Oatman Flat". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey . Retrieved 2022-08-06. Running through this story of unbearable tragedy and suffering is the story of Elizabeth. She is an independent woman of the time from a well-to-do family. She is involved in womens' rights and equality in a man's world and gives women a voice in the politics of war. She is attending medical school and knows she must work harder than the male students to reach her goal of becoming a doctor. She is being courted by the son of the most prominent and wealthy Halifax family, Wallace, who is frankly a snob. Krutak, Lars (2010). "Marks of Transformation: Tribal Tattooing in California and the American Southwest". Vanishing Tattoo. Archived from the original on September 30, 2011 . Retrieved August 5, 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown ( link) I can't imagine the inner storms with which Olive lived her life. And never really being able to tell her authentic truth, but to hold it within for a lifetime. It's sad. But perhaps we all do that to some extent, but her inner life must have been a huge one to keep tamped down.

Leonard, Elmore. The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories. Delacorte Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0385323864 Varney, Philip (1994). Arizona Ghost Towns and Mining Camps. Arizona Department of Transportation, State of Arizona. p.1905. ISBN 978-0-916179-44-1.

There's no element in this story that is not absolutely fascinating. From the beginnings of Olive's family as Mormons in Illinois, to their break with the church to follow another self proclaimed boy prophet, John Brewster (who was in direct competition with Joseph Smith), and the rift that it caused in Mary Ann Oatman's family (Olive's mother). Mary Ann's parents are going west with Brigham Young and were rightly concerned about Royce Oatman's (Olive's father) allegiance to John Brewster. Royce argues with his in-laws, even "prophesying" that if Mary Ann's parents go West with Brigham Young, that they will meet with disaster and die horrible deaths........

I'm a huge fan of these books now. This audiobook converted me and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to listen to a fantastic story - especially if you are wanting to entertain an entire car full of folk on trips. I cannot even imagine how much fun it would have been to listen to this in a group! It was interesting to study the character of the two girls: Olive, who is strong, adaptable and bent on not only surviving but thriving.....while Mary Ann's constitution was just not equal to the challenge. Two very different studies in personality and adaptability and survival. Olive Oatman is known as the mysterious woman with the blue tattoo on her chin. Kidnapped as a child by the Yavapai Indians, later taken by the Mohave Indians, she was finally rescued by her brother. She dedicated part of her life to talking about survival and the strength of human beings.The Brewsterites were not headed for Zion—which was the community in the Great Basin (now known as the Salt Lake Valley and is still the headquarters for the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—also known as the “Mormons”)—but were actually following the Santa Fe Trail “arguing with Brewster about whether to continue to California or settle in Socorro, New Mexico”(pg 23). (Also clarified by Mifflin, yet still no distinction made.) Olive Oatman was almost 20 when a messenger from Fort Yuma arrived at the town of Mojave. They had learned of the presence of a white woman and demanded her return. After some discussion, in which Olive was this time included, the Mohaves decided to accept these terms, and Olive was escorted to Fort Yuma in a 20-day journey. Topeka (the daughter of Espianola/Espanesay and Aespaneo) went on the journey with her. Before entering the fort, Olive was given Western clothing lent by the wife of an army officer, as she was clad in a traditional Mohave skirt with no covering above her waist. Inside the fort, Olive was surrounded by cheering people. [5] :111 They were adopted by the Espanesay and the Aespaneo families. Welcomed by a land full of beauty, wheat fields, and poplar forests. A place where they could sleep every night in the company of a friendly people.

Essentially, this is pop history masquerading as a scholarly work, only thinly rooted in more rigorous work, and it's eyebrow-raising to me that it was published by a university press. However, when two ships collide in Halifax Harbour on December 6, 1917, and the greatest explosion the world had ever known is unleashed on the city, their eyes are opened to new truths. Elizabeth is swept up in the chaos that follows the explosion and works courageously at a local hospital, overrun with the horribly injured. She finds dwindling medical supplies and worsening conditions, only to face a once-in-a-generation snowstorm that promises to take away whatever hope remains. Without fresh medical supplies, hundreds will soon die. Olive's childhood friend Susan Thompson, whom she befriended again at this time, stated many years later that she believed Olive was "grieving" upon her forced return because she had been married to a Mohave man and had given birth to two boys. [3] :152 [18]It is actually a shame that she had to return to the white society, a society that was harsh towards those who stood up for Native Americans, who fantasized about her sexual life with them, and who considered her a freak since the Mojave Indians had put a blue tattoo on her chin. I can't imagine that any of her life had been that great for her. Among these “conquering foreigners” was the Oatman family. They were Mormons led by the fanaticism of spiritual leader Pastor James C. Brewster. It was his brazen “charge forward” attitude that would inevitably lead them to disaster. This was a very interesting and compelling telling of the life of Olive Oatman. In the early 1850s, Olive was a pioneer girl heading west with her family on a wagon train with a splinter group of Mormons called the “Brewsterites”, a group headed by James Colin Brewster, who broke off from Joseph Smith's church and who thought Eden was waiting for them at the mouth of the Colorado River. (I was brought up in the Mormon Church in Utah and I had never heard of this group). Her father was anxious to get to the "promised land" and did not heed the advice of others to stay together. He pushed on with his family and got stranded resulting in a massacre by the Yavapai Indians in Northern Mexico. Olive's family were all killed with the exception of her and her younger sister, Mary Ann and one brother, Lorenzo, who managed to escape. Olive and Mary Ann were taken into captivity and made slaves by the Yavapais. After one year, they were traded to the Mohave tribe where they were well cared for. But being assimilated into the tribe meant getting tattooed on the chin, a practice all women in the tribe underwent. Mary Ann died of an illness after two years but Olive ended up being ransomed and returned to white civilization after five years with the Mohave.