She grew up in Kiev in the
Ukrainian SSR. Her father was executed in 1933, and her mother died of
tuberculosis in 1941. During
World War II, she was sent to a German forced labor camp. After the war, in Munich, she was a janitor. She was enlisted by the Americans as a translator, at the
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration displaced children's camp, since she could speak six languages. She married Igor Black, and immigrated in 1950. She graduated from
Brandeis University with a B.A., and M.A. in 1971, and
University of Massachusetts Amherst with a Ph.D. in 1973. She taught at
Providence College beginning in 1973. She taught at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1984 to 1998. In April 2001, she, along with fellow anthropologist and historian and close colleague
Richard Pierce, historians
Barbara Sweetland Smith, John Middleton-Tidwell, and
Viktor Petrov (posthumous), was decorated by the
Russian Federation with the
Order of Friendship Medal, which they received at the
Russian consulate in San Francisco. She is buried at Kodiak City Cemetery. ==Family==