Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/110

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98
REMINISCENCES OF F. X. MATTHIEU.

jaunts when she was a mere tot of three years, and she had for a comrade a little daughter of La Framboise, they were delighted as they passed under the expansive oaks of the Sacramento Valley to hear the dry leaves rustle under their horses' hoofs. It was a Gypsy life that the trappers led, and those that made the trip to California, like La Framboise and Osant, had the pleasantest road to travel of all the parties.

The mother of Rose having died, the girl was brought up in the family of Pierre Belaque, who occupied a house near Lucier's. A patriarchal family, fourteen in number, were born to these pioneers, ten of whom are now living:

PHILEMON GEER

CLARA OUIMETTE

  • PRISCILLA
  • EDWARD

ALFRED

LESTER

MAMIE

RANDALL

CHARLES

ROSE

ARSINOE BURTON

  • HENRY

ERNEST

  • WILLIAM
  • VIOLET

Mr. Matthieu has lived as a farmer of Oregon, having been able to provide his family with life's advantages, and himself performing the duties of the good citizen. Besides filling the office of Justice of the Peace in the Provisional Government, he was in 1874 and again in 1878, elected to the Oregon Legislature from Marion County. In 1849 he made the trip to the California gold mines, but was so virulently attacked by fever there as to be compelled to return without making a fortune. In 1858 he took a trip to Canada, by way of Panama, and in 1883, went with the pioneer excursion on the Northern Pacific Railroad. He is now at the age of eighty-two, in good health, of unimpaired memory, good hearing, and unchanged voice; though, having suffered in early life from snow-blindness in the Rocky