Payette County ID Archives Obituaries.....Helm, Elizabeth July 1925 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/id/idfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Patty Theurer seymour784@yahoo.com August 12, 2005, 1:18 am Payette Independent, Payette, Idaho, July 23, 1925 Payette Independent Payette, Idaho July 23, 1925 WAS SURVIVOR OF MASSACRE MRS. ELIZABETH HELM, MOTHER OF FRED HELD OF THIS CITY, PASSED AWAY IN PORTLAND SUNDAY--SURVIVED WHITMAN INDIAN MASSACRE. The Portland Oregonian of Tuesday, July 21 says: “Mrs. Elizabeth Sager Helm, 88, one of the six survivors of the famous Whitman massacre at Waiilatpu in 1847 and one of the oldest living pioneers of the Oregon country, died Sunday at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Marie Stratton, at Courtney. Mrs. Heim had been in good health until recently. The Sagar family, of which Mrs. Helm was one of the seven children, crossed the plains in1844. The father and mother died before reaching their destination, and the children were taken to the Waiilatpu mission by Captain William Shaw. The mission, operated by Mr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, was wiped out in 1847, practically all the settlers being massacred by Indians. “After witnessing the death of the Whitmans and her eldest brother, Mrs. Helm and the remaining Sagar children were brought down the Columbia river in boats to Portland and were lodged at Governor Abernethy’s house. The children became scattered, and Mrs. Helm went to stay with Mrs. W. H. Willson of Salem. She attended the Oregon institute and married William Helm, son of the Rev. William Helm in 1885. Mrs. Helm’s death leaves but five survivors of the Whitman massacre. They are Mrs. N. A. Jacobs and Mrs. O. N. Denny of Portland, a sister of Mrs. Helm residing at Eugene, Mrs. Mary Copley of Riverside, Cal., and her sister residing in Oakland, Cal. Mrs. Elizabeth Helm was the mother of Fred Helm of this city, but as he did not receive the telegram announcing her death until too late to reach Portland in time for the funeral he decided it was not worth while to make the trip. Concerning the death of Mrs. Helm and her connection with the historic even the Portland Oregonian says editorially: Echoes of a Historic Massacre The death of Mrs. Elizabeth Helm, who was Elizabeth Sager, reduced to five the number of survivors of the historic massacre of the missionary party at Waiilatpu on November 29, 1847, when Dr. Marcu Whitman, his wife and twelve others, including two brothers of Mrs. Helm, were killed. The number of those still living, however, testifies to the comparative proximity of the event to our time. “In the entire Oregon country east of the Cascade mountains when it occurred, the Whitman mission furnished the only substantial contact with American civilization. The added tragedy of the bereavement of the seven Sager children, whose father and mother had died on the journey across the plains with the immigration of 1844, was not uncommon incident of pioneer days. But this phase illustrates also the broadening character of the work that Dr. Whitman was then undertaking in pursuance of the peculiar foresight that was his. If, measureable, the task of evangelizing the aborigines which had brought Dr. Whitman to the country had proved less successful than had been hoped, it was indubitably true that the mission was beginning to justify itself fully as a significient influence in in the transition from the period of Indian occupancy to that of white domination. His reception of the seven orphans and his appointment as their guardian by the only court of competent jurisdiction in the vast territory--a court owing its power to the self- constituted provisional authority of the first American residents--were symbolic acts. “Here, until the perfidy of the Cayuses found vent in a wanton outbreak, the Sager children found a hospitable home and were receiving an education. It would have been unlike either of the Whitmans to have counted the cost and they did not, though beset by a multitude of cares. During the interval of the Sagers’ residence at Waiilatpu, successive immigrations received whole-hearted assistance and but for the practical and kindly ministrations of the Whitmans, would have suffered even more keenly than many of then did. The Cayuse war, conducted by inaided forces of the young territory, the unheeded appeal of the local residents for federal help through Oregon had more than seventeen months previously been declared American soil, the amazing mid- winter journey across the plains made by Ebberts and Meek, the hardships and deprivations, and the heroisms of the period, constitute a chapter with which every schoolboy ought to be familiar. They were outstanding facts in an epoch of great historical moment. Not so well known are the less heralded deeds of the Whitmans of which the tender care of the orphans was a type. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/id/payette/obits/h/helm216gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/idfiles/ File size: 5.3 Kb