Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/396

354 Francis, who was not yet 12 years old, chopped wood for many of the women who were left husbandless here in Portland. I was a baby in arms at the time. Mother had no money to buy feed for our cow, so she took the straw from the ticks on our beds, mixed flour with it and fed it to our cow, so the cow could give milk for myself and the other children.

"Father made big money in the mines but invested it in other claims, so he came back broke. Later he went into the stock business and became well-to-do, having at one time over a hundred Durham cattle.

"My father, Job McNemee, was born near Columbus, Ohio, October 14, 1812. My mother, Hannah Cochrane McNemee, was born near Chillicothe, Ohio, January 29, 1815. Her father, David Cochrane, was born in Virginia, but went to Kentucky with Boone and Kenton and the other pioneers of Kentucky. He moved from Kentucky to Ohio. Father was 21 and mother 17 when they were married. They struck out for themselves, going first to Indiana and later to St. Joe, Missouri. Father bought 160 acres of land on the edge of St. Joe. When he took the Oregon fever he traded his quarter section for $400 in cash and eight horses. Today his farm is in the heart of the residence district of St. Joe.

"Fred Waymire married my mother's sister. Fred's brother, George Waymire, was elected lieutenant of the wagon train when my people came across the plains in 1845. Col. W. G. T'Vault was captain of the wagon train.

"Dr. Elijah White, who was on his way East met the wagon train of which my father was a member and told them of a more direct route. The T'Vault wagon train, with others, swung south to take this cutoff. Stephen Meek, a brother of Joe Meek, said he could guide the immigrants to the Willamette valley by this cut-off. Mountain men and Hudson's Bay trappers, in former days, had crossed the Cascades by this cut-off and he was confident he could follow the old trail. He became confused