Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across VIctorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt.

Lost, or nearly lost, stories of ordinary heroes seems to be one theme of my reading lately, as I just finished this book about a woman who walked with her oldest daughter, Clara, across the United States in 1896 for the purpose of winning a $10,000 wager in order to pay off her family’s back taxes and delinquent mortgage.

It’s a story that is both inspiring and sad. Helga Estby and Clara walked all the way from Spokane, Washington to New York City, an accomplishment that would prove daunting to most men and most women nowadays. Helga’s neighbors thought she was crazy and thought the journey she planned would be not only impossible but also a betrayal of her role as the mother of nine children. Helga’s youngest child was only two years old when her mother set out across America in pursuit of her own American dream. Her stated goal was to earn the money to save her family’s farm and homestead. Her anonymous sponsor’s objective was either to advertise women’s clothing or to prove that women were strong and hardy enough to undertake such a arduous trek across a continent. Perhaps both.

Unfortunately for Helga and her family, the walk across America that was to solve all of the family’s financial woes was completed, but the anonymous wagerer was a welsher. Helga and Clara did not get any money for their courageous and formidable achievement, and while they were absent from home circumstances caused the children left behind to become angry and resentful toward their mother and her undertaking. In fact, they became so filled with rancor over Helga’s absence during a crisis in the family’s history that the children convinced their mother never to speak of her attempt to walk across the country. And after Helga’s death, two of her grown children burned all of her written stories about her walk. The story of Helga and Clara Estby and their walk across America was nearly lost to posterity.

However, Linda Hunt heard about the two women and their remarkable journey in a paper written by a young descendant of Helga Estby for the Washington State History Day Contest. She then began to research the story, talking to Helga’s granddaughter and finding old newspaper articles that told about the women as they traveled and shared their stories with reporters in the various towns they passed through. Ms. Hunt did remarkable work herself in piecing together this story of two brave women who could have been forgotten had it not been for the memories of a few people who knew them and the hard work of a historian.

What are the stories in your family that are in danger of being lost and/or forgotten? Save them in a scrapbook or a photo album or a blog or even a book. Or tell them here to us. I may start posting myself after Easter about family stories I want to save.