Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Abstract

Lee. JohnLee, who was made the scapegoat for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, was Stewart Udall's great-grandfather. Udall statescategori cally that thevictims of themassacre bore no responsibility for it whatsoever, and he recounts his own role inhelping tobring descendants of victims and perpetrators together to dedicate a monument to the event near Cedar City,Utah, in 1990. In his own poem carved on the monu ment, Udall asks, "how to cleanse the stained earth,how to forgiveunforgivable acts" (p. 72). Historians have forgotten, Udall writes, that religionwas a central factor in shaping the early settlersand their culture. It led them to create caring societies with the shared goals neces sary for social progress.Not just the Mormons, but Catholics and Protestants also accepted religious society's restraints on their material appetites. Udall contrasts those societies with thatproduced by theCalifornia gold rush, one of themost "hare-brained ventures" inhistory (p. 132).The gold rush encouraged a self-cen tered, socially destructive individualism that was uncharacteristic of the pre-railroad west. That individualism was particularly manifest both in the racism directed against Hispanics, Chinese, and Indians and in the"environmental havoc" wreaked on California and otherwestern landscapes. Scholars have also misread the role of vio lence inwestern culture,Udall asserts, and he chastises Richard Maxwell Brown for elevating short-lived land disputes and conflictsbetween workers and employers to "seminal events in western settlement" (p. 12). Udall finds that themost vicious and unjustified violence was actually directed against Indians generally, in episodes that should be called not "wars" but "atrocities," often as not unprovoked. Even the Oxford History of theAmerican West and the New Encyclopedia of the American West, Udall argues, perpetuate theviolent and sensational aspects ofwestern history and give short shriftto itstruefounders, theearly wagon settlers. In this deeply personal appeal, Udall, debunkingmany mythsmost western historians now readilyrecognize, calls fortheirrescue from the West of William Cody and Hollywood. Bold Spirit:Helga Estby's ForgottenWalk across Victorian America By Linda Lawrence Hunt University of Idaho Press, Moscow, 2003. Photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 324 pages. $16.95 paper. Reviewed by Elizabeth Jacox The Arrowrock Group, Inc., Boise, Idaho old spirit tells the long-hidden story of Helga Estby and her daughter Clara, who, in 1896,walked from Spokane,Washington, to New York City fora ten-thousand-dollar prize. Armed with "a Smith-and-Wesson revolver and a red-pepper spray gun," the women were required toearn their way andwere not toaccept rides on railroads (p. 9). The twowomen made the journey in sevenmonths, leavingSpokane in May and arriving inNew York inDecember. B Linda Lawrence Hunt learned of theEstbys from a History Day paper written in 1984 by eighth-grade studentDoug Bahr,Helga Estby's great-great grandson. Intrigued by the story, Hunt sought to learnmore ? especiallywhen shediscovered that Helgas childrenhad silenced the storyfor many years. The journey,amazing fromour perspective, embarrassed and angered Helga s family. Although she left with a heroic purpose ? the ten-thousand-dollar prize would Reviews 649 save the familyfarmfrom foreclosure ? disas terstruckwhile shewas gone. Two of her eight children died of diphtheria. The familywas quarantined at their rural farm,and neighbors were too frightened of thedisease tohelp.Helga's husband, Ole, kept thehealthy children isolated from the sick by locking them in an unheated shed. He was afraid to provide blankets that might be contaminated and communicated only by shouting through thedoor. For him and for the children, Helga's cross-country walk was no proud accomplishment; she abandoned them and risked her lifefornothing. The prize was never paid. The family lost the farm. Doug Bahr based his short paper on his grandmother Thelma's memories ofHelga, her grandmother, and on a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that recounted the Estby's journey. Thelma and her brother livedwith Helga Estby forawhile afterthey were orphaned inthe 1920s. Thelma became close to her grandmother and sharedmany happy hours reading and talking with her.On a fewspecial occasions, Thelma was invited to Helga's private room where she read, sewed, and wrote a great deal. Hunt writes: "One morning, when the Indian-summer sun was pouring through thenorthwindow, she saw that her grandma was leafing through hundreds of pages of yellow foolscap...