In Honor of Nancy Kelsey

In Honor of Nancy Kelsey. "I've enjoyed the riches and suffered the pangs of poverty". By being the sole woman to join the Bidwell - Barttleston Party, the earliest organized overland immigrant party into California, Nancy Kelsey became the first American woman to come across the plains and transverse the rugged Sierra Nevada. She arrived on foot in 1841 carrying her infant daughter, Ann., Nancy followed her husband from Missouri to California, up to Oregon and back, on To Mexico and Texas then back again to various locations in California, where in Los Angeles she was widdered in 1888. Following her loss, Nancy returned to Cuyama and homesteaded an area up an oak studded canyon. She raised chickens and vegetables to support herself until her death in 1896. The local community called her the "Angel Of Cuyama" because of her generosity toward the infirmed. As was her wish, Nancy was buried in a store bought coffin purchased by her friends. It was brought in from Santa Maria by horse.