Stella Patterson’s last years
After “Dear Mad’m”
I spent years of searching for the answers to many
questions about where Dear Mad’m (Stella Walthall Patterson) spent her
last years after writing the pages of her manuscript at age 80 in the
remote Siskiyou Mountains on her mining claim. Imagine my
excitement to receive answers from her family to a query that I had
posted on a genealogy web site a few days earlier. The family had
letters from her during those years and offered to share in exchange
for other information about her earlier years in Northern California.
She lived in Yreka for sometime where she wrote to family
on Nov. 11, 1942, “I put up a lot of fruit and vegetables down at the
claim, also jelly and jams, so all that helps, too. –I have not written
because I have had two little sick spells, but am over them now.”
These letters revealed the fact that Ms Patterson returned
to her mining claim many times in the 1950’s and up until a few weeks
prior to her death in 1955. On May 18, 1954, she wrote that, “ Will go
on back to Clear Creek tomorrow where the climate is better for me. I
don’t do so well in the high altitude of Yreka. Have you been to
Redding since the Shasta Dam has become the grand scenic attraction? It
is a wonderfully beautiful country now-particularly in the spring.
Lovely in the fall too.
Plan to drive up to see my cabin home on the Klamath. It
is primitive, but the scenery is lovely.”
Then on May 24, 1954, she wrote after spending a few days
with friends at Hotel Willow Creek, “It has every modern convenience
and is overrun with guests-hunters and fishermen in the summer-mining
men and their wives and logging men & lumbermen. I won’t stay but a
few days as I don’t like crowds or excitement, and love my little cabin
on the Klamath.
I think I wrote you recently from Redding where I spent
two weeks with Thelma. It is a beautiful place now since Shasta Lake
has been built-a wonderful inland sea-with snow capped mountains
surrounding it now. Our own mountain country is still green, though hot
weather is just around the corner”.
She returned to Redding where her adopted daughter,
Thelma and husband Everett, had purchased property. They also bought a
small trailer for Stella and set it up near their home, she wrote
Oct.24, 1954, “ they are living in a big comfortable trailer-house and
have bought a small up-to-date trailer-house for me to live in. It is
perfectly equipped—like an apartment with tiny kitchenette, bathroom,
refrigerator, in fact all of the furnishing needed, and am I a happy
woman. I only wish my health was that of a young woman, but I must face
the fact that I am 88 and on the twilight stretch of life”.
By April 11, 1955, she was back at Clear Creek after
suffering a heart attack on Feb. 3. “I am returning to Clear Creek for
the summer and fall, where it is much cooler.”
And then from Clear Creek, June 5, 1955, she wrote, “ I am
settled here for the summer and like being outdoors all day. I go with
Fred (Dear Sir) in his jeep up to the flat where he has his sawmill and
lie on a cot (most of the time) in the deep shade of the tall firs and
pines. It has been a warm day but not up in the deep woods. We came
down to the claims on the river (where my cabin is) about six o-clock
and had what I called a patio supper, most everything out of the
refrigerator except the strawberries. Fred raises them up at his garden
on the flat, which is high on the mountain-side, and everything tastes
so good that is grown at the higher altitude. I have a cot in the woods
in a cool shady spot and lie there most of the day. When the shadows
begin to lengthen out, I do a little work in my flower garden. It has
the makings of a charming little rock garden, but I haven’t the
strength to do much and getting a hired man is a problem.
I hope to start working on a story that I completed
in the rough last year. The book, that had such a good reception with
the critics in New York, which I sent off a year ago, is still hanging
fire with a publisher. Personally I think they have made too many
changes already and have lost what appeal it really had, but maybe
something will happen. Some publishers will take it in hand and presto,
it will be printed.”
Then July 15, 1955 she wrote a postcard to her
sister-in-law, Alice, “ I’m sure you’ll be glad to know this news. My
book has been sold to a publisher in New York. Word came by telegram.”
On Oct. 13, 1955, still at Clear Creek, she wrote to
Alice, “ My book is a personal experience story of an old woman who
goes off to live alone in a remote mountain cabin, and what happens to
her. She has anything but a lonely life. This is my tale. The title
“Dear Mad’m” was selected by the Publishers, and they have done some
slashing, as well as the agents and critics. I won’t know my own child
(of the brain), but if it sells, why quibble.”
From that date until the time of her death, Stella wrote
of her anxious plans to travel to New York to meet with Publishers and
to Hollywood, “And the Publishers are always rushing me, but the
book won’t appear until Jan. 6, 1956”, she wrote from Clear Creek.
Then from Clear Creek she wrote On Oct. 31, 1955, new
address after Nov. 1,’55, Redding, 5810 Cedars Road, C/o
E.D.Doutt. From that address she sent Christmas greetings to
Alice and her family on Dec. 20, 1955 and told of her plans to travel
and of progress on the book, and “for my pictures for McCalls, I’ll be
wearing the old clothes, shoes, etc. I wore in the story”
(instead of the new dresses that Alice had sent her, explaining that
the dresses were perfect for her travel though.)
Stella died Dec. 23, 1955, before her book was
published, and was laid to rest in Redding. A simple headstone marks
her grave .
