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on April 23, 1891 (Book 13, p. 302). Four days later they took out a “Chattel Mortgage” with G.W. Frosh. Records only say “loan satisfied” (Book S, p. 129). On March 14, 1892, another “Chattel Mortgage” with J.E. Foster shows no record of this loan being satisfied (Book N, p. 524). However, on this same day, mortgage records show that they borrowed $700 from R. Livingstone, Trustee, Oregon Mortgage Company on the Lockwood (Mica) homestead, 160 acres (Book 41, p. 157); records only say “loan satisfied.” Ten days later, on March 24, 1892, they borrowed another $235 from J.E. Foster on the Lockwood homestead (Book 33, p. 412); this loan was satisfied on July 2, 1894 (Book 33, p. 412). In the margin of this loan record is a note indicating Helga Estby was given power of attorney from Ole to sign. This may have been during the time he was injured and incapable of coming into the Spokane County Courthouse. Four days later, on July 6, they borrowed $1000 on their Lockwood homestead. This loan was never satisfied and was the source of their fear of losing their home and farm.

5. “Walked Here from Spokane,” Sun, May 2, 1897, p. 1.

6. Letters from the Thelma Portch Collection.

7. Arlene Coulson, “Research Notes”; Doug Bahr, “Grandma Walks from Coast to Coast,” Eighth-grade Essay, Wilbur, Wash., 1984. Family oral history includes mention of the death of the Estby’s first son believed to be born in Minnesota and named Ole after his father.

8. A. Raaen, Grass of the Earth: The Story of a Norwegian Immigrant Family in Dakota (St. Paul Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1950), 80.

9. Thelma Portch, second interview by author, Almira, Wash., 1986.

7 | THE WAGER

1. “Women Globe Trotters,” Weekly Bedrock Democrat, May 25, 1896, p. 1; “Walking for Pay,” Fort Wayne Sentinel, November 18, 1896, p. 1.

2. “From Spokane to New York,” Deseret Evening News, July 11, 1896, p. 5.

3. “Are Walking for Wages,” Walla Walla Union, May 17, 1896, p. 4.

4. “Lives Wrecked by Wheeling,” Examiner, July 1, 1896, p. 1.

5. Montgomery Ward & Co., Catalogue No. 57, Spring and Summer 1895, Unabridged Facsimile (New York: Dover Publications Co.).

6. “Women Globe Trotters,” p. 1.

7. Ibid., p. 1.

8. See Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist, who wrote The Evolution of Sex in 1889 and argues for a typology of biologically determined sexual temperaments as a function of natural law.

9. Harvey Green, The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America (Pantheon Books, 1983), 114.

10. Sheila M. Rothman, Women’s Proper Place (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1980), 24.

11. Ibid., 24.

12. Ibid., 34.

13. “From Spokane to New York: Two Women Tramps,” Lebanon Daily News, December 19, 1896, p. 1; “Women Walkers Arrive,” New York Herald, December 24, 1896, p. 7.

14. “Women of the Week,” World, April 26, 1896, p. 24.

15. “Tramp to New York,” Daily Chronicle, May 4, 1896, p. 2.

16. The 1896 Spokane City Directory lists Bertha as a domestic and Olaf as a gardener at the home of Isabel and Lewis Rutter, a prominent banker in town. It was common in Spokane for wealthy families to hire Scandinavian young people to work part-time in their homes. Clara may have also worked there to complete high school in the city. Both Bertha and Olaf returned to the homestead while Helga and Clara were still in New York in 1897.

17. “Tramp to New York,” p. 2.

18. “Coast to Coast,” Minneapolis Times, June 2, 1897, p. 5.

19. “Walk to New York,” Spokesman-Review, May 5, 1896, p. 5.

20. “The Jury in the Estley [sic] Suit,” Spokane Falls Review, February 21, 1889, p. 4.

21. “From Spokane to New York,” p. 5.

22. H. Green, The Light of the Home (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 29.

23. Ibid., 57.

24. Nels Siverson, neighbor of the Estbys, interview, 1986.

25. Spokane City Directory, 1895.

26. “Are Walking for Wages,” p. 4.

27. Thelma Portch, first interview by author, Almira, Wash., 1984.

8 | UNDAUNTED BY RAIN, SLEET, AND SNOW

1. Nels Siverson, neighbor of the Estbys at Mica Creek, oral interviews, 1986, 1993. Dr. L. Hustved, Secretary of