The people I tend to admire most are those who have the spunk, the courage and the curiosity to do what’s not been done before.
“Grandma Gatewood” for example.
The other day Kerry Nelson, a friend of mine in Lowry, emailed me a brief one-page summary of an astonishing woman named Emma Gatewood. Kerry noted, “I would have loved to have interviewed her!”
Me too! She was so intriguing I did some research and this is what I learned:
Emma Gatewood (nee Caldwell), who was born in 1887 and died in 1973, is a long-time legend in the world of wilderness hiking. Born in Ohio, she was one of 15 children. Her father had become an alcoholic and gambler after his leg was amputated in the Civil War. That left his wife to do all the child-raising tasks. Emma and siblings slept four to a bed in a log cabin.
Her last year of school was the eighth grade, but she was a very bright young woman who read the Greek classics and wrote poetry. She also loved the woods and wildlife.
In 1907, age 18, she married Perry Gatewood, a school teacher and later a tobacco farmer. Throughout the years, Emma gave birth to 11 children. Sad to say, Perry was extremely abusive – physically, mentally – to his wife. He kept threatening to put her in an insane asylum if she didn’t obey him. When he turned violent, she often ran from him to seek the peace and quiet of the woods.
In 1941, she filed for divorce and (rare for that time), the divorce was granted. Emma began to work various jobs and wrote poems. By 1951, she was an empty-nester.
In the early 1950s, one day Emma was completely captivated while reading a National Geographic magazine article about the Appalachian Trail. So captivated, in fact, that in 1954, age 66, she found the spunk and gumption to travel to a mountain in Maine where she began her walk south on the famous trail. But she soon got lost, broke her glasses and had no food left. She had to return to Ohio.
But Emma was no quitter. No siree! The next year, at age 67, she told her grown children she was about to go for a walk – unbeknownst to her children, a very long walk. She traveled to Georgia and walked that long trail for 146 days all the way to Maine. Her spartan walking gear consisted of a shower curtain to keep the rain off, canvas shoes, a few extra clothes, a notebook and food in a home-sewn denim bag. There in Maine, on the mountain’s summit, she sang the first verse of “America the Beautiful” and then said aloud, “I did it. I said I’d do it and I’ve done it.”
The media took notice and soon “Grandma Gatewood” was a celebrity. She even made TV talk-show appearances and told how difficult but challenging the rigorous walk had been.
Difficult or not, “Grandma” hiked it again, two more times, the last being a section-hike when she was 76 in 1964, becoming the first person to walk it three times from start to finish. In 1958, she climbed six mountains in the New York Adirondacks. In 1959, age 71, she walked the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail all by herself, averaging 22 miles a day.
Back in Ohio she kept hiking, a constant inspiration to other hikers. In her remarkable life, she walked more than 14,000 miles.
“Grandma Gatewood” died in 1973 of a heart attack, age 85, and all of her 11 grown children and many grandchildren survived her. On her gravestone it reads “Emma R. Gatewood – Grandma.”
They should have added this: “I did it. I said I’d do it and I’ve done it.”
