When the Oregon Territory was opened
for homesteaders in the early 1840's, my
grandmother - Martha Jay Scott - a widow decided to join
one of the wagon trains heading starting
for Oregon. She was living with her nine children
on a small ranch in the Illinois hills -
where she was teaching she taught school and raised all the
food possible on her land.

Her family consisted of four sons and
five daughters. The oldest was William who 16 yrs
old - then Andrew - Louis and James. Daugters
Jane, Narcissus, Elizabeth, Fanny and Susan.

Sons
William Scott maried in Oregon and had
two sons - Arthur Scott who was became a well
known Doctor in Portland or Seattle - Joseph Scott
who was a member of the Oregon Legislature
for several years.

Andrew Scott married Sarah Ellen Baker
from Illinois - They had seven children - the first
child Charles - died in infancy - Joseph Jay, Elizabeth,
Viola, Clyde, Ralph & Ethel.

James Scott never married - lived and
worked at home all his life (He was our
favorite Uncle).

Daughters
Jane Scott married in Oregon. She
died very young. I never saw her.

Narcissus and Fanny {????} never married.
They lived at home.

Susan Scott married a man named
{Gerking?} in Oregon. They had children but
I don't know how many. She outlived all
the other members of Grandmother's Family.

Elizabeth Scott (my Aunt Betty) left her home
to live with us when our Mother
died of typhoid fever when I was 2 1/2 years old.

She was a young woman and loved
our mother very much. She lived with us
and gave us very loving care until my
Dad remarried when I was in the first
year of High School. At that time she moved
to Long Beach to live with her mother - sisters
& brother. That was a sad time in her
life and mine. She wsa the only Mother
I had ever known - and we were her only
children. She was a wonderful person -
She came to stay with me when your
mother was born - At that time I told
her again & again about how good she
had been to us -- and had spoiled us -
Her reply "Oh I don't think so - I was
always afraid that I couldn't be as
good to you as your Mother would have been".

I don't know just where Grandmother's
family & group settled first in Oregon but
she told me how the men all cut
the logs and built their cabins - and
she taught school for her children
and the other in their settlement.

I was about 4 years old when I was
first taken to Oregon and at that time
{Grandma????} had a section of beautiful
wheat land in Easter Oregon near the
town of Athena, where we went church each Sunday.

I remember the large white two story
houses - the huge barns - the horse
(or mule) drawn harvester - the grove
of tall locust treas near the house
where my Uncle Jim made me a rope swing.

I remember sitting by Grandmother
fascinated by stories the experiences
she told about on the long
difficult trip from Illiniois to Oregon.
Shew as very proud that a place
on the trail - Scotts Bluff
was named for her as the only
widow and family in the train.

After such an active busy life
Grandmother lived to be 95 yrs old -
insisted on an upstairs bedroom and
went up & down any time she wished -
until a week before her death. She
was a small woman - like your Mother
Ellen, - and the older she became
the smaller she became.

So - Ellen - if you meet any
{Gerkings?} they could be descendants
of grandmothers daughter Susan -
and Scotts! They are probably all over
the Northwest.

Wish I had more information
for you - but since I was the
"baby" in the family I was too young.

And in those days people could
not travel to see relatives like they do now.