[AT] another story about the early days of Oregon

[Al Walker]

Fascinating reading, Walt.  Thank you for sharing.

Al in NW MN


DAVIESW739 at aol.com wrote:

>Brother Joe and Sister Mary had quite a fine  "turn out", a cart made of the 
>front wheels of a wagon. Bill Athey was a cabinet  maker and he had built a 
>bed for it that was just as fine as one could ask for.  He polished it and 
>stained it to what he called Venetian red. The dye stuff came  from a clay bank up 
>the river and was about the color of a new  brick.
>
>Brother Joe drove a yoke of Spanish oxen, perfectly matched  and as black as 
>crows. They had huge horns that interfered unless they kept them  interlocked 
>or their heads tilted. They were trotting oxen and the big cart  swinging 
>across the prairie behind them, left a fine cloud of dust in its wake.  I was 
>pretty proud when I drove to church with them. They usually stopped for me  as 
>they passed our house. Eleanor Beers was my especial friend. The Beers lived  
>next door to Brother Joe's and Eleanor most always went to church with them.  
>Eleanor and I always sat on the back seat and held on tightly lest we be josted  
>out.
>
>Eleanor was fine company and under cover of the rumble of the  big cart, we 
>could laugh just as loudly as we pleased, even though Mother  happened to be 
>along.
>
>One Sunday we were both terribly excited,  Eleanor wore her new pink shawl, 
>it was the most beautiful shawl that I ever  saw, a delicate shell pink silk, 
>with deep, deep knotted fringe and raised  figures thrown up in wonderful 
>patterns, thick and solid next to the edge and  less so toward the center. Eleanor 
>was very fair and I thought her the loveliest  thing I had ever seen.I got 
>into the back seat beside Eleanor carefully, lest I  sit on the edge of her shawl 
>and crush it. She drew the ends well away from me  and tucked them around her 
>on the other side. We were on our way when something  seemed happening to 
>Eleanor and Eleanor's shawl, it was almost gone from her.  She clung to the 
>vanishing corner of it and screamed. A final violent wrench and  it was gone. 
>Brother Joe stopped the oxen and went back to look in the grass and  low bushes, he 
>looked everywhere. Eleanor's pink shawl had just completely  vanished. 
>finally Joe, wise in the ways of carts, thought to look at the hub.  Sure enough, 
>there was the shawl, wound around and around, but you would never  have known 
>that it had once been pink, but seeing it, one could readily tell  that it would 
>never be pink again. Though Mother worked and worked at it, the  axle grease 
>was ground into every fiber of it. It was such a mess, completely  ruined and 
>on the first day that she had been allowed to wear it. Our Sunday was  
>spoiled. Brother Joe turned back and spent the day at our house.
>
>If Eleanor Beers were alive now and you were to ask her about the greatest  
>tragedy of her life, I am sure she would tell you about the pink silk shawl 
>with  the brocade figures and the deep, knotted fringe around it.
>
>By Charlotte  Matheny Kirkwwod
>(the last known surviving member of the 1843 wagon  train)
>
>Walt Davies
>Cooper Hollow Farm
>Monmouth, OR 97361
>503  623-0460  
>
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