FOREWORD

 

Virginia Reed Gerard, New York City, 1919

 

I have compiled this account of the first great adventure of my life from my own memories and my companions’ recollections, fragments of my diaries, and rediscovered journals and reports of those who were part of the ill-fated Donner Party. It was the first time, though not the last, I was to encounter events that could not be easily explained or believed. Here, at the end of a long, eventful life, I feel that I can finally tell the true story of what happened in the Sierra Nevada in the terrible winter of 1846. I will begin with a story my father told me…