The Nome daily nugget., 1935-01-12

1 The only promising clue White found was the sign "CRO" blazed on tree. Since these letters were part of a code agreed upon by the colonists three years before, the rescue party hoped that their friends had gone to Croatan, home of the friendly Manteo, who had promised sanctuary in emergency !: but the captain, pleading bad weather and lack of supplies, forced the party to sail away before the clue could be investigated.
 What had been the colonists' fate7
 The blazed sign was all that was ever found of the Lost Colonies ex- cept hasty marks of departure, burned chests, rusty iron imple- ments. household effects and books.
 Whatever the fate of the col onists, either they or their early | successors left their Elizabethan dialects, manners, customs, and fea- tures in this American byway.
 As the little mail boat bobs along toward Roanoke island, the travel eler's thoughts turn from the story of Virginia Dare and the first col onists to another histories drama of the Banks. Tn 1912, just across the channei from Roanoke island, on the ocean sand splits of Nags Head. the pilot boat Patriot, carrying The odosia Burr Aston, daughter of Aaron Burr and wife of Governor Aston of South Carolina, ended its last voyage. After the tragic col lapse of her fathers career and the loss of her little son, the only hope of the Burr family, Mrs. Aston was in the depths of despair. She set sail from Georgetown, S. C., to join her lonely father, and disappeared forever!
 Life on the Island.
 A bit of life on Roanoke is re- vealed by a recent visitor, a wom- an doctor.
 An old midwife and nurse, the widow of a life service man, was to care for an aged woman In her ancient cottage by the sound, where she lived alone. Her name was "'Mis'" Bashi-the Mis-" an is- land designation for mistress, and "Bashi," she said, "a Bible name after Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah; but they call me Bashi."
 Surnames on the island do not denote the individual. for the fam lilies in a hamlet are usually all members of one or two clans.
 In worn slab-wood rocker in which the old woman bad rocked her six children the doctor rested after dinner and listened to her tale of remarkable life history.
 What she learned entities Mis- Bashi to a place in the annals of medical history. The old nurse be- longed to the islands remnant. Her blood, her sterling character. and her beautiful, broad dialect were herltages of the old Devonshlre castaway. She was comely and agile, her visage one of strength and thought.
 Of only five weeks "schoolin'," she had never learned to read, but had heen taught to work indoors and out and to spin. At sixteen tout" (old) she married and at twenty-one "out," in a far life serv- ice station hamlet. she undertook her first obstetrical case.
 Doctor, knew nothin' of 1t; but Mehaley read me doctor book, and the moon was comin' to full, so the baby would be thrifty~ One born in the dark of the moon is not"
 Mis- Bashrs Nursing.
 On her little plantation, in pine woods by the sound. though wid- owed later, she cared for a psychi- atrlc mother, raised her own brood and her mothers and her brothers children, cared for COWS, pigs, and gardens. Then for 45 years she ministered to all the sick of the re- zion, local doctor coming only at rare intervals.
 Her sand pony Napoleon carried her in two-wheeled cart through woods and sand and water, in gale or sunshine to her patients. Often afoot she swung with her Viking stride down beaches or through the woods. She was smart, exact, and knowing, though she signed by mark, and she was known as a "couthy" tcapable) woman. Her dignity of bearing and courtesy were exquisite. Thus she fell into the role that nature cast for her.
 Months later the doctor realized how the personality of this Island woman. linked with a touch of science, prevented morbid results from household conditions. She established her own art of medicine nnd it W0rl<od