Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/403

Rh has lived in his family seven years. She is like a daughter to them. She will be married in the course of a few months to Lewis Hazlett. Elizabeth is teaching school. She has taught off and on for the last three years. I do not know whether she will marry soon or not. She is engaged but will not marry she says till she has made something. I will be 20 years old on the 17th of next April. E will be 18 the 6th of July. M will be 16 the 6th of October. H will be 11 the 22d of May. She was a baby 5 months old when mother died in the spring of 44. We started for Oregon in good heart and spirits about July I think it was. I fell out of the wagon, the wheels passing over me broke one leg very badly. Father would not allow a doctor to be called but set and tended it himself. I have got over it now so I hardly limp at all to the surprise of all that knew me then. A lady who was present at the time told me a few days ago that she never expected to see me live. In a few days after this accident father took what they called the yellow fever, a species of the camp fever, of which he died. He put his family in care of the captain of the company and requested him to leave them at Dr. Whitmans. I was too young then to notice dates so I cannot tell you when he died, but I think it was in August. Mother's health was very feeble at the time of his death and the care of a family of seven children, one a babe and me helpless and as much trouble as an infant, besides perplexities of travelling, soon broke her down. She became delirious before she took her bed and at times was perfectly insane. The way she called and moaned and called her Henry during these spells was heart rending and I shall never forget it but, poor woman, she did not have long to mourn for in 26 days she followed her beloved husband. A few days before she died she was conscious and bid us all adieu; told us that we must be good children; she then called the driver of our team and told him to take her children over to Dr. Whitmans and he done so. She then became unconscious and remained so till she died. She died so easy no one knew for several hours that she was dead