Linda Allen - Helga Estby lyrics

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Linda Allen - Helga Estby

I'll never forget the first time I saw her

She and her daughter just outside Spokane

In her high button shoes, a gun on her shoulder

Settin' off on a wager to walk across the land

Helga and her husband were hard workin' farmers

But the year of 1896 had brought them to their knees

For Ole had been crippled, Helga's health was fading

If they didn't pay their taxes soon the farm would be seized

Then Helga had an offer from secret New York sponsors

To earn ten thousand dollars to walk across the land

So one clear May morning, with winter frost still forming

They set off on the railroad track East of Spokane

We are all on a journey, and who can know the end?

It's hidden in the promises, scattered by the wind

But she walked across this country,

It was all that she could do

Helga Estly of Spokane, we will remember you

They followed the railroad through snows of the Blue Mountains

Pouring rains was constant the first month on their way

They stopped in Boise to earn a little money

Then set off once again at nearly 30 miles a day

Now many were the dangers, a Wyoming mountain lion

A rain-swollen river nearly took their lives

The thieves and the hobos learned to keep their distance

For a red pepper gun helped these women to survive

Once in Snake River they cut across the sagebrush

They were lost three days before they found their way back

Rocks tore at their shoes, rattlers gave no rest

Hunger burned like the summer sun 'til they stumbled on the track CHO

Near the end of the journey, Clara sprained her ankle

But they made it to New York on a cold December day

The sponsors were sorry, but they never paid a penny

They'd walked three thousand miles, but they got there three days late

In May they returned to a heart-broken family

Two children they'd buried, the farm would be lost

In their grief and anger, they hid the walk in silence

Too bitter the memory, too high was the cost

Many years later in nineteen and twenty

In a small Spokane attic, Helga sorted her notes

She'd locked the door tightly, but her mind still could journey

She picked up her pen and she secretly wrote

And the years fell away. She wrote of the people.

The beauty of the desert with Clara by her side

But when she died, her daughter burned every paper

But her memory was stronger, her story survived. CHORUS