Yellow Roses and Purple Flags

The following article was written by Miles F. Potter of Portland, whose parents were pioneers in Morrow County. Mr. Potter grew up in the area.
With his mother, now 88 years of age, he will be in Heppner for Memorial Day. This article was sent to Dr. A.D. McMurdo who passed it on to the Gazette Times.

The Oregon pioneers were a hard breed, filled with raw courage and a desire to build for themselves and their children a new home in a new country. They streamed Westward on the long journey across the plains, the rivers and the mountains, their meager possessions packed away in the old prairie schooner.

Many of them failed, their unmarked graves are lost and forgotten by the side of the Old Oregon Trail.

It is from those who made it, that our heritage springs and of this we are justly proud.

When we look around us today we realize what a debt we owe those courageous men and women. They are no longer with us but their graves are in every cemetery, from the tiniest village to the largest city. The names you read there are familiar names, the same you hear on our streets today. Should you ask these descendants from whence they came, they would point with pride to some little village, town or city, saying "My people were pioneers." They settled there on the journey Westward. They could bring so little, just the bare necessities of life.

The women dug from their gardens only a few flowers and shrubs, just some little reminder of the past that they could take with them into the future. Most of the plants withered and died during the long journey. Only a few were strong and hardy and in many ways so much like our people. Because of this, it's possible even today to find many the spots where our forefathers' cabins once stood.

As did most of the women of the wagon train, one lovely lady with tender hands planted an old fashioned yellow rose and some purple flags.

Many privations were endured. Children were born and reared. Over the years laughter, sorrow and fears, all were contained with the little cabin walls.

Now only the site remains identified by a few stones where the fireplace stood, part of a broken churn, a well worn grindstone and the rusty lid from an iron Dutch oven. The well has long since caved in. Beside the clear little stream meandering down through the valley stands a lonely poplar tree. At its base like part of a wagon wheel and a rusty walking plow.

    The family that claimed this spot as their own is scattered and gone. You may meet them in your home town, or even in far away places. Yet they had their beginning here. They built their cabin and took up their new way of life.

    Now there are no laughter, no tears, for this is a deserted place.

    But each year, when the days grow long and warm and the hills are green, the flowers bloom again.

    Not far away, rests the pioneer lady whose home this was while over her grow a yellow rose and some purple flags.

Photos by Tami Sneddon