About the author: John David DeHuff ( February 19, 1872 — ? 1945), educator. He belonged to the original cadre of school teachers known as the “Thomasites,” arriving in the Philippines in August, 1901. The Bulletin. [Vol. 1, no. 25] of the Board of Education (as of March 6, 1906) lists DeHuff as head teacher in the province of Antique. Became Superintendent of the Division of Schools in Bohol and Iloilo from 1906 to 1911. He was Superintendent of the Division of Schools in Manila from June 1, 1911 to September 7, 1913. The 1914 Annual Report of the Board of Education in the Philippines noted that,
After the death of Mr. Frank Russell White, Director of Education, in August, 1913, Mr. Frank Linden Crone was appointed Director of Education; Mr. Charles Henry Magee, Assistant Director; and Mr. John David DeHuff, Second Assistant Director. Mr. DeHuff returned to the United States on leave in November, 1913, and presented his resignation in March, 1914. He was succeeded by Mr. Walter William Marquardt, who was appointed Second Assistant Director of Education July 23, 1914.
That same year, 1914, he became Principal Teacher position at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1916, he became superintendent of the Indian School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He became secretary of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce in 1927, remaining as such until his death in 1945.
His wife, Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, went to the Philippines as a teacher in 1910, teaching there from October 1910 to March 1913 during which she met her future husband. During her husband’s time as superintendent, she became involved in a controversy concerning her attitude to Indian students and their art.
About the diary: There are two versions of the diary, both in the the Elizabeth Willis DeHuff Family Papers, The University of New Mexico, University Libraries, Center for Southwest Research, digitized and appearing in the New Mexico Digital Collections, neither of which is the original:
First: Manuscript, John David DeHuff Diary, with the opening annotation that,
In this rewritten form, many crudities and intemperatenesses of statement appearing in the original have been eliminated or corrected. The work of rewriting was begun at Peru, Indiana, in March 1914, and finished at Santa Fe, N. Mex. in the autumn of 1919.
The manuscript contains enclosures, in the form of programs, invitations, photographs, etc., but also includes what appear to be portions of the original diary pasted in where the passages apparently did not need editing.
Second: Typescript, Memories of Orient Seas by John D. DeHuff, estimated to date to 1921. Meant to be a book but unpublished.
For ease of transcription, the Philippine Diary Project used the typescript as the basis of an OCR copy; in the future it is hoped to compare the typescript, in turn, to the manuscript version.