Helga Estby walked cross-country to try and save family farm
Mica Creek Cemetery sits atop a small rise in the rolling fields of southeast Spokane County. Some 150 souls are buried there, most being early settlers of Norwegian heritage, the most famous of whom is no doubt Helga Estby, a woman whose unlikely story would probably have faded into time had not a descendant written an essay about her for a contest.
And interestingly enough, it was a contest more than a century ago that prompted Helga Estby to do something unheard of for a woman of her day.
The Estby family headstone, surrounded by artificial flowers, is visible just beyond the cemetery’s entrance sign, located along Harvard Road a mile north of Elder Road. Eleven members of the Estby family have individual small surface markers next to and behind it – with lettering now weathered. Hers says “Mother Helga May 30, 1860, April 20, 1942.” Tiny American and Norwegian flags have been placed alongside it.
Helga Estby’s life was not uncommon at the time. She and her husband, Ole, both Norwegian immigrants, purchased 160 acres of farm land at Mica Creek, 25 miles southeast of Spokane in 1892. By the time she was 35, she had given birth to 10 children, eight of whom survived. Ole injured his back and was limited in the work he could do just when the economy took a downturn, and by 1896 it appeared the family might lose the farm.
It was then that Helga, a well-read woman who was also a suffragist, learned of a challenge that would give $10,000 to any woman who would walk across America. She saw this as something she could do … and would do … to save the farm. And so she set off on May 6, 1896, with eldest daughter Clara, 18.
Carol Estby Dagg, who has written articles and a book about her great-grandmother, notes that neighbors considered this scandalous, as a woman’s place was in the home and had no business traipsing 4,000 miles across the country unescorted.
There were rules Helga and Clara had to adhere to. They had to work for food, lodging and clothing along the way, which they did by sewing, doing housework and giving talks. And there was a time limit. The pair had a photo of themselves taken, which they sold as souvenirs along the way, and they met with newspaper reporters as they traveled, who chronicled the cross-country journey. They took with them a compass, a map, a revolver, a pepper gun, a knife, a notebook, a curling iron and a few dollars.
They wore out 32 pairs of shoes as they mostly followed railroad tracks in their walk to New York. Newspaper accounts speak of the 25-35 miles they traveled daily, the time Helga shot (in the leg) a man who was pursuing them, how she showed a member of the Ute Tribe how to use the curling iron, meeting president-elect William McKinley and overcoming the variety of weather obstacles they encountered in the more than seven-month journey. Helga kept notes along the way and intended to write about the experience once it was done. Newspaper accounts show it was clear that they were gaining some celebrity status as courageous women undertaking a perilous journey, women on a mission.
And they did make it to New York City on Dec. 23. But in the most cruel twist of fate – there was no pay off. Possibly it was because they missed the exact deadline or because the sponsors never had the reward in the first place. The details aren’t clear, but the upshot is that she never received the $10,000.
Adding to the disappointment, Helga’s journal notes vanished, either lost or stolen. And worse yet, in her absence, two of Helga’s children had died of diphtheria. In addition to being shunned by neighbors upon her return after 13 months, she also faced negative family pressure as she tried to recreate her notes from memory with the eventual goal of publishing her story.
The family did lose the farm and moved to Spokane where Ole and sons made a living as carpenters. When Helga died in 1942, her daughters destroyed her writings. And that might have been the end of it, except that one defiant daughter-in-law preserved a few of Helga’s scrapbooks and, of course, there were remnants of the story that lingered in the family.
One of Helga’s descendants, Douglas Bahr, entered an essay “Grandma Walks from Coast to Coast” in the 1984 Washington State History Day Contest when he was an eighth-grader. One of the judges was author Linda Lawrence Hunt, who was intrigued by the story, leading her later to write the book “Bold Spirit: Helga Estby’s Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America” in 2005.
Helga Estby’s legacy of courage and endurance has been growing ever since. In 2007, the Helga Estby Lodge 47 of the Daughters of Norway was formed in Mountain Home, Idaho. Spokane’s Daughters of Norway Freya Lodge makes a pilgrimage to her grave annually. In 2011, two books about Helga’s journey, including one by Carol Estby Dagg, were published.
Helga, Ole, Clara and other family members lie peacefully out in the country cemetery not too far from the farm Helga made great sacrifice to try to save. She was never rewarded for her efforts, financially or in the esteem of her community or family.
But it looks like history will be treating her more kindly.