The Pioneer’s Final Crossing
Reflecting on the life of Lucy Tanner, a devout woman who built the first Protestant church in the Ahtanum Valley.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mrs. Lucy Tanner died at her home in the Ahtanum valley Feb. 18th, 1892, of la grippe and old age. Born in Warren, Connecticut, in 1812, she journeyed to Oregon by ox team in 1851 and moved to the Yakima country in 1870. Mrs. Tanner and her husband were early leaders in the organization of the Ahtanum Congregational church and the first Sunday school in central Washington. Her husband was tragically drowned some ten or twelve years ago while attempting to ford the Yakima river near the Nelson bridge to attend church services. She leaves two children, Mrs. O. W. Carey of Spokane and Mrs. S. T. Vivian of the Ahtanum.
“They carried Christian principles and Christian institutions with them wherever they went.”
Pioneer history often highlights the physical hardships of settlement, but this story provides a rare, grounded look at the religious infrastructure these families brought with them—and the tragic, everyday dangers of life in the river valley before bridges were commonplace.
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