Helga & Clara Estby: The Women Who Walked Across America

Helga & Clara Estby were the Mother & Daughter team who walked over 3,000 miles across America from Spokane to New York during the late 1800's, in order to win $10,000 and further the cause of the women's suffrage movement.

Helga was born on May 30, 1860 in Christiania, Norway.  Her father died when she was two years old.  Her mother, Karen Hendriksdatter Johanssen, eventually married Mr. Hang, a merchant, who took Helga and her mother to the United States on the ship The Order.

They arrived in Manistee, Michigan on August 12, 1871 when Helga was eleven. The town was surrounded by 24 lumber mills and the majority of the population were also immigrants from Scandinavia.

THE ESTBY FAMILY

 In 1876, Helga married a young Carpenter called Ole Estby, who originally came from Grue, Hedmark in Norway. The newlyweds started their life together by homesteading a land patent in Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, where they built a traditional one room home, with turf on the roof, and lived out on the prairie.

 By 1885 Helga was raising six children and running the family home. The traditional life of a Prairie woman was not easy.  While Ole was out earning money at work, Helga did all the household chores by hand. When she wasn’t sewing, mending, or washing all the clothes, she would be cooking and cleaning the house. She would also churn butter, preserve food for the winter, tend & harvest all the crops, and make her own soap. She was expected to raise her children in a wholesome manner and be obedient to her husband.  Helga’s days were tiring and long, and there was very little time for leisure or entertainment.  Apart from living with her family & occasionally meeting with the other Scandinavian women of the community, Helga had little contact with anyone else.  It was a very hard, isolated way of life, which required a great deal of physical and mental strength. The environment was unforgiving too. There was a terrible storm one winter, a diphtheria outbreak, and bad fires to contend with.

 In 1886, Ole saw an advertisement asking for carpenters to work on the Spokane and Idaho Railroad. In May of 1887 the Estby family arrived in Washington and went on to purchase 160 acres of farm land in the town of Mica Creek, 25 miles outside of Spokane Falls. They hoped that buying a farm would provide a better life for their large and growing family. Spokane was a rapidly growing city. It was the first non-Scandinavian place the Estbys had lived in. Moving there encouraged the family to officially learn English for the first time.

One night in 1888 Helga was walking home along a dimly lit main road that was being repaired. There were no warning signs displayed and Helga fell and severely injured her pelvis. As a result of this, she needed surgery, which they had to pay for, and afterwards, she could not do any heavy work. By this time she had given birth to seven children and Clara, the oldest, was now eleven. Helga sued Spokane for $5,000. The trial took place in February of 1889 and lasted several days. On February 21, 1889 the jury was undecided but in July the case was appealed and the Estbys were awarded $3,100. This offer was a lifeline for Helga, as the family were about to face some very difficult times.

 By April 1893, a national credit shortage had triggered a deep economic depression.  Banks closed, thousands of businesses went bankrupt, the railroads failed and unemployment was high. No government relief funds existed to help the families affected, and it would take at least five years before the economy would improve. The Panic of 1893 was hard on the Eastern Washington farmers too. Barter and trade became the new currency and borrowing in hopes of a better harvest the next year was an increasingly common practice. The Estby's had already got into debt before the panic because of the cost of Helga's surgery. Her last two pregnancies had been harder on her body now she was in her Thirties and in addition to that, the gynaecological surgery on her pelvis had left her body much weaker. Then, to make matters worse, Ole had an accident on a horse and injured his back.  He could not do any hard labour and there was a lack of demand for his carpentry skills. Unable to work, the family came into the habit of borrowing another loan to pay off the last. By July 6, 1894 they were $1,000 in debt, having borrowed on their mortgage. Then on January 18th 1895 their twelve year old son, Henry, died of unknown causes.

As Helga was grieving for the loss of her son, the threat of losing her home and the farm was also imminent.  She was under a great deal of stress and the family were at breaking point both financially and emotionally. Hard times called for unusual courage. Despite Helga’s delicate health, she decided that something extraordinary needed to be done.

She devised a unique and challenging way to raise a large sum of money in order to save her family and their home. Helga planned to walk across country from Spokane to New York City in seven months, and cover a distance of more than 4,000 miles, in order to win $10,000 prize money. She was originally inspired by newspaper reports posted by the journalist Nellie Bly who had recently travelled around the world in 72 days. Although it was not part of the contract and wager, Helga also dreamed of publishing a book, based on the journals she would keep on their trip. 

CLARA AND HELGA

Helga was also an outspoken supporter of woman suffrage. She believed that women were capable of doing anything a man could do. Through her walk, she thought she could draw nationwide attention to the suffrage cause as well as saving her family from financial ruin. Helga thought that the $10,000 reward would pay the mortgage and the taxes, and sustain the family until her husband’s health returned.  Any remaining money could be used for her eight children’s education funds.

The townsfolk and her own family had some reservations about the venture which they made clear. The Norwegian community did not support the idea of a woman leaving the family. This accepted opinion would come back to hurt Helga after her journey.  While attitudes toward women were certainly changing, it was a commonly held belief that physical exercise was damaging to women's health, particularly those of childbearing age. A woman's place was still believed to be in the home, with her family. But Helga was a highly determined woman on a crusade. The trip would show the nation that women could make the journey as well as any man.  

Helga chose her shy and level-headed 18-year-old daughter Clara to accompany her, who may have partially relieved family worries. At least Helga would not be traveling alone and Clara was dependable. Helga and the sponsor in New York agreed to a contract stipulating that if Helga and Clara successfully reached their destination in time, they would receive $10,000 from their sponsors -- a huge sum in 1896.  

Who exactly commissioned the contract is uncertain. According to Linda Lawrence Hunt, author of “Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk across America”, the “Women Globe Trotters,” were the most likely candidates. To Helga Estby the sponsors were known only as "the eastern parties". In signing the contract, Helga agreed to walk unescorted and not beg along the way but instead to work for food, lodging, and clothing. Helga expertly staged the event herself, wisely assuming that public awareness would increase as she and Clara spoke with reporters in major cities along the way. 

The Contract Conditions were as follows:

1. Must wear the bicycle skirt.

2. Must complete the walk within the seven month deadline.

3.  Can leave home with only $5.00.

4. Must support themselves anyway to buy the necessities but they cannot beg.

5. Must visit political leaders in every state capital.

6. Must walk on foot. They cannot use railroad. They may take other vehicles but only if offered a ride.

 Helga and Clara officially kicked off their departure with a stop at the Spokesman Review in Spokane to announce their planned journey and then returned home to spend one last night with their family before leaving the following morning. 

That day, May 5th, the Spokesman Review announced their departure and Spokane Mayor H. N. Belt wrote a letter of introduction, which was also signed by the state treasurer and stamped with the state seal.  

NEWSPAPER CUTTING FROM HELGA'S SCRAPBOOK

The two travelled light. In their satchels they carried a compass, a map, a revolver, a pepper gun and powder to thwart possible attackers, a knife, a notebook and pen, and Helga's curling iron. They only had $5 in cash as stipulated by the sponsors. Helga and Clara had a mother-daughter studio portrait taken in Spokane that was made into carte de visite prints that they planned to sell as souvenirs. They also carried calling cards that read: "H. Estby and daughter.  Pedestrians, Spokane to New York."

On departure, day, Helga and Clara wore long grey dresses and high boots. They would change clothes in Salt Lake City and for the remainder of the trip, wear a new short skirt designed for the new craze, bicycle riding. Before trip's end, they would wear out 32 pairs of shoes.    

By the 1890s the railroads ran from coast to coast and portions of the track were still fairly new.  To keep from getting lost, the Estbys walked rail lines, first the Northern Pacific to the Union Pacific, then the Rock Island line to the Burlington and Reading, giving them access to some railroad section houses. More often, citizens gave them overnight lodging. Such was the code of hospitality in 1896 America and surprisingly Helga and Clara spent only nine nights without shelter. To pay for a stay, they cooked, cleaned, and sewed. Most days they walked 25 to 35 miles and when they arrived in a city or town, they first headed to the local newspaper office to talk with reporters. They sent occasional progress reports to the New York sponsor. 

Helga and Clara had to battle extreme weather: snow in the mountains, heat in the plains, flash floods, and washed out bridges. An encounter with a persistent tramp near La Grande, Oregon, led Clara to shoot him in the leg, a story Helga relayed to a reporter at the Minneapolis Tribune. This incident gave rise to their press image as tough women of the Wild West. However, although basic facts often varied in newspaper accounts, each described mother and daughter as articulate, well-educated, intelligent women who expected to be given $10,000 if they reached New York by a specified date.   

By the time they arrived in Pennsylvania, they were greeted as celebrities. Citizens were amazed that they had come so far.  Helga and Clara collected the autographs of many notables along their way including governors and mayors in Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Chicago, and Pennsylvania, populist General Jacob Coxey (1854-1951), and presidential candidate William McKinley (1843-1901). They also visited the wife of McKinley's opponent, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925).  Bryan himself was away at the time, campaigning. 

Clara sprained an ankle in Pennsylvania and Helga wrote to their sponsor requesting a few days' extension of their deadline time so that Clara could rest and heal. Perhaps this letter never arrived - Nevertheless, this delay wuold have serious long-term implications for the women, in ways they could not imagine. They were to enter New York as heroines but the joy was to be short lived.

Helga and Clara finally finished their trip on December 24th, 1896. After seven months and eighteen days. Having  walked over 3,500 miles, they arrived at the New York World newspaper in New York City Hall Park expecting to collect their prize money. That afternoon they discovered that their sponsor refused to pay the $10,000 reward - and the promised train fare home - saying simly that the women had missed their deadline.  Possibly the sponsor had not really expected them to succeed or no longer had the money to pay them – the real truth will never be known. Helga didnt do the trip to win a record, she did it to win the money, After their amazing and courageous act of endurance, Helga and Clara were left stranded and practically destitute in New York at Christmas time, wondering how on earth they would get home. This time they decided they would NOT try walking! They approached both the city of Brooklyn and local charities for help, but were rejected.

The sad conclusion did not end there. The mother and daughter had to stay in Brooklyn for a few months, trying to save enough money to get back to Spokane. So far from home, letters were the only to communicate with their family. That spring they received the tragic news that Helga’s fifteen year old daughter, Bertha, had passed away from diphtheria. Four days later on April 10th the same illness claimed the life of her son Johnny.  Helga and Clara were now desperate to get home.  Clara approached railroad magnet Chauncey Depew, who kindly gave them train passes to travel from New York to Minneapolis. 

CLARA AND HELGA

The Newspapers had celebrated the Estbys as representation of the "New Woman" and what she was capable of. The trip had expanded their own worlds and had certainly proven the great endurance of women. Although Clara frequently told reporters she was weary of the trip, in the end, the experience gave her, as she expressed it, a rare and excellent education.  They had proven their own capabilities, achieving something even most men would never have tried.

Along with a diary and letters,  Helga Estby kept hundreds of pages of detailed accounts of her journey with the intention of publishing a book when she returned to Washington, but these journals disappeared in New York, either misplaced or stolen. Upon arrival in Minneapolis, Helga and Clara met with reporters and Helga stated that she had arranged with her New York sponsor to publish a book based on their journey.  Then they hoped they would finally receive the $10,000. The women stayed for several days in Minneapolis and then headed home, most likely by rail. 

Ole and the family had had to cope with the tragic deaths of 2 of their children without Clara and Helga. To most 1890s Americans, Helga's trip was deemed reckless and dangerous.  By the time the mother and daughter returned home there were no celebrations. Accused of abandoning her family and blamed for the death of two children, Helga's trip was a cause of shame for those close to her and not spoken of. Despite Helga's grandchildren growing up in the same home she never shared her story knowing the anger her family harboured over it.

Helga was shunned by much of the local Norwegian-American community. The Estby family lost their home in Mica Creek, but it was not the tragedy they had expected.  Ole Estby eventually began a new construction business in Spokane, Washington with his sons and they profited as carpenters.

There was a further twist in the story to come. Clara found out that Ole was not her biological father. The close bond forged between mother and daughter on their road trip was destroyed by this shocking revelation. Clara was so distraught that she left the family home, changed her name and did not have anything to do with her family for 20 years. This must have been a devestating blow to Helga, who had already lost 3 children, and now must have felt fhe'd lost her eldest daughter, by telling her the truth.

HELGA IN LATER YEARS

Though she did not discuss the details of her journey for the rest of her life, knowing her families resentment of the subject, she did manage to write a memoir after Ole's death in 1913. She asked one of her granddaughters to secretly hold on to it. After Helga's death in 1942 two of her daughters, Ida and Lillian, still angry and hurt by what they had always  percieved as thier mother's abandonmnet of them, burnt all her papers in a tragic act of closure. It is a great loss that Helga's book was never published. It would have been a unique piece of travel writing, giving a priceless feminine perspective on the United States in 1896.

In more recent years, other family members have been caretakers of the remnants of the story. Luckily a daughter-in-law, Margaret, found a scrapbook containing two Minnesota newspaper clippings of Helga and Clara's journey. Knowing her husband, William, also still held resentment towards his mother, she kept the findings from him too.

Granddaughter Thelma Portch has also helped keep Helga's story alive with an oral history, sharing it with her daughter Dorothy Bahr. Dorothy encouraged her eighth grade son Doug Bahr to write about his Great-great-grandmother for a school paper. Doug then entered it in the Washington State History Day Contest in 1984. His essay was titles "Grandma Walks from Coast to Coast."  One of the contest judges that year was author and scholar Linda, Lawrence Hunt who was inspired to research more after reading about the incredible feat of endurance and stamina.  This led to her writing "A Victorian Odyssey" published in the summer 1995 issue of Columbia Magazine, which she then developed into the book Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America (Anchor Books 2005). This well researched work, full of newspaper clips, family oral histories, and photographs, is the solid foundation for the website http://helgaestby.org/

April 2011 saw the release of two young adult books about Helga and Clara. The Year We Were Famous intended for readers 12 and up, was written by Helga's great granddaughter and retired Everett Public Library librarian Carole Estby Dagg and published by Clarion Books.  Dagg is beginning a sequel that will cover Helga and Clara's year of 1897.   

Following a day later was a Waterbrook Press book, The Daughter's Walk, authored by Jane Kirkpatrick which focuses on Clara returning home only to leave for 20 years. The story of Clara finding out that Ole Estby was not her biological father was true. Sometime after Helga and Clara returned to Spokane, Clara was told the truth. She then left home, changed her name, and did not contact the family for 20 years.

Carol Etsby Dagg explains how important it was to write her book and how difficult it was to research, and she also  tells just why Helga and Clara were ostracised when they returned:

“I grew up with whispers about Great-grandmother Helga and her daughter, my Great-aunt Clara.  What they’d done wasn’t widely talked about because it had been considered a scandal back in 1896: they’d left the rest of the family, including Clara’s seven younger brothers and sisters, back home in Mica Creek, Washington to walk clear across the country to New York City on a $10,000 wager that would save the family’s farm.  What’s more they’d covered half the country, from Salt Lake City on, wearing skirts that were a shocking six inches above the ground.  Even worse yet, Helga Estby was one of those suffragists who wanted to prove that women were the equal of any man and deserved the vote."

I didn’t discover details about the walk until I was grown, when two articles from Minneapolis newspapers which had been salvaged from a burn barrel started circulating among family members.  When I found out that Clara and her mother had walked for 232 days, from 25-50 miles a day, surviving flash flood, blizzards, assailants, going days without food or water and meeting the whole range of 1890’s society from bands of Indians to president-elect McKinley, I knew this was a story that had to be told.  When I heard that the journals which Clara and Helga had intended to turn into a book had been destroyed, I vowed that someday I would tell their story for them.

By writing to librarians across the country and scrolling through microfilmed newspaper collections at the University of Washington, I collected a dozen newspaper articles about the walk.  The articles weren’t as helpful as I’d hoped, though.  They often contradicted each other in details, and descriptions of their adventures were tantalizingly brief.  They were lost for three days in the Snake River Lava fields, showing a band of Ute Indians how to use a curling iron, and had to shoot an assailant at another place – but these incidents just rated one sentence in a news account”

Now finally, after years of being repressed, Helga and Clara’s stories can finally be told and their achievments get the full recognition they deserve.

As a lfinal legacy to try to re-address the balance a little, Helga Estby Lodge #47 of the Daughters of Norway in Mountain Home, Idaho was named in her honour and the Helga Estby Bold Spirited Scholarship Award was established in her memory by the Women Helping Women Fund in Spokane, Washington.