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Milestone Monday

Pioneering Tragedy

On May 12, 1846, the Donner Party departed from Independence, Missouri, and joined a wagon train on the Oregon Trail for their journey to California. This group of American pioneers sought a better life in the West. The nearly 500-wagon train set off with high hopes and the promise of new opportunities, but it would turn out to be a year-long journey filled with hardships. 

For this event, we are showing The Donner Party: Their Tragic Story by Otheto, which was published by hand at Donner Monument State Park in Truckee, California, sometime between 1920 and 1929. The work recounts the tragic events that befell the party, detailing their harrowing journey through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the challenges they faced, including harsh weather conditions and dwindling supplies, and the desperate measures they resorted to for survival. It also details the location of the cabins where they took shelter and the monument that was erected there in 1918 in tribute to the Donner Party.

"Otheto" is likely Evelyn Otheto Stoddard Weston (1895-1990), a California painter and photographer, and a historian of the California Gold Rush era. She was the illegitimate daughter of poet Charles W. Stoddard and American painter Evelyn McCormick. Sadly, her parents abandoned her, and she grew up in a series of orphanages and foster homes until 1914. 

Otheto not only captured the tragic essence of the Donner Party through her artistic talents but also likely felt a deep personal connection to their story. Growing up in orphanages and foster homes, she would certainly understand the pain of loss and survival that mirrored the experiences of the pioneers.

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