Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-01-16
SHE DRIVES A MAIL COACH.
A Pretty Western Girl Who Prefers
Calling to Teaching SCHOOL,

a tretty western G1ri VINO Treierh
Calling to Teaching School.
Three times a week a buck board
comes into Andrews, Oregon, carrying
United States mail pouch and driven
by young woman. Her name is Rose
Sturgeon and she makes the thirty-fve
mile trip between Andrews and DEMO
and back on alternate days. She is one
of the few women who serve Uncle Sam
by carrying his maid over lonely roads
in the West. The road she travels
daily leads down through big. barren
valley in Southeastern Oregon from
the village of DEMO to Andrews, where
the stage connects with the road run
ming from Burns south to McDermitt,
New. 1t is very lonely and unfre-
quented and one may ride along it for
hours and see not human being.
There are borax mines in the region
and few lone ranches and mining
camps lying back from the road.
Miss Sturgeon is barely twenty years
old, a wholesome and healthy looking
girl and fair type of the best fem
mine product of the WIstern noun
tains, She is tanned, al Kipling has
put it, with the tan of the girl who
doesn't care" but the brown face
which looks out from her sailor hat or
her fur cap is good and pleasant to
see. Asked how she happened to take
up so unusual an occupation, she re-
Piled
"Why, I needed to do something to
earn money, and friend of my father
asked me in fun one day how would
like to carry the mail to Andrews. /
considered it joke at first, but after
ward / got to thinking about it and I
concluded I'd rather do that than teach
school, which had been planning to
do. I've always been used to horses
and to driving and I'm not timid about
being alone, and so 1 asked him to get
the job for me if he could, and he did,
and I've been driving the mail stage
now for almost year.
II don't mind its being little bit
lonely. You see, L was born in this
country and I've always been used to
the mountains and the big, barren
plains and the wide valleys and to not
seeing many people, and so 1 suppose
1 don't mind driving along alone as a
girl might who had lived in big town
or city. Sometimes have a pass
enger on the stage, or maybe two or
three, and have had as many as half
dozen, but most of the time L go
alone.
81 am fond of horses and my team
is company for me, and L like being
outdoors so we'll that ]. don't think I'd
ever feel lonely as long as L could sec
all outdoors and the sky up above.
Afraid! Why, mol Whatever should
[ be afraid of? Nobody could possibly
want to hold me up because there's
never money enough in that mail bag
to warrant any road agent in taking
the risk.
81 don't carry arevolver or anything
of the sort. did at first because my
mother wanted me to. But the thing
was always in the way. There wasn't
any place to put it and I didn't want
to buckle it around me because it
looked $3.50 sort of mannish, you
know, and it would slide out of the
seat, and so after few times L quit
carrying it.
''I've had to face some pretty bad
weather sometimes when it would have
been pleasanter to stay at home. Last
winter there were bad storms of snow
and wind and sleet, but wrapped up
warm and drove fast and it wasn't so
very bad. In fact 1 rather liked the
storms. It's pretty good fun to come
rattling along through the rain or
snow as fast as your horses can travel.
IT makes you feel alive clear through.
More so than the hot aud dusty days
last summer did. But it wasn't any
hotter on the road between DEMO and
andrews than it was anywhere else
and not nearly as uncomfortable as it
would have been inside schoolhouse.
II think I've got pretty nice Job.
I like it better than anything else 1
could possibly do and mean to hold
on to it just as long as Uncle Sam will
let me-"