"
Poor little Catherine Pike lingered until this time! It will be
remembered that this little nursing babe had nothing to eat except a
little coarse flour mixed in snow water. Its mother crossed the
mountains with the "Forlorn Hope," and from the sixteenth of December to
the twentieth of February it lived upon the miserable gruel made from
unbolted flour. How it makes the heart ache to think of this little
sufferer, wasting away, moaning with hunger, and sobbing for something
to eat. The teaspoonful of snow water would contain only a few particles
of the flour, yet how eagerly the dying child would reach for the
pitiful food. The tiny hands grew thinner, the sad, pleading eyes sank
deeper in their fleshless sockets, the face became hollow, and the wee
voice became fainter, yet, day after day, little Catherine Pike
continued to breathe, up to the very arrival of the relief party.
Patrick Breen says twenty-three started across the mountains. Their
names were: Mrs. Margaret W. Reed and her children - Virginia E. Reed,
Patty Reed, Thomas Reed, and James F. Reed, Jr.; Elitha C. Donner,
Leanna C. Donner, Wm. Hook, and George Donner, Jr.; Wm. G. Murphy, Mary
M. Murphy, and Naomi L. Pike; Wm. C. Graves, Eleanor Graves, and Lovina
Graves; Mrs. Phillipine Keseberg, and Ada Keseberg; Edward J.
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