Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget SoundDenny, Emily Inez
History
Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
Denny, Emily Inez
Indians of North America -- Northwestern States; Oregon Territory -- History; Washington (State) -- History
A little incident occurred in the fort which showed her strong
temperance principles. One of the officers, perhaps feeling the need of
something to strengthen his courage, requested her to pour out some
whisky for him, producing a bottle and glass; whether or no his hand
was already unsteady from fear or former libations, she very properly
refused and has, throughout her whole life, discouraged the use of
intoxicants.
A number of the settlers remained in the fort for some time, as it was
unsafe for them to return to their claims.
On the 16th of March, 1856, her second child was born in Fort Decatur.
With this infant and the elder of two years and three months, they
journeyed back again into the wilderness, where she took up the toilsome
and uncertain life of the frontier. "There was nothing," she has said,
"that was too hard or disagreeable for me to undertake."
All the work of the house and even lending a hand at digging and
delving, piling and burning brush outside, and the work was done without
questioning the limits of her "spere."
They removed again to the edge of the settlement and lived for a number
of years in a rose-embowered cottage on Seneca Street.
Accumulating cares filled the years, but she met them with the same high
courage throughout. Her sons and daughters were carefully brought up
and given every available advantage even though it cost her additional
sacrifice.
Her half of the old donation claim became very valuable in time as city
property, but the enormous taxation robbed her to a considerable extent
of its benefits.
The manner of life of this heroic mother, type of her race, was such as
to develop the noblest traits of character. The patience, steadfastness,
courage, hopefulness and the consideration for the needs and trials of
others, wrought out in her and others like her, during the pioneer days,
challenge the admiration of the world.
I have seen the busy toil, the anxious brow, the falling tears of the
pioneer woman as she tended her sick or fretful child, hurried the
dinner for the growing family and the hired Indians who were clearing,
grubbing or ditching, bent over the washtub to cleanse the garments of
the household, or up at a late hour to mend little stockings for
restless feet, meanwhile helping the young students of the family to
conquer the difficulties that lay before them.
The separation from dearly loved friends, left far behind, wrought upon
the mind of the pioneer woman to make her sad to melancholy, but after a
few years new ties were formed and new interests grasped to partially
wear this away, but never entirely, it is my opinion.
She traveled on foot many a weary mile or rode over the roughest roads
in a jolting, springless wagon; in calm or stormy weather in the
tip-tilting Indian canoes, or on the back of the treacherous cayuse,
carrying her babes with her through dangerous places, where to care for
one's self would seem too great a burden to most people, patient, calm,
uncomplaining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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