez school district that year[1] for a one-year teaching assignment.[2] She taught fourth through sixth grade, as well as music, in the Valdez public school system.[3]
McKittrick soon met her future husband, William Allen Egan, in Valdez, and the couple married on November 16, 1940.[3] William Egan was also elected to the Alaska Territorial House of Representatives in 1940.[4] William and Neva also operated a small grocery store, the Valdez Supply.[3]