A Wealth of Tradition

Image from House Divided

THANKSGIVING STARTED BY WOMAN

The tireless efforts of a woman — Sarah Hale, a widow with nine children — were responsible for establishing Thanksgiving day as a national holiday, the only holiday of its kind in the world! And it’s still the tireless efforts of the women which help to preserve the hearty feasting today.

The first Thanksgiving day, unlike what you may remember from your history lesson, was not a harvest festival, but marked the surrender of Burgoyne and was held in December, 1777, called by the Continental congress. President Washington called the next one, and the next, but many years were skipped before the holiday appeared again, and the dates varied so it was sometimes held in May. President Lincoln tried for the annual observation, but it was through the efforts of Mrs. Hale, as editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, that Thanksgiving became a national holiday under Andrew Johnson, and has been celebrated on the last Thursday in November ever since.

Since then Thanksgiving has moved along under its own momentum, and this year when President Hoover proclaims the day, a wealth of tradition surrounds the festive board. Are you, as a modern thanks-giver, ready to carry out the traditions of the harvest feast?

San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Texas) Nov 18, 1932

Schoolmarm ‘Somewhere at Sea’

“Let’s Go,” Says Flier Schoolmarm

MISS MILDRED DORAN, 22-year-old school teacher of Flint, Michigan, wants to be the first woman to make a transpacific flight, and she’s on her way with PILOT AUGIE PEDDLAR, who considers himself lucky in winning the job. Two aviators vied for the privilege of transporting the fair passenger, and on tossing a coin, Peddlar won. They arrived yesterday at Fort Worth, Texas, on their way to Long Beach for the hopoff in August. – P&A photo.

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Jul 17, 1927

Schoolmarm ‘Somewhere at Sea’

MISS MILDRED DORAN, the flying schoolma’am of Flint, Mich., lone representative of her sex in the Dole race, whose plane, named after her and piloted by Auggy Pedlar, has been missing between here and Hawaii for more than 23 hours. No word of the craft’s position has been picked up by radio stations or the numerous navy and merchant vessels along the route of the flight.

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Aug 17, 1927

Story Of Miss Mildred Doran’s Life Told By Artist In Sketches

She was born in Flint, Michigan, the daughter of William Doran.

When 16 her mother died.

She worked her way through high school as a telephone operator. William Malloska learned of her struggle and staked the girl to a teacher’s course at Michigan State Normal School.

Taught school at Caro, Mich.

When the Dole Prize was announced, Malloska decided to enter a Flint plane.

He joked with his protege. “How would you like to go?” he said without meaning it much. She tossed a coin between Pedlar and Sloniger and Pedlar won.

The Miss Doran had to make a second start after turning back when engine trouble developed.

Planes and ships started combing the Pacific for the lost flyers.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Aug 20, 1927

By WILLIAM H. RITT

Exclusive Central Press Dispatch to The Kingsport Times

CARO, Michigan. — As grim, gray United States destroyers and great battle planes glided over the waters of the Pacific ocean in desperate search for Miss Mildred Doran, Caro school teacher lost in a plane with two others, a little boy sat on his porch steps here and wished aloud that he could help “somehow” to find her.

The little boy is Richard Goodell, 11, the “most spanked” boy, according to other pupils, in Miss Doran’s class. But now the spankings are past and all Richard wants is to hear that Miss Doran is on her way back to Caro to tell the children of her fateful flight toward Hawaii.

“Miss Doran was one of the best teachers a person ever had,” Richard will tell anyone. “She never spanked very hard, and then she always hit us kids on the hand, just a little. I guess we deserved a lot of it. Gee, she was nice, though.”

Marjorie’s Very Own Plan

While Richard worried over Miss Doran’s fate, little Marjorie Moore, nine, put into effect a plan of her own. Marjorie began saving her pennies, doing without ice creams cones and “shows” in order that her small fund might grow all the faster.

“As soon as I get enough money,” Marjorie said, as she helped hunt for a picture of Miss Doran at her home, “I’m going to spend it for a trip to California. Then I’m going to help them hunt for Miss Doran.”

Marjorie is the type of little girl who dreams a great deal. The other night she had a dream.

“It was the nicest dream,” she said. “I dreamt that I took an airplane and found Miss Doran. She was so glad to see me. I picked her up and we came back to Caro in my plane. All the people just hollered they were so glad to see her back again.”

Then there is Geraldine Jones, a little eleven-year-old, who hasn’t missed an edition of the city papers distributed in Caro since Miss Doran, John Auggy Pedlar, pilot, and Lieutenant V.R. Knope, navigator, flew away in the plane named after the young teacher.

“I think I was one of the first persons Miss Doran told that she was going to make the trip,” Geraldine said, proudly, as she scanned some headlines in a vain hunt for the good news. “I didn’t want her to go. I was afraid. You know the Pacific ocean is awful big, and airplanes aren’t so good, anyway.”

Though it was county fair week at Caro, in the shops and on the street, at the postoffice and at the little brick railroad depot Miss Doran and her plight were the chief topic of conversation. The elders, unlike the children, believed there was no hope.
An Airplane Descends!
One afternoon an airplane suddenly appeared above Caro, swung over the town and settled in a field to the east.

Miss Doran’s former pupils, watching in the street, and filled with the absurd hopes of childhood that it might be the biplane in which she departed, bounced up and down in glee.

But Ole Louck, station agent at the small railroad station, stopped his game of horseshoes with some passengers waiting for the only southbound trains of the day, long enough to sadly shake his head.

“Nope,” he said, “she’s gone. Miss Doran took a brave chance, but failed. And this town has lost a very fine little citizen, too.”

The Kingsport Times (Kingsport, Tennessee) Aug 31, 1927

The map shows an imposing total of ten trans-oceanic flights this season, but against them were nine failures, costing more than a score of lives. Among the season’s heroes were Lindbergh (above), Byrd (left) and Chamberlin (below). Among the victims was Miss Mildred Doran (center insert), lost on a flight to Honolulu.

Appleton Post Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) Nov 17, 1927

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MLIVE 2008 article:

Memorial lost, just like air pioneer Mildred Doran, says Flint Journal columnist Gary Flinn

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MLIVE 2011 article:

Nephew sheds new light on Flint woman Mildred Doran’s tragic final flight

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On YouTube:

Dole Air Race (1927)

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By BERYL MILLER

Old father neptune seems to be bearing out the age-old superstition of sailors that women who dare the sea bring ill luck, misfortune and disaster.

Of eight trans-oceanic women flyers who have dared Neptune’s wrath, just two have escaped death. These are Amelia Earhart, who barely succeeded in reaching Wales on an attempted flight to London, and Ruth Elder, who was rescued by a freighter when forced down at sea.

Latest victim of Neptune’s ancient curse is Mrs. Beryl Hart, who was lost with Captain W.S. MacLaren, in an attempt to cross the Atlantic with the first load of airplane freights.

Eight aviatriees? who risked their lives over teh swirling sea are shown above:

1 — Mrs. Frances Grayson, who, in her plane, “The Dawn,” took off from Roosevelt Field, L.I., for Newfoundland, two days before Christmas, 1927, for a trans-Atlantic flight. Neither she nor her companions, Oskar Omdahl, Bryce Goldsborough and Fred Koehler, were seen again.

2 — Mildred Doran, the pretty Flint, Mich., school teacher, who left her blackboard and on Aug. 16, 1927 roared away from Oakland, Calif., toward Hawaii in an attempt to win the $35,000 Dole prize. She and her crew, John Pedlar and Lieutenant V.R. Knope, went to a watery grave.

3 — Mrs. Beryl Hart, who, with Captain W.S. MacLaren, in the monoplane, “Tradewind,” disappeared en route between Bermuda and the Azores on a proposed flight from New York to Paris, recently.

4 — Amelia Earhart, whose trimotored plane, “Friendship,” landed at Burry Port, Wales, June 18, 1928, after a 2000-mile flight from Newfoundland with Wilmer Slultz and Louis Gordon.

5 — Hon. Elsie Mackay, who sailed away to oblivion, March 13, 1928, in the plane, “Endeavor,” on a proposed flight from England to America with Captain Walter Hinchliffe.

6 — Lilil Dillonz?, Austrian actress, who got as far as the Azores in her intended flight from Germany to Newfoundland, late in 1927, and after repeated attempts to continue, gave up the venture.

7 — Ruth Elder, who barely eluded Neptune’s clinches when her plane, “The American Girl,” was forced down at sea, luckily alongside a freighter, on her attempted flight to Paris, in 1927, with George Haldeman.

8 — The 62-year-old Princess Lowenstein-Wertheim, who, with Captain Leslie Hamilton and Colonel F.F. Minchin of England, were lost on a flight from England to Canada in the “St. Raphael,” on Aug. 8, 1927.

News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan) Jan 15, 1931

The Most Beautiful Suffragette

Miss Inez Milholland, whose picture is here shown is the daughter of J.E. Milholland, the millionaire pneumatic tube system man. She is now in the Junior class in Vassar and announces her intention of becoming a truant officer so that she may pursue the work of reforming bad boys. Miss Milholland is an athlete of note in the college games, and has had great success in reclaiming bad boys.

Coshocton Daily Times (Coshocton, Ohio) Feb 25, 1908

AWAKENED BY YANKEE GIRL

Miss Inez Milholland, Who Wants to Vote, Roused Oxford and Cambridge.

After trying with vigor, but in vain, to  convince the authorities of Oxford and Cambridge universities in England that she should be permitted to study law at one of the two venerable institutions Miss Inez Milholland of New York sailed for America to try her persuasive powers at Harvard.

Miss Milholland has won fame as a young leader of the suffragists. She was recently graduated from Vassar, where she conducted a vigorous campaign in favor of women’s votes.

She is the daughter of John E. Milholland of New York and London, and a background of wealth has not lessened her charm. Her bronze hair, large blue eyes and well modeled features make her a classic type.

At Vassar Miss Milholland kept President Taylor on the rack, inciting miniature equal rights resolutions among the students. When the suffragists of the state journeyed to the capitol at Albany for their annual hearing on woman and the vote the president peremptorily forbade Miss Milholland to accompany them, fearing her presence would accentuate the rumor that the college was a center of the woman’s rights campaign.

Aside from her political tendencies, Miss Milholland made no mean record at Vassar. Her scholarship put her well in the fore, and her athletic prowess was the boast of her associates. As captain of the hockey team she led her players to a victory that captured the interclass championship. She was conspicuous on field day and champion in putting the eight pound shot.

Coshocton Daily Times (Coshocton, Ohio) Oct 9, 1909

There was as much excitement in suffragette headquarters Thursday as if the New York legislature were about to grant women the right to vote. It was not joyful excitement, however, because the rumor spread that Inez Milholland, vivacious, bronze-haired, and clever suffragette, was engaged to be married to Sydney Smith. In other words, the rumor had it that Miss Milholland and Mr. Smith, both warm friends of Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, had formed a friendship under the guiding influence of Mrs. Belmont, and that perhaps the energy and enthusiasm of the most picturesque suffragette would be lost.

There was a jingle of telephone bells as suffragettes hunted for Miss Milholland. There was suppressed grief and an occasional sob over the thought the young woman might give up law, forsake the cause of woman suffrage, and become an ordinary housewife or a society matron. Miss Milholland was not in the Hotel Manhattan. She was in the New York University Law School, digging out cases and hunting for points that would prove the right of women to vote. At least her mother thought so.

Mrs. John E. Milholland was likewise frantic over the rumor of the reported engagement.

“No, it was not true. It could not be true,” she said.

But the fearful mother quickly put in a hurry telephone call for the university. Miss Milholland was found finally in the law library poring over a musty tome and racing to get our her lesson, as she was planning a suffragette meeting for the young men of the law school in the evening. When the young woman was reached she listened calmly as her mother recited the details of the alleged engagement.

“What does all this mean?” asked the excited mother.

“Nothing, mama,” answered the modern Portia. “Mother, don’t you know I am too busy to think of such things? I have my law, the cause, and, what’s more, I have a woman’s suffrage meeting right here in the university tonight and I haven’t time to discuss such things.”

Miss Milholland, who is a daughter of John E. Milholland, one time politician and now a millionaire promoter, with headquarters in London, is an alumna of Vassar. She stood near the head of her class, was a star debater in college, and always an advocate of woman suffrage. She kept things lively in college with her organizations and her fights for her rights. She passes much of her time in England, where she is regarded as the most beautiful suffragette. Her advocacy of woman suffrage, her skill and eloquence as a speaker, won her the admiration of Mrs. Belmont, and the two have become almost inseparable.

The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.) Dec 10, 1910

Image from Everyday Dutch Oven

SUFFRAGETTES AND THE HENS

The suffragettes who have been marching on Washington already had their troubles. I understand that when they left one place the hens quit the coops and started to follow them. And a rooster flew in front of a speckled hen and asked her for heaven’s sake to go back, and she crowed in his face.

I recollect hearing about a suffragette who was making a speech. She said: “I pant for the right to vote. I pant for the right to exercise my political rights.” And some one in the audience spoke up and said: “Lady, you pant for a pair of pants.” — Representative Heflin, on the floor of the House.

The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.) Mar 2, 1913

Miss Inez Milholland.

NEW YORK, March 21. — Miss Inez Milholland, known as the most beautiful suffragette in New York, who has just been admitted to the New York bar, is working on her first case as associate counsel to James W. Osborne, defending Gee Doy Young, a Chinatown gunman, who is charged with having started the last Tong war that resulted in five killings.

New Castle News (New Castle, Pennsylvania) Mar 21, 1913

The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, Indiana) Mar 15, 1913

Miss Inez Milholland, the handsome New York suffragette, was married in the Kensington registry office, London, to Eugene Boissevain, a wealthy Dutchman of Amsterdam. The bridegroom, who is 33 years old, is engaged in the wireless business and was introduced to Miss Milholland in New York a few weeks ago by Signor Meroni. His father, Charles Boissevain, of Amsterdam, is the owner of rich plantations in Java. He is also the principal owner of the foremost newspaper in Amsterdam. The couple will spend their honeymoon in a cruise on the North sea and will sail for New York in August. Miss Milholland was graduated from Vassar in 1909, and while there she kept the faculty on pins and needles with her advanced views on feminism and socialism. It was she who started the suffrage movement in Vassar, enrolling two-thirds of the students in the cause and then proceeding to teach them the meaning of socialism. She held a record for throwing the basketball. The bride will continue her law practice when she returns to New York.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Jul 21, 1913

Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 05, 1914

Inez Milholland Admits Proposing

NEW YORK, Nov. 27. — Inez Milholland Boissevain, lawyer and suffragist, advocated yesterday that women should have the right to propose. She said:

“Certainly women should have the right to propose — I did it myself.”

Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Nov 27, 1915

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27. — Mrs. Inez Milholland Boissevain, widely-known suffragist and welfare worker, died in a hospital here shortly before midnight Saturday night after an illness of 10 weeks. She was 30 years old.

Mrs. Boissevain was stricken suddenly while addressing the recent political campaign and fainted on the platform at the meeting. She was removed to a hospital and her husband and parents rushed from New York to join her here. Miss Vida Milholland, her sister, was with her when she was stricken and has been in constant attendance since that time.

Inez Milholland Boissevain had been for many years well known for her activity as a woman suffragist, a social welfare worker, an advocate of socialism and as a practising lawyer.

During the 1908 Presidential campaign she won new fame as “the girl who broke up the Taft parade.”

Following her graduation from Vassar College, she attempted to enter Harvard Law School, but this permission was denied her on the ground that it was not a co-educational institution. Miss Milholland finally received her degree in law at the New York University Law School in 1912, and during this time she was active as a suffrage worker and speaker and organizer of woman’s parades, being featured in them both in New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere as “the most beautiful suffragette.”

In July, 1913, she married by a civil ceremony in London, Eugene Boissevain, a wealthy Hollander. In 1916 she went as a delegate on the Ford Pence Ship, but left the party at Stockholm, because, as she said in a statement, “the undemocratic methods employed by the managers are repugnant to my principles.” Mrs. Boissevain was born in New York, August 6, 1886, receiving her early education in New York, London and Berlin.

The Daily Courier (Connellsville, Pennsylvania) Nov 27, 1916

Strain of Campaign … Caused Her Death.
[Excerpts]

Mrs. Boissevain’s illness was diagnosed as aplastic anemia and blood transfusion was resorted to in attempts to improve her condition. Miss Vida Milholland twice gave blood for this purpose and on four other occasions friends submitted to the ordeal in hope that benefit would result. After each transfusion temporary improvement was followed by relapse….

It was stated that Mrs. Boissevain’s trouble originated in her tonsils, which became inflamed as the result of too constant speaking during the campaign. She had been weakened by overexertion and when she became ill her system failed to resist the advance of the disease….

As a student at Vassar college, 1905-9, although known as the college beauty and possessed of wealth and position, she shunned society as such and shocked the more conservative college opinion by her radical social views….

Later the same year [1915] she went to Italy as a war correspondent and was forced to leave Italy by the authorities there because of her pacifist writings….

She was a member of the Political Equality League, Women’s Political Union, national child labor committee, Woman’s Social and Political Union of England and the Fabian Society, England.

The Newark Advocate (Newark, Ohio) Nov 27, 1916

BEAUTIFUL SUFFRAGIST LEADER TO BE BURIED IN ADIRONDACKS
[Excerpts]

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27. — Preparations were being made today to take the body of Mrs. Inez Milholland Boissevain, who died here Saturday night, to New York City for funeral services and thence to Meadowmount, in the Adirondacks, the old family home of the Milhollands, where the burial will take place….

Aside from her college activities, she worked among the poor children in the city of Poughkeepsie, and had herself appointed probation officer. During her first college vacation she visited London and there joined the Pankhurst suffragettes, making several speeches and being once arrested….

Following her graduation from Vassar College, she attempted to enter Harvard Law School, but his permission was denied her on the ground that it was not a coeducational institution.  The incident gave rise to a heated newspaper controversy in which Inez Milholland and other prominent feminists took part. She also became active about this time in the working girls’ cause, taking part in the shirt waist makers’ strike. In the clash of the strikers with the police she was arrested and locked up, but after a controversy of several weeks the charge against her of leading an unlawful assembly was finally dropped….

She began the practice of law in 1912 as a clerk in the offices of James W. Osborne, her first case being the defense of “Red Phil” Davidson, charged with murder of “Big Jack” Zelig. Her next case was the defense of Gee Doy Yung, accused of murder in a Chinatown tong war, and she was successful in obtaining his acquittal….

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Nov 27, 1916

Sheboygan Press (Sheboygan, Wisconsin) Dec 30, 1916

Her mother was Jean (Torrey) Milholland: Talks About Women

Her father, John E. Milholland: Racist Issue Hits Feminist Party

Women Will Celebrate

WASHINGTON — A great jubilation to celebrate the successful culmination of woman’s long battle for suffrage will be held in the rotunda of the Capitol in October in event that Tennessee or Vermont adds the final chapter to ratification within the next month.

Women thruout the world will join the women’s organization of the United States in making it an historic event. The celebration will be the occasion of presenting the nation with marble busts of Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the three women who began the struggle for political freedom for their sex and died in it.

The busts have an interesting history. Collections of funds for them began thirty-four years ago. John Greenleaf Whittier, Longfellow and other noted men of the day were among the contributors. Finally enough was obtained to commission Adelaide Johnson, one of the best-known women sculptors, to make the busts. Miss Anthony herself raised $1,000 toward the fund.

After her death, and when most of the members of  the original committee organized to take charge of the fund had passed away, plans for completing the busts progressed but slowly. When the last member of the committee died, Ida Husted Harper, well known suffrage leader, was bequeathed possession of the funds with power of attorney.

Recently Dr. Harper gave the National Woman’s Party permission to take charge of the busts and present them to the government. The party is paying for their completion. The sculptor in her studio at Rome, Italy, is now adding the finishing touches to the busts, which were made from methods begun during the lifetime of the three suffrage pioneers.

They are to be placed in the Capitol. At present only one among the countless bronze and marble statues there is in memory of a woman. Frances E. Willard, alone among her sex, is honored by a marble bust in Statuary Hall.

When the suffragists hold their jubilee it will not be the first time the rotunda of the Capitol has been the scene of impressive suffrage ceremonies.

Once the gold and purple colors of the militants bedecked its great marble posts and without protest. It was when Alice  Paul’s band chose the rotunda for their memorial tribute to beautiful young Inez Milholland, who gave her life for the “cause.” They took possession of it and made it ready for the ceremonies without permission. Senators who came to protect remained as silent and touched spectators.

It will be the militants who will have charge of the jubilee ceremonies. They will go to the Capitol this time as honored guests of the government.

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Jul 28, 1920

Women’s Equality Day

Yuma Daily Sun (Yuma, Arizona) Aug 26, 1977

Women’s equality day proclaimed

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Nixon has proclaimed Aug 26 as Women’s Equality Day and urged speedy ratification of the Equal Rights amendment to the Constitution.

The proclamation, requested by Congress, said the nation has made giant strides in recent years toward ensuring equal economic opportunity for women.

“Much still remains to be done,” Nixon said.

Walla Walla Union Bulletin (Walla Walla, Washington) Aug 19, 1973

The Times Herald (Vallejo, California) Aug 23, 1974

Simpson’s Leader-Times (Kittanning, Pennsylvania) Aug 21, 1975

Yuma Daily Sun (Yuma, Arizona) Aug 26, 1976

Valley News (Van Nuys, California) Aug 25 ,1977

You Can’t Forget a Garden, But Can You Forget a Poet?

Image from Alfredo Rodriguez

YOU CAN’T FORGET A GARDEN

You can’t forget a garden
When you have planted a seed —
When you have watched the weather
And know a rose’s need.
When you go away from it,
However long or far,
You leave your heart behind you
Where roots and tendrils are.

— Louise Driscoll, in “Garden Grace.”

Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Jun 11, 1932

Louise Driscoll To Speak at Normandie

Garden lovers will have an opportunity to indulge themselves, in imagination, in the delights of their hobby, despite Winter’s barricade against outdoor participation, when Louise Driscoll speaks on Thursday, February 20, in the ballroom of the Normandie, No. 253 Alexander Street.

Miss Driscoll will have as her theme that evening “A Garden Thru the Year.” Author of “Garden Grace” and “Garden of the West,” she will bring the spirit of all gardens to her listeners, as in her poem, “Lost Garden,” from “Garden Grace.”

Guest of Mrs. Forbes

Miss Driscoll will be the guest of Mrs. George M. Forbes of Alexander Street, president of the Rochester Poetry Society, under whose auspices she will speak.

Rochester Journal (Rochester, New York) Feb 13, 1936

ON BEING A NEWSMAN IN PASADENA

I have long said one of the delightful aspects of being a newsman in Pasadena is that — no matter on what subject you write — you may rest assured that among the thousands of persons reading your stuff will be at least one of the world’s greatest authorities on that subject.

It never fails.

Some of the most valued acquaintances I have picked up over the years have developed this way. You do a “masterpiece.” Next day the phone rings, or there’s a letter on your desk. You were right, and you know it. Or you were wrong, and you’ve picked up a world of understanding.

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On my desk this morning was a letter of a different type — illustrating the point I am making in another way.

It was in response to a column I wrote way last spring, forgot, and then published late because I still thought it was a good column. I called it, IN WHICH I GROW SENTIMENTAL. It was built around re-discovery of this poem, which, half forgotten from my boyhood days, nonetheless had carried me through many tight places.

Here’s the letter I found on my desk.

L.M. — I was very much interested and pleased to see, in your column, a quotation from a poem by Louise Driscoll.

Louise — who died some years ago — way my cousin.

She was for many years, head of the library of Catskill, New York, and was a poet of quite considerable reputation. In the days when poetry, to be publishable, did not have to be (a) an imitation of the New Yorker, or (b) something just long enough to fill that annoying gap at the end of a magazine page.

Her poems were published in many magazines in the 1920s and thereabouts, and appear in several anthologies. She published one book of collected verse, so far as I know; a small book of very charming and rather haunting poems, under the title “Garden Grace.”

I am sure it would have made her very happy to know that one of her poems was remembered.

Very sincerely,

Marjorie C. Driscoll,

Altadena.

See what I mean about the delightful aspects of being a newsman in Pasadena?

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SENTIMENT HAS A PLACE IN OUR BEING

Star-News (Pasadena, California) Jun 9, 1959

 

Distinction for Local Women

New York, Sept. 26 (Special). —

Three Kingston women, seven residents of Woodstock, one Palenville and one Catskill woman are members of a group of outstanding women of the nation selected for inclusion in “American Women,” a who’s who of the feminine world just completed and published.

The honor was attained locally by Mary E.S. Fischer, illustrator, Melvina E. Moore-Parsons, and the late Mary Gage-Day, physicians of Kingston, Mrs. J. Courtenay Anderson, Agnes M. Daulton, Harriet Gaylord and Louise S. Hasbrouck, writers, Nancy Schoonmaker, lecturer, Lily Strickland, composer, and Mrs. Bruno L. Zimm of Woodstock, Jennie Brownscombe, artist, of Palenville, and Louise Driscoll, librarian, of Catskill.

New York state has contributed 1,096 of the 6,214 women chosen for the distinction of places on the list. Eighty-two per cent attended college and the majority are active in clubs and organizations. The possibility of success for a career and marriage combination receives strong endorsement from the fact that 41 per cent of the roster are married.

Approximately a third of the list, in true feminine fashion, declined to state their age. Writers formed the largest class, numbering 800, and professors the second with 355. Four each are engaged in aviation and astronomy, five in engineering and thirteen in the ministry. Gardening is the most popular hobby. Only sixty-four like to play bridge and one goes in for hunting mushrooms.

Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York) Sep 27, 1935

Louise won an award for this one:

Title: Poems of the Great War
Editor: John William Cunliffe
Publisher: The Macmillan Company, 1917
“The Metal Checks”
Pages 78-83

Her Father:

Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York) Jan 3, 1941

Services Tonight For Mr. Driscoll, Dean of Masons
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Native of Rockland County, 103, Died Yesterday in Catskill
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CATSKILL — Masonic services will be held tonight for John Leonard Driscoll, a native of Piermont, Rockland County, and oldest Mason in the state, who died yesterday at his home. Mr. Driscoll, who had been in remarkable good health until two weeks ago, was 103 years old last October eleventh.

Mr. Driscoll was a descendant of Johannes ver Vailen, one of the holders of the Harlem Patent who had an inn and a ferry at Spuyten Duyvil in the early days of the state. His father was Isaac Driscoll and his mother Eliza Burgess Shaw. His great-grandfather came to the United States from Ireland about the middle of the Eighteenth Century.

Surviving Mr. Driscoll, who had lived under twenty-five of the nation’s thirty-two presidents, are the Misses Lizbeth, Caroline and Louise Driscoll, all at home.

As a boy Mr. Driscoll witnessed the digging of holes and the planting of rails for the Hudson River Railroad. Until the age of sixty he had never smoked. He first tried a cigar, without becoming sick, and then changed to a pipe which was his favorite and constant companion during the last few years of his life.

Syracuse Herald (Syracuse, New York) Sep 30, 1937

At the age of 100, referring to his job in the 1830’s when pine logs were used for fuel and he was chief engineer for the Catskill Mountain Railroad, he said, “A good fireman in those days would handle the wood only once. He pitched each chunk at such an angle that when it landed on the floor of the engine it would bounce through the fire door into the box.”

He explained his philosophy of life, take it as it comes, by saying:

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, and seen many things, you realize there are few things in the world worth worrying about. It’s a good world, too, as long as people keep their sense of humor.”

Middletown Times Herald (Middletown, New York) Jan 3, 1941

* Another obituary states his wife died in 1903. (See end of post for image.)

* I couldn’t find obituaries for Louise or her sisters. It is possible there were some in the Greene County Examiner-Recorder, but I don’t have access to the years they would have appeared. A shame, really; Louise was a very talented lady and I would like to know more about her.

Quilt square sewn by Louise Driscoll’s grandmother:

From Dutch Door Genealogy:

18. E.B. Driscoll, age 47
She was Eliza Burgess Shaw, mother of Carrie, above, and in 1862 was the widow of Isaac Blauvelt Driscoll (#6010) in 1836. Isaac died in 1851. Their children who lived were John Leonard Driscoll, born 1837, lived to be 103; Charles Francis, born 1841; and Caroline, born 1844. Eliza was a seamstress, per the 1860 census.

Read more about the quilt at the link.

This is the closest I could come to finding a biography, other than the short bit I linked at the top of the post:

Louise Driscoll, who had a story, “The Tug of War,” in Smith’s Magazine for May, and a novelette, “The Point of View,” in the June number of the same magazine, lives in Catskill, N.Y. She has written verse since she was a very little girl, and while still a schoolgirl used occasionally to send poems to the New York newspapers and different magazines, many of them being accepted. It is only within the last few months that she has tried to do much prose, and she says that she has found the editors of the American magazines so ready to receive and educate a new writer that she has no faith in the tales so often heard concerning the necessity of influence to gain attention. Her verses have appeared in Lippincott’s, the Critic — now Putnam’s Monthly — the Independent, the Metropolitan, and a number of other periodicals, and some of them have been widely copied. One poem, “The Highway,” which appeared in Lippincott’s about three years ago, brought her a good many letters from readers, including some editors of other magazines. Miss Driscoll in now at work on a longer and more serious book than “The Point of View,” which is her first long story. She is very ambitious and believes fully in hard work, but she says she writes because she must, and is sure she would write if she had never heard of type. Incidentally, she has a large regard for the English language, and a sincere desire to use it correctly.

The Writer, Volume 19
By William Henry Hills, Robert Luce, 1907

Another garden themed poem by Louise Driscoll:

Olean Evening Times (Olean, New York) Nov 17, 1924

One of Louise Driscoll’s books can be accessed for free at Google Books:

Title: The Garden of the West
Author: Louise Driscoll
Publisher: The Macmillan company, 1922

From Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine – 1907

THE POOR HOUSE

by Louise Driscoll

There’s a white road lined with poplars
And the blue hills rise behind,
The fields lie green on either side
And the overseer’s kind.

This is a play/skit:

Title: The Drama Magazine – Volume 7
Author: Drama League of America
Editors: Charles Hubbard Sergel, William Norman Guthrie, Theodore Ballou Hinckley
Publisher: Drama League of America, 1917
Pages 448-460

This description from The Quarterly Journal of Speech Education – 1918:

One act tragedy for two men and two women. Realistic play of American rural life and the tragedy of weakness and lack of determination.

She also wrote and/or translated music lyrics. I ran across a Christmas carol she did as well:

Polska
Metsän puita tuuli tuudittaa,
ja joka lehti liikkuu,
oksat keinuu, kiikkuu,
karjan kellot kilvan kalkuttaa
ja linnut livertävät
la la la la la la.
Niinpä neidon mieli nuor eli’ ijällä
lentää kuin lehti ilman tiellä
Näin iloiten vain ma laulelen
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Karjan kellot kilvan kaikottaa
ja linnut livertävät
la la la la la la.

Sunnuntaina taasen kiikuttaa
pojat iloissansa
kukin neitojansa.
Korkealle keinu heilahtaa
ja tytöt laulelevat
la la la la la la.
Niinpä neidon mieli nuorell’ ijällä
lentää kuin lehti ilman tiellä.
Näin iloiten vaan ma laulelen
la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Korkealle keinu heilahtaa
ja tytöt laulelevat
la la la la la la.

*****

Polka

In the woods the trees, the trees are gay.
See how the branches lightly swing and sway, swing and sway.
Sheep bells tinkle and sweet birds sing,
So sing the maidens, tra la, la,la, la,la.
Shaken like a leaf when winds are blowing,
Is a girl’s heart when the rose is showing.
Tra la, la tra la,la, when high flies the swing,
Tra la, la,la,la.la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la.
Her heart goes there like the swing in air,
And falls while she is singing_Tra la, la,la,la,la.

English version by
Louise Driscoll.

Title: Folk Songs of Many Peoples, Volume 1
Editor: Florence Hudson Botsford
Publisher: Womans Press, 1921
Page 26

*     *     *     *     *

Greene County Examiner-Recorder (Catskill, New York) Jan 9, 1941

To a Shred of Linen

Image from flickr-jennamay

The following article, from the Cincinnati Chronicle, bears upon it the impress of inspiration. It shows how easily the pencil of genius can hallow the most trilling subject. The pen of no ordinary mind could have imparted the playful dignity to a linen rag, which Mrs. Sigourney has thrown around it. There will be few objections to literary ladies, if their “shreds of linen” always receive so beautiful an apotheosis.

TO A SHRED OF LINEN.

Would they swept cleaner!—
Here’s a littering shred
Of linen left behind, —a vile reproach
To all good housewifery. Right glad am I,
That no neat lady, train’d in ancient times
Of pudding making, and of sampler work,
And speckless sanctity of household care,
Hath happened here  to spy thee. She, no doubt,
When looking through her spectacles, would say,
“This comes of reading books:”—or some spruce beau
Essenced and lily-handed, had he chanced
To scan thy slight superfices, ‘twould be
“This comes of writing poetry.”—Well—well—
Come forth—offender!—hast thou aught to say?
Canst thou by merry thought, or quaint conceit,
Repay this risk, that I have run for thee?
——Begin at alpha, and resolve thyself
Into thine elements. I see the stalk
And bright, blue flower of flax, which erst o’erspread
That fertile land, where mighty Moses stretched
His rod miraculous. I see thy bloom
Tinging, though scantly, these New England vales.
But, lo! the sturdy farmer lifts his flail,
To crush thy bones unpitying, and his wife
With ‘kerchief’d head, and eyes brimful of dust,
Thy fibrous nerves, with hatchel tooth divides.

——I hear a voice of music—and behold!
The ruddy damsel singeth at her wheel,
While by her side the rustic lover sits.
Perchance, his shrewd eye secretly doth count
The mass of skeins, which, hanging on the wall,
Increaseth day by day. Perchance his thought,
For men have deeper minds than women—sure!
Is calculating what a thrifty wife
The maid will make; and how his dairy shelves
Shall groan beneath the weight of golden cheese,
Made by her dexterous hand — while many a keg
And pot of butter, to the market borne,
May, transmigrated, on his back appear,
In new thanksgiving coats.

Fain would I ask,
Mine own New England, for thy once loved wheel,
By sofa and piano quite displaced —
Why dost thou banish from thy parlor-hearth
That old Hygean harp, whose magic ruled
Dyspepsia, as the minstrel-shepherd’s skill
Exorcised Saul’s ennui? There was no need,
In those good times, of callisthenics,
And there was less of gadding, — and far more
Of home-born, heartfelt comfort, rooted strong
In industry, and bearing such rare fruit,
As wealth might never purchase.

But come back,
Thou shred of linen. I did let thee drop,
In my harangue, as wiser ones have lost
The thread of their discourse. What was thy lot
When the rough battery of the loom had stretch’d
And knit thy sinews, and the chemist sun
Thy brown complexion bleach’d.

Image from Vagabond Language

Methinks I scan
Some idiosyncrasy, that marks thee out
A defunct pillow-case.—Did the trim guest,
To the best chamber usher’d, e’er admire
The snowy whiteness of thy freshen’d youth
Feeding thy vanity? or some sweet babe
Pour its pure dream of innocence on thee?
Say, hast thou listen’d to the sick one’s moan,
When there was none to comfort?—or shrunk back
From the dire tossings of the proud man’s brow?
Or gather’d from young beauty’s restless sigh
A tale of untold love?

Still, close and mute!—
Wilt tell no secrets, ha! Well then, go down,
With all thy churl-kept hoard of curious lore,
In majesty and mystery, go down
Into the paper-mill, and from its jaws,
Stainless and smooth, emerge. Happy shall be
The renovation, if on thy fair page
Wisdom and truth, their hallowed lineaments
Trace for posterity.  So shall thine end
Be better than thy birth, and worthier bard
Thine apotheosis immortalize.

Alton Observer (Alton, Illinois) Jul 6, 1837

Image from Cynthia’s Linen Room

From History of American Women:

Lydia Sigourney (1791–1865) was a popular poet, essayist and travel writer during the early and mid 19th century. Most of her works were published with just her married name Mrs. Sigourney. Her poetry, like her prose, was about public subjects – history, slavery, missionary work and current events – or treated personal matters, especially loss and death, as experiences common to all. In contrast to Emily Dickinson or Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigourney wrote for popular consumption, and was among the first American women to establish a successful writing career.

Read more at the  link.

The Fate of a Girl in Male Attire

Image from the New York Correction History Society

The Fate of a Girl in Male Attire.

Several years ago, Jennie Westbrook of New York, who had been earning $7 a week as a saleswoman in a dry goods store in that city, concluded to do better. So she donned male apparel, and passing for a good looking young man, acted as waiter in a restaurant for $15 a week, and finally became book-keeper and confidential clerk for a firm who paid her $1,500 a year.

Somehow or other, her secret became known to those embodiments of Truth and Purity, the bummer police of New York, and she was arrested, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment for the awful crime of wearing male attire and honestly working for a man’s pay.

She went to Blackwell’s Island prison, therefore; but it is a pleasure to state that in a day or two, the outrageous foolishness of her punishment had created such a fussing in the great city that she was released.

The Standard (Albert Lea, Minnesota) Mar 23, 1882

Sarah Winnemucca: An Indian Princess

MISS SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Miss Sarah Winnemucca recently passed through Carson, Nevada, on her way to Virginia City. This notable woman is commonly reputed to be the daughter of the old war chief of the Piutes, but this statement is denied, and it is represented that she was born of Digger parents somewhere in the foothills of the Sacramento Valley, and was educated by “The Sisters” at their Catholic academy in Marysville. Still the fact remains that she is enough versed in the Piute tongue to be able to talk fluently with the people of the tribe, for whom she had frequently acted as an interpreter. She is popularly regarded as the virgin queen of the Piutes; is a plain little woman, pretty dark; dresses like an American female, of rustic habits and modest pretensions; and talks English without any perceptible accent. She is a capable person, and reads our language and expresses herself in writing quite correctly, and with considerable force of expression. We have also heard of her writing poetry. As a reputed princess of the Piute blood royal she is a famous character. — [Carson, Nevada, Appeal.

The Fitchburg Sentinel (Fitchburg, Massachusetts) Aug 2, 1873

THE PIUTE QUEEN.

A Letter From Her Highness to Chief Naches.

[Winnemucca Silver State.]

Naches, Chief of the Piutes, has received a letter from Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute Queen, now at Fort Simcoe, Washington Territory. She says she is well and doing well, and is now teaching a school among her people, which sixty of them, and sometimes more, attend. They have cleared about 70 acres of land and put in quite a crop of corn and potatoes. Lee Winnemucca is working for the agent at Simcoe Reservation, and Mattie, her niece, who accompanied her through the war last Summer, is dead. Twenty-one of the Piutes, who were taken to Simcoe last Winter have died, and there are quite a number of others on the sick list, many of whom are not expected to live. Those of the tribe who were taken to Vancouver as prisoners of war, she has not heard from, and she does not know what is going to be done with them. Princess Sally hankers for pine nuts, and wants Naches to send her as many of them as he can. She cannot tell when, if ever, she and her people are coming back, as they cannot leave without orders from Washington to that effect.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jul 17, 1879

Sarah’s Challenge.

The following is said to be a literal copy of Sarah Winnemucca’s challenge to the editor of the Silver State:

Your statement that I am a drunkard is an infernal lie, and you knew it was false when you wrote it. If you are anything of a man you will meet me and give me satisfaction. I will cram the lie down your throat at the point of a bowie knife. An early answer will oblige.

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Feb 24, 1880

Image from dragonflydesigns – Ancient Voices

Married a California Princess.

SAN FRANCISCO, December 8. — The princess of the Piute Indians of Nevada, commonly called Sarah Winnemucca, was married last night at the Russ house, in this city, to L.H. Hopkins, an ex-soldier of the United States army, who arrived here from Arizona on November 3. The bridegroom informed a reporter that as far back as 1879, during the Bannock campaign, he first met the princess, and was smitten with her charms. Since then mutual feeling has inspired them and, an opportunity presenting itself, they resolved never to be separated again. Dr. Beers was the officiating minister. Princess Winnemucca Hopkins and Mr. Hopkins will take their departure for the east at an early date. The princess is well known on this coast. She has lived mainly in Carson, Nev., with her father, the old Chief Winnemucca, who died a few months ago. She is a bright girl, has a good English education, and looks more like a Mexican girl than Indian. She has regular features and dresses fairly. She is a great advocate of education and has lectured in this and other cities on the wrongs of her tribe.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Dec 9, 1881

Image from Fort Tours

PLEADING FOR HER RACE.

The Princess Winnemucca Before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.

WASHINGTON, April 22. — The Princess Sarah Winnemucca, of the Piute tribe of Indians, was before the senate committee on Indian affairs to-day, pleading for a setting apart of a reservation for her tribe. She was accompanied by a delegation of ladies and gentlemen from Baltimore. The Indian woman spoke in good English, emphasizing her remarks with graceful gestures. As she depicted the griefs of her people, she was frequently moved to tears. She said her tribe was scattered, that they had been driven from place to place, “Two winters ago,” she continued, “while being driven from one point old men and children were frozen to death. She also said that the Indian agents had deprived the tribe of the stores provided for them by the government. The Piutes are located in Nevada. The princess asked that camp McDermott be set apart for them.

The Atlanta Constitution ( Atlanta, Georgia) Apr 23, 1884

Google Book link – Read Online

An Indian Tale.

“Life Among the Piutes,” is the title of a new book just published in the East, the authorship of which is accredited to Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute princess. In the introductory chapter the reputed authoress informs the reader that “I was born sometime about the year 1844. My grandfather, Winnemucca, was then camped at Humboldt Lake with others of his tribe. It was about that time that a party of white men returning from California, was seen approaching our camp,” etc., etc.

The book is said to be full of thrilling incidents in the life of the dusky heroine, (which of course never happened.) It tells all about the capture of Sallie and her brother by the whites and how they were taken to California and educated; how they rejoined the tribe as soon as liberated; how in after years they labored to keep peace between the whites and Indians; how the heroine wrestled with her people to make christians out of them, and to prevent them from becoming victims to King alcohol and other besetting sins forever thrown in their way by conscienceless white men, and all that sort of thing. One or two heart rending love stories, in which the authoress plays a conspicuous part, are also woven in to give spice to the narrative. All of which, no doubt, will be entertaining to people in the East who know the Indian and his mode of life simply through pictures drawn in fancy by Cooper and other blood and thunder novelists, but to those who have lived in Nevada a quarter of a century and are somewhat familiar with the Piute tribe and the career of this dusky heroine, whatever interest the book may contain will be from another and very different standpoint.

Weekly Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) May 3, 1884

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Sep 7, 1884

THE NORTHERN INDIANN.

They do Not Want to Go to Pyramid Reservation, and No Room For Them There if They Did.

The Silver State says:

Leggins’ band of Piutes, who remained peaceable during the Bannock war, were treated upon the cessation of hostilities exactly the same as the captured hostiles. By order of the Indian Bureau, they were taken under military escort from Fort McDermit, by way of Camp Harney, where they were joined by the hostiles, to Yakima, Washington Territory. Naches and Sarah Winnemucca went from here to Washington to intercede for Leggins’ band, and upon the representation of General Howard and other military officers, who were in the campaign against the Bannocks, and who knew that Leggins’ band was not on the warpath, the Secretary of the Interior promised Naches that the exiled Piutes should be permitted to return to their own country, and that they should be furnished a military escort through Oregon. Owing to opposition of the Indian Bureau and a change in the Cabinet, this promise was not fulfilled, although the Indians expected it would be; and after patiently waiting nearly three years, they made their escape from Yakima, crossed the Columbia river, and evading as far as possible the settlements in Oregon, finally reached their native hunting grounds, near Fort McDermit, almost naked and starving. During the intensely cold weather tow years ago, they suffered from hunger, as they had been on the road from Yakima all Summer, and had it not been for the military and settlers, many of them would have starved to death. The Legislature of 1883 asked Congress to provide for their immediate wants, and Congressman Cassidy succeeded in getting $5,000 appropriated to purchase food and clothing for them. About $1,000 of that amount was expended under the direction of the military at McDermit for their benefit, and possible the Indian Bureau may be able to account for the balance of it, though the Indians derived no benefit from it. Subsequently an appropriation was made to be expended in removing Leggins and his band to some reservation. A week ago, E.C. Ellet, a special Indian Commissioner, arrived from the East at McDermit to arrange for removing the Indians. He held a council with the head men of Leggins’ band, and they protested against being taken away from the land of their birth, stating that as their young men could work for the settlers herding cattle, etc., and hunt deer and other game, they preferred to remain, but expressed the hope that the Government would provide, during the Winter months at least, for the old and decrepid of the band, through the military, who always befriended friendly Indians. Commissioner Ellet, accompanied by Lieutenant Colville P. Terrett, then went to the Pyramid Reservation to see what provision, if any, had been made for the northern Indians, and if there was sufficient arable land there to accommodate them. We learn that they found that the lands which the northern Indians would have to occupy on the reservation are not susceptible of cultivation; that the best lands along the Truckee for eight or nine miles below Wadsworth are occupied by white squatters, who have good fences, and comfortable houses; and that Winnemucca Lake, which the Indians claim was originally included in the reservation, is now a resort for Chinese fishermen. They also ascertained that the supplies furnished the reservation were not sufficient for the want of the Indians now there, and that Leggins’ band would have to support themselves or starve if removed there. Commissioner Ellet, after due consultation with Agent Gibson at the reservation, did not hesitate to say that he would recommend the removal of the squatters from the Reservation, but even if that is accomplished there will not be room there for Leggins’ band, the old and feeble of whom, in his opinion, should be provided for where they are.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Dec 11, 1884

SARAH’S LIES ABOUT THE PIUTES STARVING ON THEIR RESERVATION.

Her Story of the Wrongs of Her People and False Charges of Dishonesty Against Indian Agent Gibson.

Sarah Winnemucca is the champion light-weight of the season, as will appear from a perusal of the following interview taken from the San Francisco Call of the 22d:

When old Winnemucca, the chief of the Piute Indians, died, he committed the interests of his people to his daughter Sarah. It was one of the most sagacious actions in the old man’s life. From that day to this Sarah Winnemucca has been the tireless friend of her people. She has brought to her work a fine mind, a generous nature, a fair education and indomitable energy. The first book written in the English language by an Indian is her vivid narrative of the wrongs of the Piutes and her eloquent appeal for justice for her people. In the history of the Indians she and Pocahontas will be the principal female characters, and her singular devotion to her race will no doubt be chronicled as an illustration of the better traits of the Indian character.

Sarah Winnemucca first spoke to a white audience several years ago in this city. The years that have intervened have been spent by her in addressing audiences in the East, relating to them the sad history of her tribe, and appealing to them to aid her people in their destitution. She has returned to San Francisco again. A Call reporter called upon her yesterday to inquire what the condition of her tribe was and what she proposed to do for them.

THE PIUTES STARVING.

“My people are famishing in the snow about Pyramid Lake, in Nevada,” she said sadly. “They are utterly destitute. My brother Natchez, the chief of the Piutes since the death of Winnemucca, my father, has only pine nuts to eat, and the speckled trout he catches in the lake. If he had not foreseen the need of the Winter last Summer, when he went into the mountains for the nuts, he would have had nothing. The Piutes are on the verge of starvation. They are growing weaker and weaker every day for want of food. They have been driven like wild beasts from place to place, and forced back from the meadows and the banks of rivers and streams into the mountains that are barren and wholly destitute of game.”

As Sarah Winnemucca, in these brief words, painted the destitute condition of her tribe, she expressed in her intelligent face the sorrow and indignation she felt. She is a woman slightly apast 40, with a heavy, yet shapely figure. Her face is exceedingly intelligent. She has strong jaws, with a delicate mouth, and cheek bones that are not so prominent as is usual in Indian faces. Her forehead is rather low, but broad, and her eyes are large and expressive. Her glossy black hair was gathered in a Grecian coil at the back, which showed the outline of her shapely head. She has easy command of colloquial English, and frequently expresses herself forcibly and eloquently.

“The Piutes are now on the reservation about Pyramid Lake,” she continued. “They number about 7,000 in all. It has been falsely said that the Pyramid Lake Reservation is rich in game and good lands. That was the representation made to the authorities at Washington when we were driven from the Malhuer Reservation. General Sheridan asked me, a short time ago, if our reservation did not afford us a good living. I told him that high bleak hills that only a goat could safely climb rose out of the water all around the lake; that the only arable lands were four acres on the river. He seemed astonished at the revelation, for he feels very kindly toward my people.”

FREEZING IN THE SNOW.

“How do your people live?” asked the reporter.

“Ah, that is a sad story, It is a wonder that they do live at all. They would all surely have perished long ago if their life-long experience with hardship had not inured them to scant food and exposure to cold. It is snowing now, doubtless, on their reservation, the lake and river are full of ice, yet they have no shelter except the wigwams, made of reeds and tule, no clothing save the bit of calico or blanket that they have picked up. Some of the young men herd cattle in Summer or work on farms near the reservation, and in that way they get a little money to buy blankets for the Winter; but they are the fortunate few. The rest have little to protect them from the cold.”

“What have they for food now?” inquired the reporter.

“Pine nuts, fish and rabbits. The latter is the only game on the whole reservation, and you may imagine how quickly they will disappear when hunted by 7,000 starving Indians.”

“Has no appropriation been made by the Government for the support of the Piutes?”

“My people do not belong to that class of Indians who are regularly provided for by the Government. At the last session of Congress Senator Dawes, of Massachusetts, secured an appropriation of $17,000 for the support of the Winnemucca tribe and Leggin’s band during this Winter, but not a cent of it has yet been spent for us, and I am afraid that it will never get farther than the hands of the rascally agents, who steal all they can get. My people are suffering for it now.”

THE INDIAN AGENT.

“Who is the Indian agent at your reservation?” asked the reporter.

“One Bill Gibson,” she replied with scorn. “He has employed all his relations in positions provided for by the Government, such as teachers, carpenters, blacksmiths and farmers. But they never do anything for the Indians. They live in idleness and draw their salaries regularly. The carpenter has not driven a nail for months; the teachers have never given a lesson; the blacksmith rarely lights a fire in his forge, and the farmer plows only for the white people. If a conspiracy were formed by the most cunning men to desert and neglect the Indians on our reservation, it could not succeed better than the selfish policy of Bill Gibson, the agent, and his hungry relations. Not a cent of the $17,000 which was appropriated for the support of the Piutes has been spent for us. Where it has been side-tracked on its journey from Washington I do not know.”

“Don’t the Indians sell fish and get money that way?”

“Yes; but they are robbed of that too. They are allowed to trade only with the settlers of the reservation. They but their fish at 5 or 6 cents a pound and sell it for 15 to 18 cents. My people don’t understand weighing either. They bring in a load of fish and the settler goes through the form of putting them on the scales and then tosses the Indian a silver dollar or two and goes off satisfied. Everyone connected with the agency is wholly devoid of conscience. They are there to get rich. There are people there who steal everything that the Government sends to us. They steal everything that the Indians own, and they run their cattle on our reservation, driving ours and the game off. It is a wretched state of affairs.”

“Are your people willing to become farmers?” asked the reporter.

“Yes, indeed, if they had but a chance. They are not a roaming, shiftless, lazy people. They want to work in the Summer they take it eagerly. If we could only get a start in agriculture, if we could only get arable land, we could take care of ourselves, but we have been driven from good land to worse, till now we are on about as bleak and barren a spot as there is in the whole state of Nevada.”

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Jan 25, 1885

Image from the National Park Service

Wants Protection.

Sarah Winnemucca writes the Silver State from Lovelock, complaining about the destruction of the Indians’ crops by the cattle and hogs belonging to white people, and asks if there is no law for the protection of the Piutes’ crops.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Dec 4, 1886

Image from A Landing A Day

An Indian Industrial School.

A Lovelock correspondent, under date of the 1st instant, writes to the [Silver State] as follows: “Princess Sarah Winnemucca goes East to agitate the matter of getting aid for building an industrial school on Chief Naches farm at Lovelock. Naches offers to donate a 40-acre tract for that purpose. The Princess will canvass among her eastern friends for their support and influence in trying to get Government aid towards the building of such an institution. There are some 400 Indian children within the country to be educated, and Sarah believes in educating them at home. She says it is all nonsense about the Indian children’s features changing when taken from home to be educated, as some papers go so far as to say, and that their features always remain as God made them. They learn rapidly at almost any school under proper treatment, but the right place to teach them is at home in their own State amid the surroundings of their childhood, with their parents, not among strangers in some distant land. Experience has taught her what her young people need, and the Government should make an appropriation and place her at the head of an Indian industrial school. So far she has conducted her school here without Government aid, having received assistance from her eastern friends, among them that grand old lady — Miss Peabody.”

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 4, 1887

Superintendent W.I. Davis, of the Grand Junction School, with several Indian pupils, will leave here to-morrow morning for home. He expected to take with him at least forty recruits for his excellent school. He would have done so had not Piute Natchez, and his lovely relative the far-famed Princess Sarah Winnemucca, interposed a veto. This latter idolized friend of Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss Peabody can shed crocodile tears over the misfortunes and lamentable ignorance of “my people,” but now that the opportunity offers this “patron of learning” shows her hand. She is soon to go East to collect money to educate “my people,” but she protests against the Government educating them. She dislikes the Government and the dislike is mutual. Her dislike to the Government is her objection to “my people” being educated at the Government’s expense. If Sarah could handle the Government’s money as she does that of the misguided religious enthusiast there would never be a whisper by her against the Government educating the Piute people to which, unfortunately for them, she is a member.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Jun 7, 1887

PDF Link  Newspaper article:  Johnson Sides == “United States Peacemaker”

Combatting Superstition.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca came in from Humboldt last evening and had a long talk with Johnson Sides and other Piutes relative to the fraudulent prophet of Walker River, who is telling the Indians of that locality that the braves of former ages are soon to reappear on the earth to destroy all Indians who have adopted the habits of white people. Sarah and all the better informed of her tribe do not believe in any such foolishness.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Mar 25, 1889

Sarah Winnemucca, the Indian princess who attended Wellesley college, and under the nom de plume of “Bright Eyes” has written several frontier stories, is now teaching an Indian school of her own. She reports that she has fifteen or sixteen pupils, and is getting along nicely.

Daily Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada) Apr 16, 1889

UNRELENTING BRAVES.

They Want Tuscarora Jake to Stretch Hemp.

A council of Shoshone Indian braves was held at Elko last week. Tuscarora Jake, the Indian thug, is in jail for the murder of two members of his tribe. The relatives and friends of Jake offered to give the relatives of the murdered men a certain number of ponies, blankets and money if they would consent to have him set at liberty, and to put up a number of ponies as indemnity for the future good behavior of Jake.

The relatives of the murdered men refused the offer, and said that Jake ought to be hanged, as he not only killed members of his own tribe, but a Chinaman also, for which another and an innocent Indian was sent to State Prison. The head men of the tribe concluded that Jake should be punished as an example and a warning to Indians who are disposed, while drunk, to murder members of their own tribe or others who happen in their way. They think Jake is guilty of a cold-blooded murder and ought to be publicly hanged, so that Indians and whites could see him die. Sarah Winnemucca and Nachez attended the council.

Weekly Gazette Stockman (Reno, Nevada) Oct 10, 1889

SARAH WINNEMUCCA.

Colonel Frank Parker Tells How She Once Saved His Life.

Princess Sarah Winnemucca, who died recently in Montana, was a remarkable woman in many respects, and a prominent feature in the Indian relations of the Pacific Coast for the past quarter of a century. She had but one idea, and that was the civilization of her people. She was the daughter of old Chief Winnemucca, of the great Piute tribe, which included the Bannocks, Sheep-eaters, Weisers, Malheurs and the Snake River Indians, who committed so many depredations in early days in Oregon and Idaho. Winnemucca and her whole family were ever true to the whites, and so far as their jurisdiction extended forced their tribes to peace. Colonel Frank J. Parker, editor of the Walla Walla Statesman, tell how she saved his life and that of his companions in the Malheur country in the spring of 1878:

Sarah was then on her way to the Malheur reservation in the vain endeavor to prevent the reservation Indians there from going on the warpath with Buffalo Horn. One night one of the horses of her team got away, and to help her out we loaned a young fellow, who was along with her, one of our horses to hunt the lost one. Charles Robinson of this city and a boy were along with us at the time, and for the help we rendered her we always gave credit for saving our little company from being killed. The Indians had already donned their war paint and we were in their midst. The very day we arrived on the reservation everything was looking dark. Sarah was all the time in consultation with Chief Egan, and sent for us. Going to her wickiup, she introduced Eagan, and intimated that we had better get, and stand not upon the order of getting. As we only had one gun among our crowd, the advice was taken.

After this Sarah joined Howard‘s outfit, and followed him throughout the Bannock campaign as a guide and a possible interpreter in case of a desire to surrender on the part of the hostiles. When the war ended she was in great demand by the Interior Department authorities, and did good work in having the remnants of her tribe removed to various other reservations where they could do no mischief. She was the only Indian on this coast who ever took any prominent part in settling the Indian question, and as such her memory should be respected.

Col. Parker could not have known old Winnemucca very well, for a more treacherous wretch never lived.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Nov 20, 1891

We called her Sarah Winnemucca, of the mint family? Well, Toc-me-to- which means shell-flower. Have you ever seen these flowers growing in an old garden among their many cousins of the mint family? Well, Tocme-to-ne loved them of all flowers best, for was she not herself a shell-flower?

Her people were Piute Indians, and they lived in every part of what is now the great state of Nevada.

Toc-me-to-ne had a flower name, so she was followed to take part in the children’s flower festival, when all the little girls dance and sing, holding hands and making believe that they are the very flowers for which they are named. They wear their own flowers, too, and after they have sung together for a while one will dance off on the grass by herself while all the boys and girls look on and she sings:

I am a daisy gold and white
Somebody catch me — me!

The grown-up people watch, too, as their children play, and Toc-me-to ne was never happier than when, light as a bird, she danced and sang her shellflower song:

See me – see me, a beautiful flower,
Give me a hand and a dance.

Then after the plays and dancing the children had all sorts of good things to eat, and the flower festival was over for a year.

Only three times did Toc-me-to-ne take part in the flower festival, for when she was quite a little girl, her grandfather, Chief Winnemucca, took his family and went to live in California, and when they came back she was almost grown up.

Her grandfather was very fond of her, and called her sweetheart, so she was sad and lonesome indeed when he left her and went to the Happy Spirit Land; but she did not forget his last words to her before he went. “Sweetheart,” he said, “do not forget my white brothers; be kind to them and they will be kind to you and teach you many things.”

In California the old chief gave to grandchildren new names — Natchez, Lee, Mary and Sarah, and Sarah learned to speak fairly good English. Later, when she came to Pyramid lake, she played with Mr. Ormsby’s children and learned to speak better English. Besides this Mrs. Ormsby taught her to cook and sew and to do housework.

When Sarah was fifteen years old she made the long 500-mile journey to California once more with her brother and sister and her grandmother. Her brothers took care of cattle for good Mr. Scott, who had known and loved Chief Winnemucca, and he gave them good wages, several fine horses, and two ponies for Sarah and Mary to ride. The sisters had always ridden bareback like Indian men, but when Christmas came Sarah was surprised to find a beautiful Mexican side-saddle from her brother Lee, and she learned to ride like the white ladies, and was very proud and happy.

Now the Piutes always would wander about. They lived by hunting and fishing, not by farming, so they moved from place to place wherever there was game. When they were in the mountains rough white settlers came to Pyramid lake and caught almost all of the fish with nets, so that there were no fish when the Indians returned. This made the Indians angry, and so trouble began. All this time Sarah was in California. Her father, Chief Winnemucca Second, and her mother were in Nevada, and she often heard good news from them, but one spring when she was seventeen years old two Indians came bringing the news from her father that he was in the mountains and wanted all his children to come to him, but especially Sarah.

Starting on their ponies they began the journey, riding beside the wagon where the grandmother rode. It took twenty-five days to reach Carson City, but here their father and mother met them, and next day all went to see Gov. Nye, whom Sarah told in English what her father, the chief, wanted to say.

Gov. Nye was very jolly and good, and when he knew how things really were he told the white settlers not to interfere with the Indians, and sent soldiers from the fort to drive the rough men away; so Gov. Nye and Chief Winnemucca became good friends, as they never could have been but for little Toc-me-to-ne and her bright interpretations.

For the next year Sarah talked both Piute and English, and settled many little troubles. She was called friend both by the Indians and soldiers, and her father and she thought often of old Chief Winnemucca’s words and kept peace with their white brothers.

New Oxford Item (New Oxford, Pennsylvania) Nov 5, 1908

Image from Nephilim Skulls International

Seek to clarify Indian myth about tribe of cannibal giants

By BRENDAN RILEY
Associated Press Writer

LOVELOCK, Nev. (AP) — Times are tough for the legendary red-haired cannibal giants whose alleged existence here centuries ago has been debated for nearly 100 years.

Scientists have said there’s no proof the “giants” first described in old Indian tales were cannibals. Chemical staining by earth after burial was advanced as a likely reason why mummified remains have red hair instead of black like most Indians in the area.

Now a new study under way at the University of Nevada indicates the “giants” were about six feet tall, and not up to 10 feet tall as had been claimed.
What’s left is evidence of a tribe separate from principal tribes whose Paiute descendants live here — perhaps a wandering, more aggressive but outnumbered band finally hunted down and killed or chased off.

Anthropologists say the story, while somewhat tamer, is still fascinating. But they concede the old myth has more appeal and, no matter what they say, will probably persist.

Don Tuohy, curator of anthropology at Nevada State Museum, says he’s confident the “giant” myth is about to be debunked. He asked for the latest study after a bundle of “giant” bones were found in a long-overlooked cabinet at the Nevada Historical Society building in Reno.

But Tuohy says the old tale will probably live on.

Dr. Sheilagh Brooks, chairwoman of the anthropology department at UN-La Vegas, is now analyzing the bones which apparently came from the Lovelock Cave, a nearby treasure trove for scientists trying to reconstruct Nevada’s early history.

Dr. Brooks says her initial investigation shows some of the bones were from cows, not giants. The human bones appear to be remains of Indians “maybe six feet tall — big, but not that big,” she says.

The myth was written down in 1883 by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of a Piaute Indian chief. She told of a strange, red-haired tribe of cannibals her ancestors drove into a cave and suffocated by lighting a fire at its entrance.

She said the “people eaters” were so fierce they would leap into the air, snatch arrows whizzing over their heads, and shoot them back at the Piaute attackers.

John T. Reid, a Lovelock, mining engineer, said Indians took him to the cave in 1886 and told him the same tale. But when he entered the cave he found nothing but tons of bat guano.

Reid was unsuccessful in getting an archeological dig started immediately. But miners realizing the value of guano as fertilizer started hauling it out in 1911. They promptly turned up bones, baskets, weapons, tools, duck decoys, various other artifacts and what they described as a 6-foot-8 red-haired mummy.

That spurred the first archeological dig in 1912. A second dig took place in 1924. Thousands of artifacts and about 60 average-height mummies were recovered. More studies followed, including radio-carbon dating which showed the cave was occupied from about 2,000 BC to about 900 AD.

Daily Leader (Pontiac, Illinois) Oct 4, 1976

Woman Prospector Nurses Husband

Image from PopArtMachine

WOMAN PROSPECTOR NURSES HUSBAND

Mrs. Patrick O’Hara arrived in town yesterday from Witherspoon canyon in the Tule Canyon district, with the news that her husband, Pat O’Hara, a mining man well known in Southern Nevada, had on July 23 accidentally shot himself in the thigh. He was hunting rabbits and on stopping to adjust the hobbles on a horse his revolver was discharged, the bullet entering a point high up in the thigh. The nearest habitation to the O’Hara camp is at Lida, eight or nine miles distant and owing to the excessive heat on the desert his wife was afraid to risk the long drive over the desert to Goldfield for medical aid and has herself been treating the injured man, assisted only by the few Indians in the section.

Image from University of Texas Libraries – Nevada Historical Topographical Maps

There is no doctor nearer than Goldfield and Mrs. O’Hara was unable to leave the wounded man until yesterday, when she drove over the scorching Ralston desert for supplies. She says that the patient is now getting on very well and there are no signs of blood poisoning. O’Hara is a member of the Knights of Pythias and has been in the section for some time engaged in mining. His wife says that they have a good prospect with some excellent ore exposed in a large vein. She was formerly Mrs. Casey, and was known as the “woman prospector,” having traveled far and wide over the desert and prospected alone in many parts of the southern part of the state.

— Goldfield Tribune.

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Aug 8, 1910

CENSUS RECORDS showing Patrick O’Hara and wife, Syliva:

***

In 1920, they were listed as living in Lida, Patrick’s occupation listed as miner (gold and silver.) In 1910, they show up in the town of Goldfield, Patrick also listed as a (gold) miner, second marriage for both, Sylvia having had 2 children, but none living.

***

According to the 1930 census, Patrick was no longer working, but Sylvia was a tailoress, in her own shop.

By 1938, old Sylvia was back to propecting!

Reno Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada) Dec 17, 1938

History of the Nivloc Mine – The Beginning