The BURG

"Nor were the women of less fortitude than their men, while they did remain at home in their cabins, their work was hard; carried great responsibilities and suffered many terrifying moments from the Indians who were all about and delighted in frightening them.

Fearful of the natives, Lois Lloyd, during her first year in the valley in 1859, when Albert was away for the day, had taken her baby and a lunch and hidden in the woods until he returned in the evening. It was such women that 'Lyman's History' recorded:

Not one of these noble women but met with experiences that would make the bravest heart quail, yet never complained, for it seemed a part of life's duties to endure without a murmur. Although, some of the women were almost as handy with a gun as the men."

The book "Wait's Mill" by Elvis and Elvira Laidlaw said,

"Lois living there in her log house six months before she saw another woman; had been accustomed to hardships and hard work since crossing the plains to Oregon five years earlier when, only 13 years of age, she had walked most the way. Her time was always filled, her hands busy.

Early in 1859, Albert Galotin Lloyd came with his brother Calvin driving stock from Willamette Valley and ready to lay claim to land hellip; as soon as the transaction was concluded, he hastily put up a crude hut with prucheon floor and doors without windows, then leaving his cattle at the fort, went back to Oregon for the young wife and their first child.

At Waitsburg, Lois Lloyd would remember the summer and fall of 1877 long after others had forgotten it. Accompanied by friends, she was driving home from visiting a sister in Oregon when they encountered a runner with the news that Chief Joseph and his band were on the war path, killing men, women and children hellip; She couldn't risk being captured or scalped by Indians.

Thrusting the reins into the hands of a young man in the party, she grabbed the whip and, slight as she was, applied it to the horses all the way while they raced for the nearest settlement. A few houses huddled together at the site of Bingham Springs in the Blue Mountains was not much of a town and was so overcrowded with settlers coming up from surrounding country that there was little room for strangers. Lois was given the unusual accommodation of the back room of a saloon for herself and her child, until it was deemed safe for her to drive into the Walla Walla Valley and onto her home on the Touchet.

Early in October, at the very time Chief Joseph was making his surrender in the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, she became a mother of twins, a girl and a boy, born prematurely. They were given the names of Freddie and Clara and even effort was made to keep the tiny sparks of life burning, but to no avail. Soon, they were laid to rest at the Waitsburg City Cemetery. Albert and the seven older children were at home waiting for her return. The youngest child, a mere baby, was beside her in the wagon and another was expected in the fall."

Lois Lloyd was the grandmother of Waitsburg resident Bettie Chase and her story continues to inspire this town.