Mrs. Marble, the only other survivor of the massacre at Lake Okoboji and Spirit Lake, likewise found her husband’s claim preëmpted upon her return. Less fortunate than Mrs. Sharp, she was unable to secure any compensation. For some years she was lost to the knowledge of her Iowa and Minnesota friends. At length, in the early eighties, she was located at Sidell, Napa County, California. Meanwhile, she had married a Mr. Silbaugh. Since then little information has been obtained concerning her, other than that of her death a number of years ago.[360] Thus Mrs. Sharp is now the sole survivor of the massacre at the lakes. With the survivors of the Springfield massacre it has been different. All who survived were able to regain their claims, since they returned within a brief time to the scene of the massacre and before their holdings had been preëmpted by settlers in the rush of 1857-1858. In 1913 occurred the death of Mrs. Irene A. Thomas whose cabin was made the rendezvous of the settlers at Springfield, and whose son Willie was the first known victim of the Indian attack. Her husband, it will be recalled, had one arm so badly shattered as to necessitate amputation upon reaching Fort Dodge. A remaining son, Valentine C. Thomas, who was a young boy at the time of the massacre, later served as a minister in Marshalltown, Iowa, where he died in August, 1915. Mrs. Eliza Gardner McGowan was at that time still living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It will be recalled that following the return of the relief expedition to Fort Dodge she married William R. Wilson, a member of the expedition. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Wilson lived at Hampton and Mason City, Iowa. Some time after Mr. Wilson’s death, Mrs. Wilson married a Mr. McGowan and removed to Fort Wayne. It may be remembered that Johnnie Stewart escaped by hiding in the dooryard of his home while the members of his family were being ruthlessly slaughtered by the Indians. After the Indians left he crawled to the Thomas cabin, which he reached at dusk, was recognized and taken in. In 1915 he was living at Byron, Minnesota; and, from the latest information obtained he is still living at that place. There also survives a Mrs. Gillespie of Blaine, Washington, who at the time of the Springfield attack was Miss Drusilla Swanger, sister of Mrs. William L. Church. As we of another generation seek recreation at Okoboji, let us pause in retrospection. Let us, “when we contemplate the dangers braved, the hardships and privations endured, and the final suffering and sacrifice which fell to the lot of the victims whose dust and ashes have been gathered together and interred in this historic spot”, be conscious that we are paying “a deserved tribute to courage and self-denial, endurance and self-sacrifice”.[361] NOTES AND REFERENCES CHAPTER I [1] See Richman’s _John Brown Among the Quakers, and Other Sketches_, p. 203. [2] _Senate Documents_, 1st Session, 32nd Congress, Vol. III, Doc. No. 1, p. 411.