Wednesday, August 16, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Of a certain age...
By Sue Stafford
Columnist
Ten days of traveling
across Idaho and Wyoming,
and back again, brought to
life the 1852 migration of
my ancestors from Illinois
across the American Plains
and mountains to the Oregon
Territory, land of promise.
Retracing their steps,
walking in the wagon ruts
still visible 165 years later,
made real the stories I had
heard all my life. These
pioneers, full of hope and
determination, left behind
familiar surroundings and
their elders to strike out on
a journey full of unknown
hardships and unimaginable
losses, to settle a new land
and build a new state.
All across Idaho and
Wyoming historical mark-
ers detail the pioneer expe-
rience, memorializing land-
marks that guided their
journey – Devil’s Gate,
Independence Rock, the
many river crossings, and
the cutoffs discovered that
shortened the journey.
Wyoming provides an
amazing geological and
archaeological look into
not only prehistoric times,
but into what life was like
for those who chose to fol-
low the westward migration.
Many Wyoming ranchers are
conservators of the remains
of the thousands of emi-
grants who died on the trail.
Ordinary plowing of the soil
unearths artifacts discarded
or lost by those who traveled
by wagon, horseback, and
on foot across the vast fron-
tier of rolling plains, ancient
rock upthrusts, high pla-
teaus, and lush river valleys.
One such steward of
these remains and artifacts
is Wyoming rancher Larry
Cundall, on whose land
were found the remains of
my great-great-grandmother,
Ann Roelofson Scott, a vic-
tim of cholera, who was
laid to rest on June 21, 1852
by her family in the ashy
soil overlooking Box Elder
Springs.
On the day Cundall
showed us the graves of
Ann, another woman, and
a teenage boy, his Black
Angus heifers greeted us
as we climbed through the
barbed-wire fence separating
the springs from the unpaved
county road that brought us
there.
It is easy to see why a
number of families chose
Box Elder Springs as the
place of final rest for loved
ones whose journeys were
cut short by disease and
accident. After a strenu-
ous ascent up Emigrant
Hill, the springs provided
a peaceful green oasis with
fresh water, trees, grass, and
wild flowers.
I was immediately struck
by the peace of the site, the
only sounds those of moo-
ing cows, birds, and a soft
breeze. The sun shone and
warmed the soil and my back
as I stood gazing at the place
of final repose for a woman
who endured unbelievable
hardships and discomfort as
a wife and mother, bearing
12 children, three of those
lost in infancy. She left fam-
ily and friends to follow her
husband in his quest for free
land in a far-off place.
Her body, debilitated by
the recent difficult birth of
her 12th child, who did not
live, began the arduous jour-
ney in a weakened state. I
tried to imagine what those
three months must have been
like for her, caring for her
family while traveling 12-25
miles a day in a bumpy
wagon or walking through
mud and dust, setting up
camp each evening, hoping
for fresh water and meat to
supplement ever-decreasing
food supplies.
She probably trav-
eled in pain, as her pelvis
had not completely healed
from being sawed in half to
remove her baby due to an
As I stood over her
grave, an intense rush
of amazement, respect,
gratitude and sadness
swept through me.
Unexpected tears welled
up in my eyes as I felt a
direct connection to this
weary, frail woman who
produced the offspring
who became my
great-grandfather.
PHOTO BY KATHY COOPER
excessively curved sacrum,
creating a narrow birth
canal. It was the evidence of
this procedure that helped to
identify the remains as those
of Ann Scott. The entries
in her daughter’s trail diary
describing the place of her
interment contributed to
the evidence that Box Elder
Springs was the place cho-
sen to bury Ann.
As I stood over her
grave, an intense rush of
See OREGON TRAIL on page 22
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