Impatient With Desire Read online

  Between us, we had six wagons and twenty people.

  Our neighbors, the Reeds, had three wagons and twelve people. James Frazier Reed, 46, was a prosperous furniture maker; his wife, Margret, 32, suffered from migraines that James was certain California would cure. James claims to be descended from Polish nobility and more than a few people felt he was forever acting like it, but I always thought James knew his worth. (It’s true that he might have been less generous in sharing that knowledge with others.) They took their four children, Virginia Backenstoe Reed, 13, Margret’s daughter by her first husband and loved by James the same as Martha, 8, James, Jr., 5, and Thomas, 3, and Margret’s mother, Sarah Keyes, 70. Mrs. Keyes was in poor health but refused to be separated from her only daughter, and James had his furniture factory build a special two-story wagon to make her comfortable. “Who will take care of her?” the tongues clucked right up to the day we left. “Not Mrs. Reed in her darkened room with her sick headaches. Not the cook, Lizzie, or her brother Baylis, the handyman, they’re a fine pair, she’s deaf and he’s half blind, who else but James Reed takes servants to California?”

  Thirty-two of us left Springfield that fine day, April 16th 1846, seven and a half months ago. One of our drivers, Hiram Miller—who is now one of our hopes—left the party in July to pack-mule to California. Surely he is there and has heard of our plight from James Reed, our biggest hope.

  In high spirits, our little caravan headed toward the “jumping off place,” Independence, Missouri, where we joined a large wagon train California bound. The expected time of arrival after leaving Independence was four months. We thought we would be in California before the leaves changed color back home. And now the leaves have changed and fallen, the winter wheat seeded, turned brown, and already dormant.

  Two months after leaving Springfield, I wrote a letter to my good friend Allen Francis, the editor of the Sangamo Journal. Allen was publishing my letters for those contemplating the trip, and saving them for the book I am planning to write.

  “I never could have believed we could have traveled so far with so little difficulty,” I wrote. “Indeed if I do not experience something far worse than I have yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started.”

  December 3rd 1846

  Dear Betsey,

  Georgia Ann Donner turned 5 today.

  George told her five stories, plus one to grow on, and each of her sisters and I gave her six kisses.

  Elitha also gave her a doll. Frances has had a doll, Dolly, since she was a baby, and Georgia has never paid one speck of attention to it until last week. “I want a doll too,” she said and carried on about it until Elitha said, “Hush, Georgia. I’ll make you a doll.”

  Had she had access to more varied material, I know Elitha’s nimble fingers would have produced a prizeworthy doll. She singed and then scraped the hairs off a little piece of oxen hide, wrinkling her nose in distaste through the whole process, and fashioned it into a doll. She inked in hair, but the leather took the ink unevenly, so the little features on the face are askew, which bothered Elitha, but there wasn’t time to start over. It is a queer little thing, but Georgia thought it was perfection, even if Elitha didn’t.

  Georgia asked me for a raisin cake like the one I made Frances on her 6th birthday in July. “All for myself,” she said.

  “I’ll make you a big one in California,” I said.

  “All for myself just like Frances’s?” she asked.

  “If you want,” I said.

  She thought awhile, then said, “If it’s very big, I will share with Eliza.”

  Of all my children, I worry about Georgia the most. At 5, she is no taller than Eliza, fifteen months younger. Because they’re both dark with black hair and brown eyes, they have sometimes been taken for twins by the careless observer. But Georgia is petite and there is a frailty about her, while Eliza is sturdy as a small oak.

  Georgia began life as a fat, rollicking baby and, as far as I know, never knew a day of pain almost her entire first year.

  Then, one beautiful spring day, I was hanging clothes to dry, and she toddled up behind the new pony, surprising it, and it kicked out.

  We would forever be thankful that the kick that might have crushed her only grazed her tiny leg.

  George carried her in on a plank. We set the poor little twisted limb. She was in agony for weeks. The leg festered, and had to be cupped many times. The fever damaged her heart. She had a long convalescence.

  “Georgia’s just a spoiled little baby,” Leanna has said more than once, and it’s true that we all tend to fuss a little more over her. For her third birthday, George made her a special chair, a miniature of those in our house. It had a high, straight back, and for the seat, he wove light and dark leather strips into a patchwork pattern. Georgia jumped up and down, clapping her hands in delight, and George said, “You’re not one bit happier than I was making it for you, Georgia.”

  Elitha fusses over her most of all. Age 10 at the time of the accident, she had been with Georgia just a moment before and blamed herself. For a time she was inconsolable. She seemed to finally accept that no one was at fault, but throughout Georgia’s long convalescence, Elitha was attentive to her every want and, to this day, remains solicitous.

  After her painful accident and long illness, Georgia didn’t learn to walk steadily until the day her baby sister Eliza pulled her up and led her to the sandbox. Since that day, Eliza has been Georgia’s staff, Georgia Eliza’s shadow.

  December 5th 1846

  Leanna Charity Blue Donner turned 12 today.

  When I showed interest and skill in botany at a young age, people frequently remarked that I was my mother’s daughter, notwithstanding that Hannah Cogswell, whose herbarium and methods of specimen preservation were admired throughout the county, was actually my stepmother. And now I remark similarly about my stepdaughter Leanna. Of all my children she is most like me: intensely curious, adventurous, quick-tempered. Unlike me, she is tall and lean, can run a mile without stopping, and her handsome collection of marbles includes several glass beauties made in Germany that she won from overconfident boys.

  There was a break in the weather, and we were able to go outside just long enough for a snowball fight, which invigorated everyone, and Leanna won fair and square.

  George came up with the splendid idea of giving her a promissory note for a fine mare in California.

  He had given her a feisty pony, Rouser, on her 9th birthday, and every morning on the plains, she and George jumped on their horses to ride ahead to pick a camping ground. One day he even took her on a buffalo hunt, “in the chase, Mother, close beside Father.” Though they were both exhilarated, I said, No more buffalo hunts for Leanna. I would have liked to say, No more buffalo hunts for you, George, but I would have been wasting my breath. The meat was delicious, especially the hump, and a welcome addition to the monotonous baked beans and pickles, but not worth the danger to me.

  Unlike her older sister, Elitha, who rides elegantly and is one with the horse, Leanna rides as she does everything: powerfully, pell-mell, full-out.

  No one spoke of her beloved Rouser, whom we had to leave behind, Leanna sobbing at the back wagon cover as she watched her pony growing small, smaller, until it was gone.

  December 8th 1846

  Yesterday, Milt Elliott came over from the lake camp, and I cannot tell you what a tonic it was for us to see that dear open face. Milt has been with us since Springfield, ever faithful to his employer, James Reed, and to us. George has known Milt since he was a little boy, and though they’re not blood relatives, Milt was only one of many young men in Springfield who would do anything for his “Uncle George.”

  Milt says Mrs. Reed and the children and Mrs. McCutchen are doing as well as can be expected. More than two months now since James Reed was banished and rode off on one horse with Walter Herron, and nearly that long since Mr. Stanton brought back word that “Big Bill” McCutchen was recovering at Sutter’s Fort.
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br />   When the weather breaks, Milt and Charles Stanton and William Eddy and others are going to try again to cross. We wrote out a list of things for Milt to bring back for us. Unable to rouse Jacob to sign the promissory note, George signed for him.

  We have requested horses, mules, and flour, promising to pay for them in California. Outside, I privately asked Milt to also bring back unguent, bandages, and whiskey.

  “You hankering for a drink, Mrs. Donner?” he teased, and I laughed and said, “Strictly medicinal purposes, Milt.”

  December 11th 1846

  Before we could hardly start counting the days, Milt appeared at our door again. Due to soft snow and drifts, he and the others didn’t get as far as the last attempt. “Don’t worry, Uncle George,” he said, “we have another plan. We’re making snowshoes. Graves saw them in Vermont and Stanton in upstate New York.”

  He handed me a letter from Mr. Stanton—addressed to “Donnersville,” which made George and me smile wryly. Charles Stanton traveled in our wagons from Independence on, and a more congenial traveling companion there never was. He was as keen on botanizing as I, and we spent many a pleasant nooning together on the prairies with their vast grasslands and profusion of wildflowers. One day we found wild peas, and my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, was ecstatic.

  In his letter, Mr. Stanton asked if we had any tobacco and if he could borrow my compass. “Graves is coming right back for his family,” he wrote, “and he’ll bring your compass back to you.”

  I can’t lend him my compass, I thought wildly, I’ll need it…

  “Mrs. Donner?” Milt said, and I realized he was waiting for my answer. George was looking at me too. I couldn’t think what to say.

  “We can spare some tobacco,” George said and got up to get it.

  Dec 21st 1846

  A storm prevented Milt from leaving. He was with us nine days, staying in the teamsters’ hut. He sat at Jacob’s bedside with us all night long, George holding his brother’s hand until Jacob died, and he helped us bury Jacob in the whirling snow. He was there when our teamster Samuel Shoemaker died.

  Night before last, poor Milt, shaken and scared by the almost simultaneous deaths of Jacob and Samuel, and the moribund condition of our other teamster James Smith, wanted to leave for the lake camp immediately. It was with some difficulty that George persuaded him to wait until daybreak.

  We sat by the fire, and when I handed him a cup of coffee, his hands shook uncontrollably. I had to hold it for him to drink. “Sammy won the calf-lifting contest four years straight,” he said. “Nobody could beat Sammy.”

  “We don’t understand it either, Milt,” I said. “Young, healthy men like yourself, and we have been unable to rally them. They don’t seem to want to live.”

  “Are we all gonna die like Mrs. Donner said?” Milt blurted out, saying aloud my sister-in-law’s words that had been thundering unspoken in the air since Jacob’s burial.

  “Of course not,” I started, but there was a crash on the stairs as if someone had fallen, and we jumped up just as Joseph Reinhardt, the German staying in the teamsters’ shelter, staggered into our shelter and collapsed. Milt dragged him to a platform. Although she rarely comes out volitionally, Mrs. Wolfinger instantly appeared from behind her blanket.

  Mr. Reinhardt opened his eyes, looked wildly at George. “Wolfinger, Wolfinger. I’m sorry…”

  George leaned close. “Who killed Wolfinger?”

  “Have mercy, O God have mercy, O Gott…,” Mr. Reinhardt said over and over, thrashing back and forth. He lapsed into German. “Ich komme in die Hölle…”

  “Ja,” Mrs. Wolfinger spit out and went back behind her blanket. George tried to soothe Mr. Reinhardt without success until the thrashing and babbling stopped. I suddenly realized that Leanna and Elitha were sitting up on their platforms and Frances stood nearby, wide-eyed. “Mr. Reinhardt has died,” I said. “Go back to bed, Frances. All of you go to sleep. You need your sleep.”

  Even in death, Mr. Reinhardt’s distress remained on his contorted face. Milt helped us wrap him in a blanket and drag the body up the stairs and out into the snow behind the shelter, looking stunned and bewildered the whole time. This time, even though dawn was two hours away, neither George nor I could persuade him to stay the rest of the night in the teamsters’ wigwam—“Not with James Smith, Mrs. Donner”—or even on hides near our fire.

  Milt gone, the children finally asleep, George and I sat by the fire, lost in our thoughts. George met my eyes, gestured toward Mrs. Wolfinger’s blanket, and whispered, “She asleep?”

  I nodded.

  “I didn’t know how to comfort Reinhardt,” he said. “He was such a troubled soul. Was he raving or confessing?”

  “He said he was going to Hell,” I said.

  I opened the Bible to write Mr. Reinhardt’s name.

  DEATHS ON THE TRAIL

  Sarah Keyes, 70, d. May 26th 1846 at Alcove Springs, Kansas. Margret Reed’s mother. Peacefully of old age, her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren around her.

  Luke Halloran, 25, d. Aug 25th 1846 on the south side of Salt Lake, of tuberculosis, traveling in our wagon from Little Sandy, the “Parting of the Ways.”

  John Snyder, 25, d. Oct. 5th 1846 in Nevada territory. Franklin Graves’s teamster, “Driver par Excellence,” accidentally killed by James Reed.

  Hardcoop, 60?, d. Oct 7–8th? 1846 in the desert. Originally from Belgium, one daughter there, name unknown. Abandoned.

  Mr. Wolfinger, 22–26?, d. Oct ? 1846 between Humboldt Sink and Truckee River. Disappeared. Foul play suspected. From Germany, husband of Doris.

  William Pike, 32, d. Oct 26th 1846 in Truckee Meadows. Husband and father, Levinah Murphy’s son-in-law, traveling with the Murphy clan. Accidentally killed by his brother-in-law.

  DEATHS IN THE MOUNTAINS

  Jacob Donner, 58, d. Dec 16th 1846 at Alder Creek. Born in North Carolina, recently of Springfield, Illinois, beloved husband, father, brother.

  Samuel Shoemaker, 25, d. Dec 17th 1846 at Alder Creek. Donner teamster from Springfield. Calf-lifting champion.

  James Smith, 25, d. Dec 20th 1846 at Alder Creek. Reed teamster from Springfield.

  Joseph Reinhardt, 30?, d. Dec 20th 1846 at Alder Creek. From Germany, partner with Augustus Spitzer?

  Dec 22nd 1846

  When we came here, we had some coffee, tea, and a little bit of sugar that I saved for Frances, Georgia, and Eliza. Every night when I put them to bed, I gave them a tiny lump. Every night Uno, on the platform at their feet, waited eagerly for Georgia to finger the fleck of sugar dissolving on her tongue, and hold out her finger for him to lick thoroughly.

  Tonight, Georgia stuck out her tongue for her lump.

  “There is no more, Georgia,” I said.

  Her big eyes filled with tears.

  “Can you get us some at the store?” Eliza asked.

  “California has bags of sugar on the ground,” Frances said.

  Whimpering, they finally fell asleep.

  Ears pricked, Uno waited for his sugar in vain.

  Our Hopes

  1. James Reed, his wife and four children at the lake camp waiting for him.

  2. “Big Bill” McCutchen, his wife and baby girl at the lake camp waiting for him.

  3. Hiram Miller, our teamster from Springfield, who joined a pack mule train in July because the wagon train was too slow for him. He will have heard of our plight from Mr. Reed and Mr. McCutchen. Hiram has no family here but is especially fond of “Uncle George.”

  4. Walter Herron, James Reed’s teamster, who rode off with him after James was banished. We could spare only one horse, and Walter said, “I don’t want to go out there, Mr. Donner.” “You’re his teamster, Walter,” George said.

  In that order, I think, we have four hopes just across the mountains to the west, who will tell others, may already be forming relief parties.

  Do they look east at the mountaintop and imagine us as we look west and imagine them?

  L
ater

  George just had a terrible thought. Neither Reed nor McCutchen will know we lost almost all the cattle in the snow. They will figure we have enough food to last till spring.

  Dec 23rd 1846

  The snowshoers didn’t wait for Milt to get back, and Mr. Stanton left without the tobacco and never knew I didn’t lend him my compass. Jean Baptiste said that fifteen of them started out to cross the mountains December 16th.

  “They sawed oxbows into strips, keeping the curved shape,” I told the children. “Then they cut hides into narrow strips and wove them like this. Something like your little chair seat, Georgia.” I dashed off a sketch of snowshoes for the children. “Wasn’t that clever of them? I saw snowshoes in Maine. You can walk right on top of snow—”

  “Where’s my special chair?” Georgia asked.

  “It’s in the third wagon that has all the things we won’t need until California,” I said, then continued. “Five women, eight men, and two boys went. Three of the women were nursing and their milk dried up. They’ve gone to get milk for their children.”