Diapers in the Sagebrush

In the late summer of 1906, Henry Lee Banta, his wife, Mary, and children Francis (not quite 10), Emily (just turned 8) and Elsie (age 1) were living in Emmet, Idaho, a small community about 30 miles northwest of Boise. Henry and Mary decided to move their family to San Bernardino County, California.

Henry’s brother, Abraham Banta, known as Abe, was living with his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, about 400 miles to the East, where they had homesteaded a few years earlier (sometime between 1902 and 1905). Abe and his wife, Cora, had six children: Walter, Margaret, Mary, Bill, Esther and the youngest, Robert, ranging in age from 15 to 1. Two more children, Eric and Alfred, were not yet born. Abe and Cora also decided to move to San Bernardino.

There are some indications about what prompted the move. Henry and Abe’s parents and other siblings were living in San Bernardino County. Abe’s youngest child, Robert Banta, was apparently not in good health, and a doctor had advised Abe and Cora to move to a better climate for Robert’s sake. There may have been other forgotten reasons that prompted the move. However, it is remembered that both Henry and Abe were prone to move every few years. This was a pattern exhibited over the course of their lives. After Henry and Mary were wed, they lived in Colorado, Idaho twice, Oregon and several places in California. It is known that Abe and Cora lived in Colorado twice, New Mexico, Wyoming, California and Arizona. This may have been a trait the brothers inherited from their father, William Jefferson Banta, who also seemed to move every few years to tackle a new opportunity in the next state over.
Traveling together, the two families made the journey to California. The company consisted of at least the 4 adults and 9 children. Likely, the brothers arranged to meet at some point along the road, perhaps Twin Falls, Idaho, or perhaps somewhere along the Humboldt River in Northern Nevada.

The journey was made in three wagons, probably pulled by mules. No doubt the desert crossing was easier in 1906 than it had been 40 years earlier. There were roads. There were established towns along the way where the families could rest themselves and their livestock. Nevertheless, the trip was arduous. Meals were prepared over campfires. There were small children to attend to. Likely there was not room in the three wagons for everyone, or perhaps for anyone to sleep. Some of the party, at least, slept on the ground by the campfire, or under the wagon tongue. There were mountain passes to negotiate. The weather likely presented challenges at some point along the trek.

Traversing the Great Basin along the Humboldt River, the brothers reached Reno, and then turned south, working their way down the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range.

After six weeks of desert crossing, the wagons pulled slowly up Rock Creek Canyon, and breasted the Sherwin Summit (altitude 6,426 feet), and looked South into Eastern California’s Owens Valley, to the community of Bishop, at the foot of the Sherwin grade.

Henry’s wife, Mary, had been cooking over the campfire, sleeping under a wagon tongue, and washing little Elsie’s diapers out each night and hanging them to dry on the sagebrush. She was tired. From her vantage point, Bishop looked appealing. She made a decision and announced, “I’m not going any farther.”

San Bernardino was forgotten. Abe and Henry and their families settled in Bishop.