Told by the Pioneer's - Washington Secretary of State

Told
by the Pioneers
talk with him as he was going home, and told him of meeting a woman
at Ebey's Landing--a ver~' handsome woman whom he would have
made every effort to marry, only that she had a husband in Olympia
and was on her way to join him. JIeaning my mother!
Mother started for Olympia on the little sidewheeler Lily: but when
;.;he was almost there-in fact in The Xarrows-the little boat sank.
She never forgave the men on the boat; for they all scrambled into a
;.;mall boat and rowed away, leaving mother and a fe\\" others up to
their armpits in water for uearly 24 hours!
In course of time, mother found herself alone iu Olympia, earning
her living with her sewing machine, but with many good friends. She
\\'as married to Captain Holbrook on Christmas eve, 1860. Shortly after
the wedding, my mother and father left on a sailing vessel for
Whidby Island. rrhey came as far as Seattle in this vessel, then took
a canoe with six Indians to paddle the remainder of the way. A gTeat
storm came up, and mother won my father's admiration by not utteriug
a sound or appearing to be at all frightened. She came from a
long line of sea captains her father's immigrant ancestor having
been Captain John Low, rear-admiral of Governor .John -Winthrop's
fleet in 1630.
As the canoe came up Penn's Cove, to J1rs. Libby's house, that old
friend and neighbor came down to meet J1 r. Holbrook's new wife; and
her first words of 0Teetino '
~ ~
were ,., ",'"']1\' I thoug'ht vou . were an In-
(lian woman JIr. Holbrook, I thonght you had brought home a squaw
after all!" But it was only my father's big bandana handkerchief that
mother had tied around her head \\,hirh had deceived her.
After mother moved into her new home, my father derided to plow
up his virgin pastnre, where San de Fnca now stands. .:\10ther, always
a good sport, drove the horses while he held the plow during the
breaking up of that tough fifty acres. I imagine they grew ver~' well
acquainted and became good chums ill those pioneer days .
When my father first brought my mother to the new house, he
thought it wise as a safeguard for mother, to frighten the Indians, as
he had to be awav• sometimes. So he told them that mother was very•
strong and vicious, and had killed an Indian up the Sound. She had no
trouble with the Indians but once. Old Knltus .Jolm came into the
cabin one day, squatted down before the fireplace and began to smoke
his filth~' old pipe. .:\10ther asked him to get up and out, but he only
grunted. Then, knowing that if she gan:, in this time it would be all
up with her so far as the Indians were concerned, mother took him by
the coat collar, dragged him to the door and pushed him out, closing
the door behind him. Then, with a big stick of wood in her hand, she
waited for what she knew would inevitably happen. Soon the door
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