Title: Cooks Travel to Washington
General Information about Item:
- Verbal Folklore
- English
- United States
Informant Data:
- Lester Pinkerton, interviewed November 5, 2017 via telephone. Lester lives in North Idaho.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context: This story was told to Lester by his great-grandfather Bard when he was a child, especially when Lester and his brothers were bored.
- Cultural Context: This is a story about traveling across mainland United States after arriving from Europe.
Item:
- “This was all happening back when everyone was heading west in covered wagons. And they were moving slow. They left in early spring, since nobody really wanted to turn into a popsicle, but it was still getting late when reached the Rockies. Grandpa Bard always said it was one of best sights on the trip. Crossing them was rough, though. There was an incident where Bard wandered away from camp by himself. Bard climbed up a tree to hide and saw a full-grown black bear moseying along a ways off, separated by a stream. All his muscles froze and he just sat there until the bear left. His older sister came to find him just as he started to climb down; the noise she was making scared enough that he fell straight out of tree into the stream. Though he never said exactly, the Cook’s broke off from the rest of the train and headed north to Washington. Several weeks later news reached them of a wagon train bound for Oregon that had been destroyed by disease and the survivors killed by the Indians whose land they were on. It was their wagon train; the Cook’s were the only survivors.”
Informant’s Comments:
- Grandpa Bard used to have one boiled egg and a cup of boiled water for breakfast every morning.
Collector’s Comments:
- This story was interesting because it tells of the travel that still had to happen after immigrants arrived in the United States
Collector’s Name: Hannah Pinkerton ‘19
Tags/Keywords:
- Immigration, Rocky Mountains, Wagon Train, Washington