The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1935-04-26

ers in America were the women of the later
frontiers. They, too, have been honored with en-
during monuments and the d. A. r. has been
prominent In setting up these memorials 1t was
this organization which sponsored the marking
of the National Old Trails road from the Allan
tic to the Pacific with heroic statues of the
women who followed that trail across the con-
tinent. The result was that IL Of these statues,
designed by A. Leimbach st. Louis sculptor
and known as "rhe Madonna of the Trail" now
stand in IL of the cities on that road-Beth-
soda, Md; Washington, Pa. Wheeling, W. Va:
Springfield, Ohio Richmond, Ind. Vandalia, ILL.,;
Lexington, Mo-; Council Grove, Kan; Lamar,
Colo; Albuquerque, n NJ; Sprngerville, Ariz.;
and Upland Calf
Besides these, statues of pioneer mothers also
stand in Kansas City, Mo-. Topeka, Kan, and
Vancouver, Wash, and there is another famous
one near Ponca City, Okla, the gift of the
present governor of Oklahoma, e. w. Marland.
On the campus of the University of Oregon at
Eugene stands still another which is unique.
For "The Pioneer Mother" statue here is very
different from those Of similar name mentioned
above They are action figures carrying their
babies or leading their children westward The
Oregon mother is WhiStler's famous painting
translated into stone.
She sits in her chair in contemplative repose
a shawl draped lightly about her shoulders, one
foot resting on hassock, one hand holding an
open book-The Book. On the front of the
stone base of the statue just below the title
"The Pioneer Mother" is engraved the single
word 'Pax," and in fulfillment of that word
there appears on the back of the base this
inscription:
"Others have perpetuated her struggles. !
want to perpetuate the peace which followed
her struggles. Others have perpetuated her adj
venture. / want to perpetuate the spirit which
made the adventure possible and the joy which
crowned her declining years as she looked upon
the fruits Of her labor and caught but a faint
glimpse Of what 1t will mean for posterity.
want to recall her as recall my mother, Elvira
Brown Barker, a pioneer of 1847, in the sunset
of her life after the hardships and the battles
and the SORROWS Of pioneering were past and
she sat in the afterglow Of her twilight days,
resting from her labors. All her hardships and
sorrows have softened in the telling in her later
life and her rugged endurance has mellowed
with the fading memory; but to us there lives
that thrill Of conQuering peace which wish pos
terity to remember.
BURT BROWN BARKER"
On each side Of the base is a bronze tablet,
depicting in bas-relief a typical scene of emf
grant days. In one yoke of oxen, under the
lash of the driver, tolls painfully up a steep
slope, dragging the heavy wagon in which sits
the sun-bonneted pioneer mother surrounded by
her brood of future citizens Of the common
wealth-thatis-to-be. In the other, within the
circle of wagons camped for the night, a little
group of men and women stand with barred
heads beside an open grave. 1t is a scene that
needs no such title as "The Prairie Burial" to
tell its story Of one who was destined never to