Which
is worse being burnt to death or frozen to death?
She
knew it was a bizarre question, perhaps a crazed thought; but it had
been brothering her ever since George had made his decision a
decision for himself, her, and their three young girls.
One
hot and sultry day last summer, she thought she’d prefer freezing
to death. Most of the following winter she’d have chosen burning to
death.
Must
it be one or the other? she asked herself, when she heard, “Are you
alright, Tamsen? You look mighty peaked.”
“I’m
cold, George.”
“Good
gracious, Honey! Our fireplace must have this room approaching a
hundred degrees.”
“Don’t
mind me, George. What are you learning from Mr. Hasting’s book?”
“This
Hastings Cutoff
to California sounds pretty good. It knocks a month off the trip and
saves four hundred miles.”
“But
George … do we really want … oh, never mind. I’ll be all
right.” But she wasn’t all right. She was thinking about her
mother, father, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews,
and friends she would never see again.
Tamsen
Donner was happy on their large and prosperous farm in Illinois and
had no desire to travel for months in some kind of covered wagon to
California.
But
the year was 1846, before easy divorces and emasculated husbands.
Mrs. George Donner would put on a happy face and accompany her wild
husband to the Wild West and the unknowns of California.
But
why are men so restless? she often pondered. Pushing the thought
aside, Mrs. Donner again reminded herself that women who are in
competition with their husbands ensure defeat not only of husbands,
but of themselves and usually of their marriages.
But,
without women of Mrs. Donner’s caliber, the American West, nor
East, would have ever been won.
Putting
aside her fears of stampeding buffalos and rampaging Indians raping
her girls and scalping her, Mrs. Donner knew she could not allow her
fearful trepidations to influence her children. She would even lie
and tell their young girls how exciting the trip would be.
But
still, the whole winter she had cold hands and feet and a foreboding
she could not shake.
Tamsen
did, however, put her foot down on one demand: “We must take plenty
of money,” while thinking … I must draw the line somewhere or
I’ll regret it if I don’t.
By
selling everything she could, Mrs. Donner gathered about ten thousand
dollars, which today would have a value of around a quarter of a
million dollars.
The
money gave Mrs. Donner a new concern: how can we safely hide so much
money on a long and dangerous trip? And she fretted on other things.
We must pack pistols, rifles, bullets, about six months’ worth of
food for five people, clothing, bedding, sheets, including two or
three blankets or comforters for each of our girls, George, and me.
And
what about the many farm tools needed to build a new life? The
horses alone required all kinds of equipment: bits, saddles, bridles,
halters, stirrups. Was George adequately taking care to bring all we
would need? Can we even carry all that we will need?
Then
she had the terrible thought: there’ll be no stores … or damn few
… where we’re going. I need to double everything we take with us.
In
preparation for the migration, the only pleasure she had were what
was being called Friendship
Quilts. Ladies, both
family and friends, would get together and make a friendship quilt, a
quilt that would always remind the departing Tamsen of her friends
and family back home. Friends I’ll never see again, she thought,
wiping her eyes.
“Wait
a minute,” she said half aloud to herself. “I know what I’ll
do.”
Later
that night, Mrs. Donner brought her family together and told them,
“This is the quilt the ladies made for me … and guess what … I
sewed all our money into it. No thief will suspect that our savings
is in it.”
“Momma,
we could wrap your tea set in it and put it in your big old hope
chest.”
“Yes,
Sweetheart,” the mother said sweetly, trying to smile, thinking of
all the other things she had to do in preparation for their ever
dangerous odyssey.
On
the trip Tamsen knew she would have to do all the cooking, sewing,
mending, and child care. What she did not anticipate was being
pressed into such tasks as gathering buffalo chips or wood for
evening fires, pitching tents, and driving their livestock.
If
the girls and Mrs. Donner knew that evening, in front of their
comfortable fire, that they would end up walking as much as riding to
California, one must wonder if they would have so easily and
cheerfully acquiesced to the total transmigration of their bodies and
souls halfway across the mighty North American continent.
Tamsen’s
biggest shock, however, would come when she was handed a rifle and
told to shoot the horses ridden by hostile Indians on a raid
Indians who had surrounded their caravan of roughly circled covered
wagons.
Would
many of our pioneers have gone west if they had known it would later
be estimated that there was an average of one grave for every eighty
yards between the Missouri River and the Willamette Valley in Oregon?
Indians
were not the only threat to life and limb. Stock, and even the oxen
pulling the wagons, could be startled into sudden stampedes. Rivers
had to be forded. Serious accidents were frequent, with medical
supplies and skilled assistance almost nonexistent.
Then
there were deadly diseases, such as cholera, that haunted the wagon
trains. Later it was estimated that there were twenty thousand deaths
on the Oregon Trail:* one out of every seventeen pioneers was lost en
route.
*The
Portland (Oregon) Community College has designated April as White
History Month, but with a anti-White
theme of
… To preserve
any
Whiteness is to
preserve racial injustice.
There
will be no mention of the fact that the state of Oregon, the city of
Portland, and the Portland City College were settled, built, and
maintained by White pioneers, builders, and taxpayers.
And
what were the White pioneers going to once they arrived in California
or Oregon? Certainly that would not be a time or place to slowly
recover from the months of hardships across the continent.
After
putting down stakes, their real work would begin, still living in
their wagons, or tents, or crude lean-tos, while building log cabins,
or sod houses.
Food
scarcity would be a constant concern, so a farm had to be quickly
developed. These would be hard, lonely years for women, men, and
children of all ages.
American
men accomplished great feats in the opening of the West; but the
ensuing great migration was a family affair, with much of the burden
falling on the shoulders of women.
Men
may have won the West, but they never could have done it without
their women and families.
With
a plow on the tailboard of their heavily loaded wagon, George Donner
got his oxen moving, picking up other pioneer wagons as they all
advanced westward in April of 1846.
By
the time they reached the prairies on their way to Fort Laramie, in
what is now the state of Wyoming, the tired pioneers, usually called
the Donner
Party
consisted of eighty-nine worn-out emigrants with twenty wagons.
Across
the tall-grass, mixed-grass, and short-grass prairies, they slowly
made their way, children, teens, and adults learning how to
contribute to the ever forward motion of all the families.
One
day was much like another on the prairies, each day ending at ten
o’clock, with only the sentinels awake. The next day began at four
in the morning with their cattle roundup.
“Step
on it, boys,” yelled George Donner. “We’ve got to be on our way
if we’re going to make fifteen miles today.”
The
monotony of the long, hot, and dusty days was occasionally broken by
violent thunderstorms.
At
times, thunder came when there was no rain in sight.
“George,
that sounds like thunder, but it doesn’t look like rain.”
“I
don’t believe its thunder … I wonder if it could be buffalo
headed our way.”
All
the wagon drivers seemed to catch on as soon as George did.
Immediately, they began using their whips, lashing the backs of their
oxen often creating a stampede of their own, causing yet another
later roundup of their cattle.
As
the stampede narrowly passed them by, some of the young men and older
boys on horseback took off after the buffalo, determined to shoot one
or two of them.
The
successful hunters were always honored as heroes. Food, especially
meat, was highly valued on the trail.
Flooded
rivers were difficult and dangerous to cross. Cattle and oxen had to
be herded across by men on horseback. Covered wagons were often
converted to boats and pulled across rivers by guidelines. Merely
getting to Fort Laramie was a major feat.
Wagon
trains bound for California, Oregon, and Utah used Fort Laramie as a
rest stop and general store.
If
I can hold on until we get to Fort Laramie, I’ll be all right, Mrs.
Donner told herself. Her back and legs were in constant pain, with a
dark foreboding accenting her physical condition.
“At
Fort Laramie, I’ll try to do some knitting. That has always calmed
my nerves,” Tamsen told George.
It
was at Fort Laramie that George Donner got some advice from an old
mountain man about the Hastings
Cutoff.
“It
may be shorter, but it’s doggone dangerous. Take the regular trails
that are well marked and safe.”
Without
looking at the mountain man, George Donner continued to squat and
poke at his campfire. Finally he said, “I think it’s foolish to
take those old ways. I don’t think we’ll go far wrong with the
cutoff.”
The
old man sadly smiled and shook his head while saying, “Don’t ever
say I didn’t warn ye. If-ing you make it over the deserts, you’ll
be dang lucky. But ye’ll be even luckier if you cross the Sierras
before the winter snows block them passes.”
George
Donner’s momentous decision did not come until August: Take
the proven trail or try the Hastings Cutoff?
George
Donner made the second worst decision of his life: He took the highly
touted Hastings
Cutoff.
A
few days later, the Donner party reached the desolate Weber Canyon in
the Wasatch Mountains in what is now known as Utah. There, they met
the first of what would be a series of major setbacks. In every
direction large trees blocked their way.
Using
axes, sweaty men, teens, and boys took turns chopping down trees,
with swear words ringing in the forest. With busted blisters and sore
backs the males of the party had difficulty sleeping that night.
George
Donner was unable to sleep for a different reason.
“What’s
wrong, Sweetheart?” Tamsen asked.
“We
broke two axe handles today.”
Tamsen
knew how valuable axes would be on the rest of the migration and
later in clearing land for farming. And she knew that axe handles
would be almost impossible to replace in the wilderness, but she was
also a wise women. She knew that to berate her husband now could
damage his self-confidence. What George desperately needed was her
encouragement and support.
“It’s
not your fault, George. You are a man among men … and … I know
you’ll get us out of this.”
Cutting
down trees was one thing, but unhooking the oxen from the wagons and
tying them to the stumps so the stumps could be pulled up by their
roots and hauled away was another time-consuming ordeal all
devouring precious energy, as food and water supplies dwindled.
Some
ridges were so steep the oxen could not gain footing, so all the men
and boys had to pull each wagon up and over the inclines.
What
promised to be a time saver had thus far cost the Donner party three
weeks to cover a mere thirty-six miles.
Finally
toward the end of August, the beleaguered pioneers came to the Great
Salt Lake basin.
On
a hill overlooking the wide vista, Tamsen Donner exclaimed to George,
“Who in the world … who could image anything so barren? We might
as well be on the moon.”
What
Mr. Donner did not want to tell Mrs. Donner was they had not yet seen
the worst of it. A massive desert lay beyond, with little drinking
water left to cope with it.
Slowly
the dehydrated teams of oxen pulled the heavy wagons across the
blazing sands with what little strength they had left.
After
three days in the desert, the children began crying. “Mama, I’m
so thirsty I can’t swallow.”
“Suck
this sugar lump, dear. We’ll find water tomorrow … when the
desert ends.”
But
the desert did not end the next day, nor the next. Some of the
cattle, horses, and oxen lay down to die.
Several
wagons, with all the precious possessions they carried, had to be
abandoned in the desert. Owners of such abandoned wagons prevailed on
operational wagon drivers to take some of the most valuable
possessions. But resigned to their fate, the unlucky ones trudged
toward the new world, owning little more than the clothes and shoes
they wore and what little they could carry.
“Bring
your coats, gloves, and extra socks,” George Donner yelled to those
forced to walk. “It’s gonna be cold.”
Nonsensically,
a lady walking away from her downed wagon held up a picture, saying,
“It’s the only drawing of my mother I have, and I’ll not lose
it.”
Late
the next day a cry was heard.
Look!
There’s Pilot Peak. We’ll find water there.
Six
days later, the Donner party did find water, saving not only human
lives, but those of some of their horses and oxen.
With
a supply of water, George Donner faced the party’s next major
problem, a lack of food.
Over
and over in George’s mind rang the words of the Donner children.
Daddy,
I can’t eat any more of these thistle stalks.
Charles
Stanton, perhaps the most capable pioneer of the party, located two
of the strongest horses left, and suggested that he and another man
ride ahead to California for food and supplies.
It
was after Stanton’s departure that the Donner party was attacked by
Indians on horseback. The pioneers were short on water and food, but
not bullets, which enabled them to drive off the Indians, leaving
three dead horses no thanks to Tamsen Donner.
Tamsen
could not bring herself to shoot any horses and felt a bit guilty
eating any of the horse flesh the Indians left.
By
the middle of October, the Donner party came to the Truckee River in
what is now the state of Nevada. There they saw the first trees they
had seen in five hundred miles.
The
spirit of the pioneers picked up considerably, as they knew their
long journey would end once they crossed the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Within
fifty miles of the Sierras, they met the faithful Charles Stanton,
who was returning from California with food and supplies.
“The
closest pass is straight ahead of us. But we must get through it
before the snow falls,” Stanton warned.
Group
morale was at its highest and got even higher the further they drove
into the mountains.
Then
on the second day of November, Donner sent Stanton and two others
ahead to cut a trail to the pass.
On
Stanton’s return he reported to the rest of the party. “It’s
only three miles to the pass. Let’s cross it tonight. Once we’re
over it, we’ll be safe.”
“No,
we need to rest tonight. We can cross it tomorrow. Everyone knows
there’s no danger of snow until mid-November,” said Donner, with
general agreement from the tired group.
But
the snows came early to the Sierras in 1846. That night it snowed
heavily, blocking the pass and trapping the Donner party in the
mountains for the entire winter a winter that would be about four
to five months long in the mountains.
That
Donner decision was the worst of George’s life, one that would soon
cost the party the lives of humans and animals.
The
pioneers had no choice but to make camp until the spring when enough
snow had melted in their chosen mountain pass.
Their
food supplies ran so low they were forced to kill and eat all of
their oxen, cattle, and horses.
It
was during this period that some people have speculated that the
party resorted to cannibalism, which might be more supposition than
fact. In any case, they eventually had to boil down the hides of
their dead oxen, cattle, and horses.
In
December, Charles Stanton led seventeen of the strongest emigrants,
on foot, into the pass.
Stanton
urged the families onward, saying, “We must go as fast as possible.
Our food won’t last a week.”
At
mid trip, or thereabouts, another heavy snowstorm hit. With no
shelter to protect them, mothers fell into the snow, pulling their
children to them. Fathers lay on top of both children and mothers,
shielding them from wind and sleet. For two days and two nights,
these huddles of humanity were graphic depictions of how important
both mothers and fathers were and are to the well-being of children.
America
was settled by brave, stalwart families, headed by fathers. And if
our country is to survive, it will do so by brave, stalwart families
led by fathers, even with their sometimes erroneous decisions.
Finally,
Charles Stanton became too weak to go on.
“Go
ahead, I’ll rest here and catch up with you.”
But,
Charles Stanton, the hero of the Donner party, died there in the
snow.
Eight
other people died on the way.
After
thirty-three days, the survivors reached California.
“There
are lots of others behind us in the mountains. We must get help to
them,” the half-alive pioneers told the rescuing Californians.
Back
in the mountains, many had died either from the cold or starvation.
The
first party of rescuers arrived in February. They took twenty-four
people out.
Tamsen
Donner had approached one of the rescuers, a young man who she
thought was honest and capable.
“There’s
ten thousand dollars in this quilt. Twenty-five hundred for you if
you take my girls out and raise them right. Then twenty-five hundred
to each girl when she reaches eighteen years of age.”
“Ma’am,
I’ll get ‘em out and raise them right … or … die trying. But
what about you?”
“No,
I cannot leave my husband. You see he’s so sick he’s dying.”
At
over 7,000 feet, with an annual snowfall of thirty-four feet, Tamsen
lay by her husband’s side. No one knows whose heart stopped beating
first, George’s or Tamsen’s.
Presumably,
it was George Donner who died first, as he was already dying.
If
that was indeed the case, then Tamsen Donner died without human
contact, alone, starving, and freezing to death the one way of
dying she feared the most.
May
God, in his mercy, bless Tamsen Donner forevermore.
Of
the eighty-nine men, women, and children in the Donner party, only
forty-seven survived to carry on the pioneer spirit that made the
United States of America the greatest country in recorded history.
The
Sierra Nevada mountain pass chosen by the Donner pioneers, but never
traversed by George or Tamsen, was later named the Donner Summit.
Today, Interstate 80 crosses that lofty Nevada-California mountain
pass at an elevation of 7,239 feet.
Our
celebration of national heroes and family units has purposely been
sabotaged!
Covert
elements in America have long been busy trying to besmirch the very
names and reputations of our national heroes. They want the Donner
name and the words American
pioneers to be
associated with the practice of cannibalism.
Whether
or not parts of the Donner party degenerated into cannibalism while
dying in the Sierra Nevada mountains is not nearly as important as
Americans keeping faith with their historical heroes who are part of
the fabric that made the United States of America unique in world
history. Hold fast to our American lore of heroes.
We
live in a free will
universe wherein
those of evil intent are allowed to exercise their will as long as it
is not abrogated by those with positive free
will.
But
how can those with positive objectives override evil endeavors when
those negative actions are not recognized for what they really are
demonic?
If
people do not know that the barely edible, food-like substances they
eat have no counterpart in nature, they will offer no objection by
the exercise of their free
will. They will
continue to make themselves sick, only to be made sicker by today’s
corrupted medical establishment all amounting to a further loss
of their individual exercise of positive free
will.
Knowledge
is the key to life and to the application of positive free
will. The first tenet
in the utilization of positive free
will is the
understanding that our world is controlled by a malevolent force
which intends to sicken us all in a perpetual state of total
subservient ignorance, with no free
will at all.
Thus,
we have mandatory government schools that indoctrinate rather than
educate, a controlled media that propagandizes rather than informs,
and high echelons of governments made up of psychopathic killers. The
horrible but simple fact of life is that the governments of our world
have been overrun with madmen.
These
insane psychopaths have been purposely inserted into positions of
authority by the secret puppet masters who are hidden from the
public’s view.
None
of us would recognize the names of the real masters of earth.
Cohesive
family units, complete with mothers and fathers, are the building
blocks of well-ordered, prosperous societies, which are the
foundations of all caring, responsive, and responsible governments.
Nations not built of independently functioning family units will
have tyrannical governments. Families dependent on government welfare
are major stepping-stones toward despotism.
For
at least the last five decades the federal government and effectively
all state governments have been actively implementing the Marxist
Manifesto, the first goal of which is meant to do away with the
natural human family and replace it with only a mother then, only
the state. These acts of madness have already been slyly and
insidiously implemented amongst most Black American families.
Black
children without fathers now number sixty-seven percent; Hispanic
single parent homes number forty-two percent, while American White
single parent homes number twenty-five percent.
Unfortunately
all of the above figures continue to rise, as do the percentages of
emasculated husbands and radically feminized wives in America.
To
our great national detriment there has been an engineered epidemic of
fatherlessness across America, with Hollywood playing its part.
When
I was a boy, a father’s wisdom was often portrayed in television
shows such as Father
Knows Best.
Then
the cultural Marxists, who owned and controlled Hollywood, were given
their marching orders: Portray
fathers and men as
fools.
And
suddenly, it was humorous and sheik to hear a woman say, “I have
three children I must care for … and … I’m married to one of
them.”
In
other words, male bashing became fashionable. From sitcoms to TV ads,
the roles of husbands and fathers have increasingly been of men
playing the incompetent buffoon. In the mass media there is little
that is noble or respectful about husbands or even fatherhood.
But
the causes for fatherlessness have been many: the CIA’s long
practice of importing street drugs; our corrupted family courts; the
widespread major media that demonizes White men and fathers; and
radical feminism.
Radical
feminism has become the main means of destroying our long tradition
of mother and father headed families.
The
husband-wife-child dynamic was vitally important to survival in prior
centuries. In modern times, however, marriages, husbands, and
complete families have lost their luster.
Feminism
is a Marxist construct against the over-hyped societal ill called patriarchy.
Feminism
has not empowered women, but rather made them into victims.
Victims
are never causative. Once a woman claims to be a victim, she is
treated as an object, not as a capable, spiritual being.
Feminism
has done womankind, and continues to do womankind, a great
disservice. If feminism actually helped women, the power structure
would not allow it.
Feminism
is a covert Marist scheme to destroy the human family. As Karen
Straughan has stated, “Feminism is nothing more than Marxism in
panties.”
I
would say, Feminism is merely Karl Marx in drag.
Today,
we have within America those at war with the greater good of us all.
This active force is sympathetic to or directly working for some dark
hidden agenda of an alien force.
The
whiny voices of these agent provocateurs are loud, obnoxious, and
repetitive. Names such as Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Eric Fromm,
and Wilheim Reich come to mind.
Political
action groups such as the Southern
Poverty Law Center
and the Anti-Defamation
League are fifth
column enemies within America but both have been granted the status
of tax-free 501(c)(3) organizations.
The
above individuals and groups are given carte blanche to spread their
poison over all national networks by those who own and control the
major media. And much of their propaganda is directed toward the
demeaning of men especially White fathers as the key to
destroying their ultimate target of the family unit. It seems that on
a regular basis, the major media exposes us to the domestic violence
of wife beating.
And
while everyone (I would assume everyone) knows how crucial mothers
are to the well-being of children, few of us (I would assume few of
us) know how critical fathers are to the healthy development of
children.
The
great researcher and speaker Stefan Molyneux has come up with some
appalling statistics concerning the effects of fatherless homes in
the United States …
90%
of runaway children, 80% of male rapists, 63% of youth suicides, 71%
of pregnant teenagers, 90% of adolescent arsonists, 71% of high
school dropouts, 75% of children in drug abuse centers, and 85% of
imprisoned youths were reared in fatherless homes.
Fatherless
children were also found to be twice as likely to drop out of high
school and end up in jail as children who grew up with fathers.
Children
with involved fathers are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school
and 70% less likely to drop out of high school.
There
is not a more predictable negative outcome for a child reared in a
broken home than a world of pure disaster for them.
Certainly
our enemies know this. So is it any wonder why the Neocons (who
control our federal government), or the Southern
Poverty Law Center
(that tries to control our national discourse), or the cultural
Marxists* (who control our media) have for so long covertly pushed
for fatherless homes?
The
backstory of cultural Marxism began as the Frankfurt School in
Germany, after WW I. The Germans, recognizing the dangers of Marxism
in any form, forced the Marxists out of the country in 1933.
Soon,
however, the cultural Marxists received a friendly welcome at New
York’s Columbia University, where they have prospered ever since.
Was
it Aristotle who said that eliminating fathers from homes is a
fundamental tool of tyrants?
But
like all things tightly wrapped in the rusty barbed-wire embrace of
the American government, all forms of cultural Marxism are to be
recognized for the underhanded attacks they are on decent,
freedom-loving citizens of America.
Additionally,
the cultural Marxists have placed American traditions and heritage in
their gun sights. No longer are we to revere the wisdom of our
founding fathers, ostensibly because some of them owned Black slaves.
But realize, we have never been told that American slavery was an
institution launched and perpetuated by the same dark powers that
today are organizing, funding, controlling, and promoting the deadly
and systemic cancer of cultural Marxism.
Our
early Western pioneers are true American heroes, not to be tainted
with words such as cannibalism
just because a
faction of the Donner Party may have been guilty of it.
Now
in summation, ask yourself: how many of today’s emasculated men,
deprived of their traditional manly roles as fathers and husbands,
could survive on the old Oregon Trail?
How
many of our modern-day, Marxistinfluenced feminists would have
even agreed to becoming a real heroine by joining our early pioneer
women?
The
answers to the above questions cause me to fear for America and for
my fellow Americans.
The
difference between what made America great and what has brought her
down is the difference between the desire for freedom and the desire
for free stuff. Some of us want freedom. Most of us want free stuff,
taken from others at the cost of freedom for all of us.
Our
early pioneers invested their life’s savings, their body’s sweat
and blood, and all their hopes on the freedom to carve out a better,
more prosperous life for themselves and their children, without the
suppressive regulations and taxes of government.
Governments
represent the common denominator of all men, which is far lower
ethically than that of any single noble-minded and enlightened soul.
Our
current political system has no accountability and the system will
not fix itself.
But
know, non-compliance with US governmental edicts often means
compliance with our conscience, which is a far better, more ethical
determiner of our positive behavior than anything any government will
ever issue or demand.
Our
Isthmus of Opportunity
is but a narrow strip of potential, bordered on both sides by danger
and connecting the two larger bodies: one of absolute, compliant
ignorance, and the other of attained enlightenment.
And
as ignorance endangers, while knowledge protects, it is the worst of
times for the unenlightened, but the best of times for the
knowledgeable and spiritually aware to ascend to a more just plain of
existence.
But
remember …
J
Speer-Williams
Jsw4@mac.com
|