Martin badly needed to have a success. He was not a farmer; he hated the endless chores of caring for animals and crops and being at the mercy of the weather. When his Uncle Ethan had left him the farm, he developed grand plans for putting in orchards--apple, cherry, plum trees--and starting a fruit export business. He would pay someone else to do the field work. "Just think of it, Rory," he said, "people in Nebraska, even California, eating Michigan apples." She married him in 1895, full of eager anticipation at helping him with his dreams, their dreams. When he went downstate to take a horticulture course, Aurora had taken care of their animals, their garden and taught school. The farm, bounded on the north by Sawyersville Road, formerly Indian Trail when Uncle Ethan homesteaded it after the Civil War, and on the west by Starr Lane, was dubbed Starrvation Corner by Martin soon after they moved into the farmhouse. He remarked that if they relied on his farming skills, they would surely starve.
When Frank King, Martin’s boyhood friend from Minnesota, had written to Martin, touting the golden promises of the Klondike, her husband could not refuse. He did not ask for her permission, only her understanding
in regarding this as an opportunity for both of them and their children -- still in the future. At first she tried to talk him out of it. Their separation would be too long. They could try for a loan. The bank? Perhaps his parents . . .? Surely there must be another way to finance the orchards.
Her calm logic was no match for his determination to become a Klondiker. He read excerpts from brochures Frank had sent about small-town men from all over the U.S. who had returned home rich and set for life. "I have to do this, Rory. I won’t make you sorry you married me."
The next morning as she prepared to go out she noticed her hands, which after days of not doing chores had lost their redness and cracks. The nightly applications of hand treatment in a jar, lent to her by the woman in the room next door, were healing her skin. She walked down to the wharf area, slipping once on the slick boardwalk, but catching herself. After checking the shipping schedules, it was evident that it would be foolhardy to go all the way to St. Michael at the mouth of the Yukon. It would be a long, arduous trip, and an unnecessary one, she felt. She’d then have to travel the vast length of the Yukon River to Dawson. Her intuition and common sense told her Martin had not made it to Dawson. He was somewhere in British Columbia, maybe near the border with the Yukon Territory. There was a ship going to the Alaskan port of Wrangell to pick up returning stampeders. That’s where she would go: to Wrangell and then go by boat up the Stikine to
