Fearless Femaless: Sarah Almira Duty Brown, 1912

Thank you to Lisa Alzo, of The Accidental Genealogist , for this always interesting and evocative month long series about the Fearless Females of our past.


March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

Grandma Brown, August 30, 1912

I have always liked this photograph taken of 2nd great grandmother Sarah Brown because I can see in her the faces of my grandmother and my mother --- and perhaps a trace of myself. She was born Sarah Almira Duty on January 4, 1834 in Giles County, Tennessee.  In 1851, at the age of seventeen, she married Jonathan Perry Brown and three years later, they made the long trek over the Oregon Trail to The Dalles, Oregon.

A sense of familiarity emanates from this picture;  the look, the staunchness,  the earthiness that has been passed down through the generations. Although her life as a pioneer woman in eastern Oregon has been  fairly well documented,  I crave to know the child, the young girl and woman.  That Sarah Duty has always called to me, but never lets me in.