Sue Rydberg Canavan

My California Gold Rush Pioneers Sue Rydberg Canavan

This well documented collection of personal stories of adventure and tragedy begins with my earliest California ancestors who were some of the first of the 49er families to settle in Sonora during California's Gold Rush. The McQuades left Australia on a long, perilous sea journey with two small children. Bill Price of Kentucky, 18 when he joined a wagon train, barely survived the harrowing trip over the Sierras taking some of the first cattle to Sonora. He would marry Polly McQuade and their stories and those of their eight children, show what drama can occur in ordinary families; an out of wedlock family of the county sheriff, a miner who came home from Nome with enough gold to purchase the largest cattle ranch in the county, and a murder across from City Hall. There was tragedy, also, including three family suicides. The first and most devastating for the family was Polly's drowning when Genie, her youngest child, was five. Genie was my troubled grandmother and I set out to find her backstory. I was immediately led to the Gold Rush that brought her parents together. I saw how the time and place affected them and the effect they had on town and county. This was never intended to be a book but the stories piled upon stories. Genie's is the last chapter.