This may have been the reason why Charles L. Cady got involved - note -
Eliz. Cady Stanton was also interested in using the event -- See 2nd reference
1st --
J
_http://www.google.com/search?q=Donner++Rescue+Cady&btnG=Search&h...
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http://www.google.com/search?q=Donner++Rescue+Cady&btnG=Search&hl...)
_http://www.capitolamuseum.org/Wint99ExhibitNarrative.html_
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http://www.capitolamuseum.org/Wint99ExhibitNarrative.html)
Pincushions to Politics:
Women in Nineteenth Century
Santa Cruz County
Mrs. Frank Lewis had good reason to despise snow, or at least want to live
as far away from it as possible.
As little girls, Martha Jane "Patty" Reed and her sister Virginia filled
dainty porcelain tea cups with the freshly fallen powder and dipped it out with
small spoons, pretending it was custard.
The winter scene of 1846-7 might have made a fond childhood memory had there
not been the reality of starvation and death. Grisly scenes of horror and
agony were a part of everyday life for Patty and her family as they struggled
to survive one of the most terrible episodes in the history of the West.
Even as a child of eight years, Patty impressed her elders as a child with
as much sense as a grown woman. She showed her spirit when the first Donner
Party rescue team arrived and both she and her younger brother were found to
be too small to endure the forty mile trek through high drifts to safety.
Staying behind at the death camp at Alder Creek, Patty turned to her mother and
calmly said, "Well, Ma, if you never see me again, do the best you can."
Finally saved and reunited, the Reed family took up residence in San Jose.
In 1856, at the age of eighteen, Patty married Frank Lewis of Santa Cruz.
Living in San Jose, the couple had eight children. The youngest was three
years old when the husband died in 1876.
As a widow, Lewis supported herself as the proprietor of hotels in Santa
Cruz and Capitola, including the grand 160-room Hotel Capitola, built by
Frederick Hihn in 1890, and later the Capitola Park Hotel, off Park Avenue.
Capitola Park Hotel originally housed workers of the California Sugar Beet
Mill, established nearby in 1874. When the mill was dismantled, Frederick
Hihn, Capitola's developer, purchased the building and moved it to a site across
the road from the train depot. Under the management of the Donner party
survivor, the inn, known as the Lewis House, became a local favorite.
Patty Reed Lewis is among many remarkable pioneer women who helped build and
improve life in Santa Cruz County in the 19th Century. This winder, the
Capitola Historical Museum is featuring a number of these women -- suffragists,
teachers, writers, mothers, artists, and activists -- in a show entitled
Pincushions to Politics: Women in Nineteenth Century Santa Cruz County.
The exhibit tells the stories of self-reliant women who lived here during
the first decades of statehood, when the region was isolated and roughly
settled. The experience of little Patty Reed, for example, was chronicled in the
writings of the first local women's rights advocate, Eliza Farnham, who
arrived in Santa Cruz early in 1850.
A teacher and a nurse, as well as an author, reformer, and suffragist,
Farnham was outspoken in her observations of Santa Cruz society. Determined to
become a farmer and to build a house with her own hands, Eliza was joined in
these pursuits by her friend Georgiana Bruce, a young woman who shared her
activism. Together, they wore "Turkish pants" and delighted in the expanded
roles open to women in the West.
Marrying tanner Richard C. Kirby in 1852, Georgiana was to spend the rest of
her life in Santa Cruz, eventually bringing the legendary New England
suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony here to lobby in behalf of
votes for women.
While the advocates for women's rights were beginning to advance their
cause, another woman exercised her liberty in a different way. Taking on the
guise of a man, Charley Parkhurst became the celebrated female stage coach driver
who actually voted in the national presidential election of 1868. Her true
gender remained a secret until her death in 1879.
While these exceptional women stand out, numerous others have also made
gifts to history even though their names are less well known. These stalwart
pioneers are represented in the museum exhibit through photographs, books,
period dresses, shoes, hats, poems, and, of course, a pincushion.
Capitola Historical Museum, 410 Capitola Avenue, is open from noon to 4 pm
Friday through Sunday. And by appointment. Additional information is
available by calling 464-0322.