OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015
Meet strong pioneer women of the West
W
hat do Jason Lee, John
McLoughlin, Marcus Whitman,
Mother Joseph, Esther Hobart Morris
and Chief Washakie have in common?
The three states where I’ve spent my
life commemorate these six in National
Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
Few of us in Oregon, Washington
and Wyoming will have any idea who
they were.
The very concept of designating of-
¿FLDO KHURHV DQG KRQRULQJ WKHP ZLWK
bronze and marble statues in an over-
decorated East Coast
room is obsolete in
our age of rap stars
and money wor-
ship. But who would
3DFL¿F 1RUWKZHVW
residents select to-
day? Matt Groening
and Phil Knight? Bill
Matt
Gates and Gypsy
Winters
Rose Lee? Dick
Cheney and Harrison Ford? It’d be in-
triguing to put a slate of possibilities up
for a vote. (Each state gets to supply
two statues, and they do trade them out
from time to time.)
Controversial as it would be to pick
fresh winners of the Hero Sweepstakes,
new ones might be at least marginally
relevant to nonhistorians. When was
Jason Lee — an early 19th century
Canadian missionary who settled for a
time near Salem — last mentioned out-
side the four Oregon and Washington
elementary and middle schools named
for him?
Only nine women are honored in
Statuary Hall, so Washington and
Wyoming can be proud to buck gender
bias — along with Montana, Nevada,
Colorado and North Dakota. Outside
the West, only Minnesota and Alabama
honor women.
It’s tempting to speculate why the
West places a premium on female role
models. (Public Television newswom-
an Charlayne Hunter-Gault used to in-
vite groans at her high-minded sincerity
by calling such women “sheroes.”) Is
it because in thinly populated pioneer
times we needed women and men to
both be active participants in all mat-
ters? Did the harsh conditions of that
era call forth heroism of one kind or an-
other from everyone? Or did the thrill
of Western settlement simply attract
women who were tough and in charge
of themselves?
D
espite its reputation today as the
mountain stronghold of relent-
OHVVO\ ULJKWZLQJ ¿UHEUDQGV:\RPLQJ
once was a semi-progressive place.
Its motto is “Equal Rights.” It was the
¿UVWJRYHUQPHQWHQWLW\LQWKHZRUOGWR
recognize women’s right to vote. Esther
+REDUW0RUULVZDVWKH¿UVWIHPDOHMXV-
tice of the peace in the U.S. in 1870,
serving in South Pass City, where my
family owned one of our several pictur-
esque but no-account gold mines.
Matt Winters collection
LEFT: This is the only known photo of Mary Elswick, the first white woman to run a shell-
fish business in Olympia, Wash. ABOVE: A shellfish-processing crew — possibly Chi-
nese-American — pauses for a photo in about 1895 in front of the Elswick oyster plant on
the Olympia, Wash., waterfront. This structure can also be glimpsed behind the Elswick
residence in the accompanying photo on this page.
Matt Winters collection
The Olympia Oyster House on West 4th Street in Olympia, Wash., was operated in
the 1890s and early 20th century by Mary and Joseph Elswick. The photo is by early
female Western photographer Ida B. Smith.
,Q IRXUWK RU ¿IWK JUDGH ZH VSHQW D
few classroom weeks on state history,
learning the probably apocryphal story
of how Hobart Morris hosted an 1869
tea party to politely strong-arm candi-
GDWHV IRU WKH ¿UVW WHUULWRULDO OHJLVODWXUH
into supporting women’s suffrage.
,Q UHDOLW\ WKH GHFLVLRQ ÀRZHG IURP
a complex set of motives. (See tinyurl.
com/mqkcc7b.)
maker purportedly said, “if you are going to
let the n----rs and the pigtails [the Chinese]
vote, we will ring in the women, too.”
W
ashington Territory was unsuc-
cessful in an 1854 effort to give
women the vote, but females neverthe-
OHVVZHQWRQWRSOD\PDMRUUROHVLQWHU-
ritorial enterprises. Two more recently
came to my attention.
Did the thrill of Western settlement
simply attract women who were tough?
For one thing, Wyoming had six
adult white men for every white wom-
an and wanted to attract more. For an-
other, in the anxious post-Civil War era,
Wyoming Territory’s governor was a
Republican appointed by U.S. Grant,
while legislators were southern-sym-
pathizing Democrats. The two sides
were intent on embarrassing one an-
other and winning political advantages.
Democratic legislators thought grateful
women would vote Democrat, coun-
terbalancing African- and Chinese-
Americans who were being encouraged
to vote by the Republicans.
“Damn it,” an unnamed Democratic law-
35 to 40 cents a gallon,” according to the
March 1906 edition of PDFL¿F FLVKHUPDQ
magazine. “She has been interested in the
oyster business for ten or twelve years ...
During the year of 1902 Mrs. Elswick
shipped as far east as Illinois and some-
times even to New York.”
A photograph of the Elswicks recent-
ly turned up — in an Arkansas auction
of all places — along with the oyster
house, residence and a separate image
RIWKHLUVKHOO¿VKSURFHVVLQJEXLOGLQJRQ
the waterfront behind the house. Both
were taken by pioneer photographer
Ida B. Smith, whose 1890s studio must
KDYHEHHQDPRQJWKH:HVW¶V¿UVWRSHU-
ated by a woman.
Perhaps because she felt herself to be
something of an outsider, Smith seems
to have made an effort to document
Chinese-Americans in a time when the
KKK and labor groups were exhibiting
tremendous antagonism toward them.
The Elswick processing-plant photo
includes what appears to be a Chinese
crew, while the Washington State
Historical Society has in its collection a
wonderful formal portrait taken by her
of the Jim Ah Toone and Nettie Chiang
James family.
We ought to do more to recognize
early Western female leaders like Mary
Elswick and Ida Smith. Thinking of all
the strong, fantastic women in my life
— the products of natural selection —
I’m sure their great-great-grandmothers
also were individuals I would absolute-
ly love to have known.
Mary Elswick was the state’s
¿UVW ZKLWH ZRPDQ WR OHDG D VKHOO¿VK
business. Initially with her husband
-RH VKH VHW XS WKH ¿UVW RI WKH FLW\ RI
Olympia’s still-thriving oyster oper-
ations, probably by 1894. Joe is de-
scribed as a brakeman, age 46, in the
1892 Thurston County Census and
Mary, 36, is listed without occupa-
tion in that year. But in the 1902-03
Olympia city directory, Joe is iden-
WL¿HG DV SURSULHWRU RI WKH 2O\PSLD
Oyster House at 420 West 4th, living
— M.S.W.
next door at 416 West 4th.
&KLQRRN OEVHUYHU DQG &RDVW RLYHU %XVL-
“Mrs. Mary Elswick makes a special- QHVV -RXUQDO HGLWRU MDWW WLQWHUV OLYHV LQ
ty of the open clams, which sell at from IOZDFR, WDVK., ZLWK KLV ZLIH DQG GDXJKWHU.
Open forum
Taking over docks
I
t has come to not only my atten-
tion, but also Astoria residents,
that the sea lions have completely
taken over the nearby docks and
drastically put an decrease on our
¿VK %LRORJLVWV VD\ WKH\¶OO VWD\
JRUJLQJ RQ WKH ¿VK DQG ZLOO OLNHO\
continue to feast when the chinook
salmon arrive in the spring.
This is a huge problem that has
been going on for four years and is
only getting worse. I feel that we
QHHG WR ¿JXUH RXW D VROXWLRQ WR GH-
crease the sea lion problem — may-
be not completely, but at least to
where the docks are safe to properly
XVH DJDLQ DQG RXU ¿VK SRSXODWLRQ
starts to increase.
The section of the docks the sea
lions have taken over used to be able
to hold a lot of boats, but now no-
body can get down there to use it.
PXQH*02RUJHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HG
offspring. By submitting to the pro-
cedure, couples are soon to be capa-
ble of having babies that will grow
up totally defended from disease.
Mansatan retains propriety over
the GMOs by virtue of their patents;
and couples may not propagate (sow
the seed, as it were) without permis-
sion from the company. Of course,
if you want to have babies you may
have to agree (and be held legally ac-
countable) to raise your children by
company directives; those children
will not be able to cross town and
GMO concerns
FRQFHLYHNLGVRIWKHLURZQZLWKMXVW
KDGWRZULWHDQGWHOO\RX²,MXVW anyone, because their “seed” (sperm
returned from an amazing trip into and/or egg) is the company’s prop-
the future. The world had conquered erty.
But no one gets sick. Such a god-
diseases we now think may never be
curable. That was (will be) thanks to send as this has totally won over
an amazing company called Man- the population of Earth, and no one
satan, which develops a totally im- FRQWLQXHV WR REMHFW VDYH IRU D IHZ
Not only have the sea lions overpop-
ulated the docks, but they have been
destroying them. They have already
destroyed one nearby dock that is
QRZMXVWSLOLQJVLQWKHZDWHU
Port operations managers have
said sea lions cost them $35,000 dol-
lars a year. This problem needs to be
stopped now, before people start los-
LQJ WKHLU ¿VKLQJ MREV DQG DOO RI RXU
GRFNVDUHMXVWSLOLQJVLQWKHZDWHU
AMBER JONES
Astoria
I
T HE
D AILY A STORIAN
Founded in 1873
humans who are ignorant of, or in
denial of, the science and history of
sickness and the medicine.
OK, I made it up, I never went
to the future. But the story can
stand on its own in the context of
the recent editorial about Monsan-
to (“Monsanto is sorry, but decades
late,” TKH DDLO\ AVWRULDQ, April 2).
I will add that writer has said that
JHQHWLFDOO\PRGL¿HGRUJDQLVPFULW-
LFV KDYH QR VFLHQWL¿F HYLGHQFH RI
GMO health complications, as if
the concerns about restructuring the
ZD\KXPDQLW\JURZVIRRGZDVMXVW
a triviality.
The writer also says these remark-
able GMOs may be the only way to
grow enough food for the earth’s
population. Yet, on these very pages,
an editorial told me that the cause of
starvation on our planet is not due to
our inability to grow enough food,
but because of poverty. Millions of
people cannot afford, or don’t have
access to food because of econom-
ics, infrastructure, politics, etc.
I, for one, don’t believe that
Monsanto’s “solution” to food pro-
duction has earned them the right
to encroach upon the whole eco-
system of farming, and even eating.
6R0RQVDQWRGLG³DQH[FHOOHQWMRE
in marketing”, and “applied equally
impressive innovation to its business
practices”; and their “critics ... wield
powerful emotional arguments that
aren’t backed by science.”
But there are other concerns here
WKDQMXVWZKDWJRHVRQLQP\VWRP-
ach.
From someone still trying to be-
lieve in feeding humanity without
turning it over to Monsanto ...
MIKE TUELL
Long Beach, Wash.
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager