Editor’s note: As the global elites once again utilize March to highlight leftist ideals of powerful and defiant modern women, this series flips the script by featuring Alaskan women who have fully embraced their vocations as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers, while leavening the world with that particular love that is unique to the “genius of women.” Click here to read part two about Alaska’s first female pilot Irene Ryan.

March is celebrated as Women’s History Month around the world, and this year’s theme is “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” We’re told by President Biden that during this time, “we celebrate the courageous women who have helped our nation build a fairer, more just society,” and by Time Magazine that actions in honor of Women’s History Month this year “will focus on abortion rights.”

Perhaps I’m a bit myopic, but I imagine that when most people pause to consider the women who’ve made the greatest impact in their lives, they don’t call to mind the rabble-rousing counterparts to the trite notion that “well behaved women rarely make history,” but, rather, they most likely recall the women who’ve affected them personally: the women who’ve loved them. Mothers, wives, grandmothers and sisters likely top the list.

I don’t believe women become “great” because they break glass ceilings by doing things men do, or that they’re restricted from reaching their full potential by their unique ability to nurture new human beings within the womb. I do believe that a woman’s true and lasting mark in this world is made by the development of one of the finest attributes of the feminine: her capacity for love.

Matushka Olga was known as a skilled midwife and gave birth to 13 children herself, only eight of whom survived childhood.

Most women will never make the history books for dutifully tending their hearth fires, raising the next generation of Americans, of pursuing the True, the Good and the Beautiful in all areas of life. But these are the women who fuel the mysterious current that changes the course of the world as they pour out their lives in service to others.

Yup’ik Native Matushka Olga Michael is one Alaskan woman who did make it into our history books precisely because she never missed an opportunity to love. Now counted as the only woman among the 14 North American Orthodox Christian saints, Olga was born in 1916, about 12 miles outside of Bethel, in the village of Kwethluk, and was raised within a family who had converted to Orthodoxy the previous century. She married a local hunter and fisherman who founded the village’s first general store and post office. Olga prayed fervently for her husband’s conversion and, when he became an Orthodox priest later in life, she took on the traditional name for a priest’s wife, “Matushka,” which means “mother.”

Matushka Olga was known as a skilled midwife and gave birth to 13 children herself, only eight of whom survived childhood. She sewed the vestments needed by her husband and was always willing to give to others what little she had, be it food, clothing, or her precious time to listen to their struggles. She was particularly known for her compassion and healing kindness to women who suffered trauma and abuse.

Bolstered by an intense prayer life, it is said that Matushka Olga didn’t talk much, but quietly went about her family life and her village community, identifying others’ needs and doing what she could to provide for them. Word of her holy life and good deeds have spread far beyond the little village of Kwethluk. Matushka Olga is now venerated as a saint whose example inspires others as far away as Maryland, New York, and Belarus.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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