Nicole Tucker
Lisa Tucker
Home in Lindon
March 4, 2014
Title: Surviving an Indian Confrontation
Genre: Family Legend
Informant: This story
originally comes from an article written in a newspaper by Annie Cowan
Hudman. The sister of my great, great grandma, Ethel Cowan, making this legend about my great, great, great grandpa James Cowan. These people are all on my mom's side who is the informant who scanned copies of the article to send to me. My mom was born and raised in Provo, living
in Orem and then Lindon after that. She
even went to college in Provo at Brigham Young University where she studied
art. She’s a very creative individual
who has a lot of passion. Now at age
forty-eight she has five children, three of which are obtaining college level
education at three different universities, one daughter in high school and
another in junior high. She still enjoys
using her creativity as an expressive outlet and is always thinking outside of
the box of ways she can help her children in their learning and experiences.
Context: I don’t
remember when or where I first heard of this story, all I know is that everyone on my mom’s side has heard of it before. Though when it is brought up, it is usually
summarized in an exaggerated form but that’s what legends are like right? Being passed down by word of mouth can skew
details in a story. This was my first
time reading the actual story from print.
It’s always just been brought up in conversation among my family and
that is how I’ve come to know the basic plot line.
Text: The following
images are the scans of the original newspaper article that describes my family
legend. The author of the article is the
daughter of the man the story is about.
It takes place in July 1860 in what is now called Smithfield, Utah. James Cowan and his family were on there way
from Franklin, Idaho to Weber county to visit relatives. On their journey, their wagon tongue broke
and they noticed several Indians “riding very rapidly towards them.” They
escaped to a nearby cabin to hid the women and child but as the men stood
outside to protect, the Indians “got up close and fired with their muzzle
loaders.” The author’s uncle was killed
and her father was wounded in the chest.
Soon after, the article says he became very thirsty and ran to a small
stream near the cabin. He fainted and
fell into the stream where the wound bled from the bullet hole that barely
missed his heart. Later, a search party
found him face out of the water, still alive.
The cold, flowing water had kept the inflammation of the wound down
which in turn saved his life. He lived a
good thirty-five more years, some of those years with broken rib bones and a
bullet still lodged next to his backbone.
Texture: The style of
the article is very matter of fact.
There’s no detailed description of the scene just the people and what
they were doing. The language is not
dramatic as opposed to the nature of the story.
If someone were to rewrite that story today, it would be full of
descriptive sensory and dramatic details.
When this article was published though, that wasn’t the style of
writing. It was in the news, it was to
get the facts out there and to notify people of what happened. This makes it believable despite the incredulous
nature of the story—I find it hard to believe myself. But I also do believe in miracles.
Meaning: While
reading the actual text of this article for the first time, it had great impact
on me—especially because of my location.
Being a student at Utah State University, I am currently living in
Logan, Utah, which is just south of Smithfield—the location of which this story
takes place. The people in this story,
my ancestors, lived and traveled Cache Valley similar as to what I do today. That makes me feel grateful to be living here,
it gives me a sense of connection to them, and purpose to my life here in
Logan.
Bonnie Moore
English 2010 !0:30
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