Description

Mary Frances Damon, was a pioneer lady who was born and raised in the California gold mining town of Sheep Ranch. Her birth date was October 26, 1886. This book is a recollection of her memories of true events as a young girl growing up in Sheep Ranch during the 1890s. The story is told through separate events involving her family and also through the many experiences of her older brother, Charles Grover Damon, referred to in this book as Lanky, and his dog, Guard. As a young lady in her twenties, Mary Damon left Sheep Ranch and moved to San Francisco, California where she became employed by the Emporium Department Store. She studied nursing and upon receiving her nursing certificate she was offered employment at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. After she had settled in Tacoma she met her future husband, Julius Rude. She and Julius were married in Tacoma, August 2, 1911. They soon relocated to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, where Julius was employed as a construction supervisor at the Sooke Lake dam that was being built to store a future water supply source for the city of Victoria, British Columbia. The couples two sons, Damon and Inslee, were born while the family was living at Sooke Lake. When the dam project was completed, Mary and Julius returned to Marys roots in California and settled in the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Tuolumne, which was approximately 25 miles south of Sheep Ranch, still in the Mother Lode gold country. Mary became a school teacher and taught the sixth grade at Summerville Elementary School in Tuolumne for the next 30 years. When Mary retired from teaching, she had the desire to recall the memories of her childhood, growing up in Sheep Ranch, for her children and grandchildren. She wrote this story, Sheep Ranch of the Eighteen Nineties, during the late 1950s and early 1960s. She dedicated this book to her family.

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