He declared,
The hair and bones found around the Donner fires were those of
cattle. No human flesh was used by either Donner family. This I
know, for I was there all winter and helped get all the wood and
food we had, after starvation threatened us. I was about sixteen
years old at the time. Our four men died early in December and were
buried in excavations in the side of the mountain. Their bodies were
never disturbed. As the snows deepened to ten and twelve feet, we
lost track of their location.
When saying good-bye, he looked at me wistfully and exclaimed: "Oh,
little Eliza, sister mine, how I suffered and worked to help keep you
alive. Do you think there was ever colder, stronger winds than them
that whistled and howled around our camp in the Sierras?"
He returned the next day, and in his quaint, earnest way expressed
keenest regret that he and Clark had not remained longer in camp with
my father and mother.
"I did not feel it so much at first; but after I got married and had
children of my own, I often fished and cried, as I thought of what I
done, for if we two men had stayed, perhaps we might have saved that
little woman."
His careworn features lightened as I bade him grieve no more, for I
realized that he was but a boy, overburdened with a man's
responsibilities, and had done his best, and that nobly. Then I added
what I have always believed, that no one was to blame for the
misfortunes which overtook us in the mountains.
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