Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-05-11
JOAQUIN MlLLER'S WIFE
The Tribute Paid to Her Memory
by the Poet.
A Romantic Story Of Love, Marriage,
Separation and Reunion-FufiII-
ment Of a Mutual
Promise.

from New York to the San Francisco
Chronicle, pays 3 tribute to the mem
DRY of his wife, minnie Myrtle" who
died in this city year ago. This is
done in accordance with q promise
which each made the other in San
Francisco when "she seemed to see
wreck and storm and separation for Us
on the arena of life long before it came,
and even while we were newly married,
very hopeful, young and strong and
happy" Mr.. Miller thus describes how
he first met minnie Myrtle"
Ii was while was riding Mossman X
Miller'S pony express from Walla Walla
to Millersburg, in the mines of Idaho,
in the summer of 1861, that | was first
attracted by her writings in the news
papers. | wrote her and had replies.
Then when | came down from the
mountains and embarked in journalism
she wrote to me and Our letters grew
ardent and full of affection. Then |
mounted my horse and rode hundreds
of miles through the valleys and over
the mountains, till | came to the sea,
at Port Oxford, then tlOurishing min
ing town, and there first saw
Minnie Myrtle"
Tall dark and striking in every re-
spect, the first Saxon woman | had
ever addressed had it all her own way
at once. She knew nothing at all of
my life except that | was an express
man and a country editor. | knew
nothing at all of hers, but | found her,
with her kind, COED parents, surrouu led
by brothers and sisters, and the pet and
spoiled child of the mining and lumber
camp. In her woody little world there
by the sea she was literally wOrShipped
by the rough miners aud lumbermen,
and the heart OF the bright and merry
girl was trimming full Of romance,
hope and happiness. arrived on
Thursday. On Sunday next we We're
married. Oh, to what else but ruin
and regret could such
Romantic Folly
lead? Procuring horse for her we set
out nj once To- return to my post far
away over the mountains.
When the couple after wild ride
reached home they found that Miller'S
newspaper had been suppressed. They
went to San Francisco, but after some
llLllc ltNul LCNl " NACS'Alf hAANlN Whit
bought some cattle, and with his wife,
baby and party of friends set out for
a new mining camp, Canyon City, in
Eastern Oregon.
And what a journey was this OF ours
over the Oregon Sierras, driving the
believing cattle in the narrow trail
through the dense woods, up the steep.
snowy mountains, down through the
roaring CANYONS, Ii was wild, glorious,
fresh, full of hazard and adventure.
Minnie had made a willow basket and
swung it to her saddle horn, with the
Growing and good natured baby inside,
looking up at her laughing as she leap
ed her horse over the fallen logs, or
made full hand with whip and lasSO
slashing after the cattle. But when
We descended the wooded mountains to
the open plain on the eastern side Of
the Sierras the
Indians Were Ready To Receive u.
and we almost literally had to fight our
way for the next weeks journey every
day and night. And this woman was
one of the trueSt souls that ever saw
battle. $500,
Reaching the mines in safety, Miller
"practiced law, mined, fought Indians,
and indeed was the busiest of men in
trying all means TO get on" He was
meantime elected judge of the county
and had begun to write the "SOngs OF
the SierraS." But overwOrk broke
down his health, and though young in
wears, he became "old and thought
full
Well, all this, you can see, did not
suit the merry-hearted and spoiled child
of the mines at all. Then she was not
so ambitious as | was, then she had not
such a strange wild life behind tohaunt
her. She became the spoiled child here
that she had been at her fathers anu
naturally grew impatient at my per-
sistent toll AMI study. But she was
good all the time:
Good and Honest and True
in all things and in all ways; UNDER
| stand that distinctly. And let me say
here, once for all, that no man or wo-
man can put finger on any stain III
| this woman'S whole record of life, so
| far as truth and purity go. But she
was not happy here. Impatient OF the
! dull monotOny of the exhausted mining
camp and longing for the sea and the
old home that almost overhung the
| sounding waters, she took her two emil
dren and returned to her mother, while
| sold the little home We had butt and
kept together, the new orchard and the
| lanes Of roses we had planted together,
and remained there in the camp, prom
ising to follow her. ..,.,t
A wear later 1.-THE poor, impatient
lady. impulsive always and angry that
/ should have kept away so long be-
| gan a suit for divorce.
This SO Put Me 20 shame
| thntI abandoned my nlanS, and in