{{Short description|American academic and writer}} '''Fay Gilkey Calkins Ala'ilima''' (24 September 1921 - 1 August 2010)<ref name=WFObit>{{cite web |url=https://westernfriend.org/memorials/fay-gilkey-calkins-ala-ilima |title=Fay Gilkey Calkins Ala-ilima |publisher=Western Friend |access-date=13 July 2022}}</ref> was an American academic and writer who lived in Samoa. She was the wife of Samoan politician Leiataualesa Vaiao Alailima.
== Life and career == Calkins was born in Auburn, New York and educated at Oberlin College, Ohio, and Haverford College, Pennsylvania.<ref name="WFObit" /> She then worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration assisting the survivors of Nazi concentration camps.<ref name="WFObit" /> Later she worked as an organiser for the Textile Workers Union of America before completing a PhD at the University of Chicago. Her thesis was on The CIO and the Democratic Party, and was later published as her first book in 1952.<ref name="WFObit" /> She married Leiataualesa Vaiao Alailima in 1952 while studying in Washington, D.C., and moved with him to what was then Western Samoa.<ref name="HSAObit">{{cite web |url=https://obits.staradvertiser.com/2010/08/03/dr-fay-gilkey-calkins-alailima/ |title=DR. FAY GILKEY CALKINS ALA'ILIMA |publisher=Honolulu Star-Advertiser |date= |access-date=20 July 2022}}</ref> Their early life together is chronicled in her second book, ''My Samoan Chief''.<ref name="WFObit" />
In Samoa she taught at Pesega College and Samoa College.<ref name=WFObit/> Following Leiataualesa's retirement as public service commissioner, they moved to Hawaii, where they worked for the East–West Center.<ref name=WFObit/> She also taught at Kamehameha Schools, Hawaii Loa College, and Leeward Community College.<ref name=WFObit/> In 1986, they returned to Samoa, where she worked as her husband's secretary while he served as a government minister.<ref name=WFObit/> She later worked for the National University of Samoa's Institute of Samoan Studies.<ref name=WFObit/> In 1995 she received a grant under the Fulbright Program for work on Samoan politics,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://fulbrightscholars.org/grantee/fay-alailima |title=Fay Alailima |publisher=Fulbright Scholar Program |access-date=20 July 2022}}</ref> which later became her unpublished book, ''Samoa's Changing Chiefdom''. After retiring from the NUS, she returned to Hawaii. She died on 1 August 2010.<ref name=HSAObit/>
==Works== * ''The CIO and the Democratic Party'' (University of Chicago Press, 1952) * ''My Samoan Chief'' (Doubleday, 1962) * ''Aggie Grey : a Samoan saga'' (Mutual Publishing, 1988)
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ala-ilima, Fay Gilkey Calkins}} Category:1921 births Category:2010 deaths Category:People from Auburn, New York Category:Oberlin College alumni Category:Haverford College alumni Category:University of Chicago alumni Category:American expatriates in Samoa Category:Samoan writers Category:Academic staff of the National University of Samoa