Over the past month, I have been involved in researching my family roots. Strangely enough, what motivated me one morning was an article I found while typing random things into my computer. Sitting there thinking of my husband being a trapper and having just left for the day, I was inspired to look up information about pioneer trappers. Of all things, an article from the New York Times dated 1922 appeared. After having read the article, I could not leave it alone. For days I thought about it and dug deeper researching anything I could find that could tell me more. No matter how hard I searched, nothing but this tiny little article would appear.
The story was about an old woman trapper found dead lying in a muddy mire with a muskrat trap embedded deep into her arm. She had fought to her death to break free from the thick mud on the banks of the St Clair Flats in Algonac Michigan.
The article inspired me to find out more about the woman, but for days on end, only this tiny article written hundreds of miles away from where she died. Who was she? And why had she simply vanished off the face of this earth; never recognized for the life she lived; never mentioning whether she had children; where she came from, etc?
With very little genealogy research under my belt, I began searching everywhere to learn more about her. I wonder if anyone visits her grave, if she even has a headstone. I think about the cold night she spent in that muddy mire and how she must have cried out for the husband she lost a year before. Here’s a woman who spent her entire life trapping as the article reads. She obviously was passionate about it just as my husband is today. Of course, it was more as a means for income back then rather than a sport or hobby, but it takes discipline and consistency to be good at it. They called her a “pioneer” and yet today, she is forgotten. For some strange reason she has touched my heart. I am inspired to write about her as I can only admire her for her beauty and determination to carry on after her husband passed; running her trap line all alone as she had done so many times before. She must have stood proud, strong willed. She shall shine today.
Her name was Harriet (Lozon) Sears. She was born in Canada growing up in a life of hunting and trapping and migrating to the US as many did in search of a “better life” abroad.
Times were tough though for the people of St Clair Flats. Many others had migrated from Canada as well and set up camp along the banks due to its heavy population of muskrat and mink. It only made sense that she would meet and marry someone of that nature; Joseph Sears. The Sears family was very well known on the Flats where women were just as much experts on hunting and fishing as the men in that day. Even at her ripe age, she was not one to lie down. She preferred to be outdoors despite the whether conditions; hunting, fishing, shooting her gun.
A widow for almost a year to the date and having lost her daughter to a hunting accident three years prior, Harriet set out in her duck boat alone one morning to set her trap line in search of muskrat and mink just as she had been accustomed to since a young child. The following day, she returned to check her traps. As she reached down with her right hand to pull her trap, the steel teeth snapped tight around her arm. In her efforts to break free, Harriett worked her way in her small boat to the shoreline. As she exited the boat in was known to be only a foot or so deep at the time, she suddenly sank to her waist in the muddy mire only feet away from the shore. Unable to break free and exhausted, this strong willed, independent woman died alone. Harriett was 73 years old. She was found by relatives later that day after she failed to return home for supper.
She was the mother of Lena Brakeman, the daughter who was accidentally shot and killed while hunting at the Flats in 1919. Her husband, Joseph Sears, died in April 1921. She is buried in an old cemetery in the Flats called Oaklawn Cemetery, but I have not found a headstone for her. The caretaker there claims she is mentioned in a book written about the pioneers of the St. Clair Flats, but I have yet to locate it. Harriett also had five sons and one daughter who survived her death along with 24 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren at the time of her death. I was honored to meet one of her great great granddaughters online recently and learned more about her history.
Genealogy is so important; a great story book on the lives of others. Not only to learn about where you came from and what made you who you are today, but to keep those who have past alive through you; regardless of relation. Here is a woman who has been long forgotten and was amazingly strong; she was a survivor of hard times, hard work and unafraid to face her days alone. Recognize those that inspire you and share their stories so that you might inspire others.
“Every day you have the opportunity to learn and experience some-thing and some-one new. Seize the opportunity. Learn and experience everything you can, and use it to change the world.” ~Rodney Williams~
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