From Great grandmothers diary

Great Grandmother Marena Michael

I Marena Ann Smith was born in Vermillion County Illinois January 22,1837 and moved with my parents to Iowa in 1838.. we settled on the Skunk River five miles from Richmand ..
The river bottom country in that early time was not healthful and in april 1852 , my father Elijah E Smith started to the Oregon country to seek a more healthful climate. But while crossing the plains he was stricken with cholera and died..He was buried on July fourth 1852 at th Platte River .. As I rember it seems to have been the saddest day of my life..Mother Brothers and sister were found to go onward to the west alone leaving there loved one buried in the desert sand,surrounded by wild animals and indians..

Cholera Flag on Every Wagon

Each wagon carried a flag to indicate that the train had been stricken with cholera..
The long trail over the sandy Desert and the Rocky Mountains was very long and tiresome we finnally reached the Dalles in Oregon Country
Here we Crossed the Great river by by lashing our wagons together and used them for a raft ..
we came to the great falls where we camped for a short time..
What impressed me the most and filled me with horror was all the large piles of indian Skulls piled there due to a smallpox outbreak.. We went on west down the trail and some good Oregon Pioneers (Louis Love) came out and brought us to the Columbia Slough. Four miles East of Portland..
we rented a house from them and bought provisions for the winter .. What is now Portland then was a Large forrest of fir trees, with just a few log cabins near the river.
The Indians were very kind to us . My ancestors were Quakers and my father taught us to be kind to them and they would be kind to us.

My older sister obtained work at Captain Louis Loves House and I went to work for the Switzlers that owned the ferry to Vancouver.. I was so compled to spend a gold dollar my father had given me for a keepsake for a calico dress,before I could go to work .. Mr Switzler paid me $3.00 a week..
I was treated as one of the family William Switzler knocked a soldier off the porch for winking at me one day,, such was the gallentry of an early pioneer protecting a fatherless 15 year old child..

The folling year my older sister married William Payne.. and had a home of her own
In the spring of 1853 we moved to Linn County Oregon near where relatives had settled..
Mother took up a piece of land DLC which she sold to pay the debt she owed for comming across the plains after my fathers death..

Married to escape Service

I became so tired of working for other people that I conluded that I should get married and and get a home for myself.. the prospects were not good ,, a couple of farmers a preacher and a doctor was all that were avabile,, I was uneducated so I picked a farmer because I thought I would make a suitable wife for a farmer..
So in october of 1853 I was married to E G Michael a pioneer farmer of 1847.. I was almost 17 and he was a young boy of 21 .. I had worked for his parents several months previous to our marriage.. I put on a long dress an after our marriage we went to some land three miles south of Harrisburg Oregon .. we soon had a cabin built of our own

Fifty dollar Gold slugs were Common

The gold mine of California were at there best and there seemed to be plenty of money.fifty dollar gold pieces were very common..
We built the first sawmill and flourmill at Harrisburg Oregon. And owned part intrest in them for a number of years. Then we traded them for cattle which we sold for beef.. We then moved to his fathers donation land claim where we raised cattle and beef ,,Some years later my husband felt it was his duty to preach the Gospel and became a minister of the ME church .. This was the end of making much money..
He spent 33years in active service which covered all of Oregon Washington and Idaho as Circuit rider and presiding Elder of the M E Church.. we went to the general conferance as delagate from the West in Baltimore in 1888 ...He died in Spokane in 1902

During our lives we had 13 children born to us, All have passed to the other side

As a traveling minister scatters seeds of truth , his family is scattered all over the land where he has traveled..

We forsook houses and land for the service of our Lord and Crist and his Gospel but we truly have received an hundred fold in this life as there is scarcely any place in Oregon that I go whose whos hearts and homes are not open to me...

Marena Ann Michael

Written by Great grandmother Marena Ann Michael moms grandmother