CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : VISALIA : Woman in Donner Party Remembered

Nearly a century after her death, a simple marker has been placed on the grave of a member of the Donner Party--pioneers trapped in a Sierra blizzard who ate the flesh of dead companions to stay alive. Mary Graves Clarke settled in Tulare County after the Donner ordeal. Forty-eight people survived the brutal winter of 1846-47 by resorting to cannibalism of 42 others who died. At 19, Clarke left Independence, Mo., the great jumping off point to the West, on a wagon train journey with Sutter’s Fort at Sacramento as her destination. Her parents and eight brothers and sisters joined the wagon train. A late October storm covered their supposed shortcut across the Sierra with 22 feet of snow, closed the pass and left them stranded in the mountains.