The Last Darning Needle....an Oregon Folktale (retold by S.E. Schlosser) for Thread the Needle Day
Folks traveling the Oregon Trail looking for a new life left almost everything behind them when they made the 2000 mile journey in their covered wagons. As the trail grew harder, the valleys steeper, the mountains more treacherous, they started abandoning furniture and luxuries of all sorts by the wayside to make it easier to move the wagons. Many of their horses and cattle died on the trail. And many lost family members to sickness or accident. By the time the settlers reached Oregon, the few goods they had were precious indeed. And so it was for the people who made their new home in Pass Creek Canyon. The tiny settlement was so isolated that the villagers had no access to manufactured goods of any sort and had to make do with what they brought with them. And so, it turned out, they were soon down to their very last darning needle. Now darning needles, in those days, were used to sew clothing and darn socks and mend buttons th...