Mary Elizabeth Cory was born on Dec. 26, 1850, in Indiana, where she learned to speak both Dutch and English. The family moved to Kansas where her father kept store. To quote her diary, “his customers were mostly Indians, as there were very few white people in the settlement.” They returned East again, where Mary at age 14 taught primary school for $2 a week.
In 1868, the Cory family arrived in Scott Valley in western Siskiyou County, Calif. Now 18, she taught school again. The next year she met pioneer James H. Walker at a picnic.
In July 1870, Mary wrote, “...he asked the all-important questions, i.e., would I be the partner of his joys and sorrows until death do us apart [sic].” They were married in September 1871 and spent a one-night honeymoon at the Forest House in Yreka.
The Walkers raised five daughters and two sons. One child, J. H. Ross, died before his first birthday. Mary wrote, “Two weeks before he … (caught) … a cold and we did not think him serious [sic] ill until the very last.”
Cory Walker died at Crystal Creek at age 60.
Source: Walker, Mary E. "Excerpts from the Walker Diary." Siskiyou Pioneer, The 9.2 (2012): 41-75. Print.
