Pioneer Woman's Grave

On a Memorial Day visit to Tom's dad's gravesite in Hood River, we found this interesting site near the top of the Cascade Crest, just below Mt. Hood. In 1924 a crew constructing the first Mt. Hood Highway found a gravesite here. The grave was marked with an old wooden wagon tongue buried under decades of overgrown brush. When they dug up the site, they found the remains of an emigrant woman. After reburial, a cross was placed in honor of this pioneer woman.

A sign nearby tells part of the story:

A FINAL REST

The son of Steven Coalman (former Barlow Toll Road Superintendent) recalls: "My father remembers meeting a man who just buried his wife. He buried her in a wagon box made of the wagon, and put up a crude fence around the grave. She had been very sick, and they camped several days before she died. The man had two small children, a boy and a girl, both under the age of five."

We picked the litter off of the road of this sacred site. We were out of flowers, but the next time we cross these mountains, we will stop and honor this pioneer woman. We feel that we know her somehow now.