When she died suddenly, Louis did not let her body go to waste. “It was the finest flesh I’d ever tasted,” he allegedly commented.
“Tamsin’s skeleton was never found,” said Janice Oberding, who suspects that she is buried beside the Donner Party memorial rock, which once served as a wall of the Murphy Cabin.
If detectives were so inclined, they could unearth the remains of Tamsin so that modern forensics could determine the cause of death. A blow to the head or a strangling death may still be detectable.
If she was murdered, it may explain why she has been earthbound for so long. Her glowing figure still walks the path toward the Murphy Cabin.
The apparition of the woman in pioneer clothing materializes near the pioneer monument and floats toward the Emigrant Trail Museum. “That is the path she took on her way to see her sick husband,” explained Janice, as she pointed to the location of the long-ago trail.
Is Tamsin Donner reliving her last journey?
What really happened on that trail? Did she stumble into a stream, as Lewis maintained, and suffer from fatal hypothermia?
Or did she stumble upon something even more dangerous than icy cold water?
The answer is buried somewhere on the grounds of the Donner Memorial State Park.
Yet another Donner Party memorial is also believed to be home to ghosts of the tragic pioneers. “Not many people know about it,” said Janice Oberding, who took me to see the plaque.
At the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain, the bronze plaque is situated between houses in a modern housing development in the Donner Springs neighborhood, a subdivision in Reno, Nevada.
It was here that the Donner Party camped during its last happy time. Though the members of the party were warned that the weather would soon change and that they should move quickly, they lingered. The children frolicked in the sunshine as the adults dreamed of the new life in California.
This spot at the foot of Rattlesnake Mountain in Reno, Nevada, served as the campsite for the Donner Party before its members ventured onto dark trails. (Leslie Rule)
An enormous boulder once served as the wall of a cabin where members of the Donner Party took refuge. Today, a memorial plaque attached to the rock remembers both the victims and the survivors. Some believe human remains are buried at this spot. (Leslie Rule)
Do the restless ghosts of the Donner Party wander back to the spot where they last enjoyed the warmth of sunshine and the satisfaction of full bellies? (Leslie Rule)
“They stayed too long,” said Janice.
By the time the group got moving, the mild season was running out of days. The mean winter weather crept in, its icy fists pummeling the pioneers with snow until their path was blocked. Some of the ghosts went back to the last place where life was good, theorizes Janice who once ran a tour of haunted places in Reno.
One night, about ten p.m. she led a bus full of tourists to the old campsite on Peckham Lane. As the folks wandered around exploring, the skeptical driver stayed in the bus.
He was friendly, and Janice liked him, but she couldn’t help notice how he rolled his eyes as she told ghost stories to the eager group.
While Janice waited for her tourists to finish examining the place, the driver motioned to her from the doorway of the bus. “Don’t tell the others,” he whispered, “but I just saw a ghost!” His hand trembling, he raised his arm and pointed to the spot where he had seen a little girl in a white nightgown materialize.
She studied his face, wondering if he was teasing her, but he was genuinely shaken. “He didn’t believe in ghosts before that,” she said.
Janice smiled to herself. The bus driver was new to the state and had no idea that it was not the first time a nightgown-clad girl had been seen in the area.
A couple of years before, authorities were baffled when drivers reported seeing a child in a white nightgown near McCarran Boulevard. “It was in the dead of winter and on a cold night,” remembered Janice, who had read the accounts in the newspaper.
The girl appeared to be three or four, too young to be wandering in the dark and cold. Several people reported seeing her, including one woman who said she approached the child.
But the little girl ran from the woman, disappearing into the night.
“They searched for her for days,” said Janice, remembering how concerned people were.
It did not occur to the police that it could be too late to help the child. The authorities did not consider the possibility that the small girl had been dead for a century and a half.
If the evasive figure was indeed a spirit left behind by the Donner Party, it could have been Ava Keseberg, the three-year-old daughter of Lewis.
The little one perished on the trail as a group of folks forged ahead. After she died, they were unable to carry her with them and buried her in the snow.