Later research discovered that Maud was born in Arkansas, so apparently the Oregon trip was not the first time her family had migrated. That she had a Native American ancestry is family oral tradition. Maud never spoke of her grandparents but since she lost both parents in Oregon while still young, perhaps she did not know her family history.

After her parents' deaths, Maud and her siblings were cared for by an uncle. She worked in a hotel, then for a judge. Maud fell in love with a milkman, John Zachary, whom she married in Salem on October 4, 1899, despite the objections of the judge and his wife.

John Zachary's family history is well known as he was the great-grandson of Tabitha Brown, the so-called "Mother of Oregon," a sixty-six year old widow who accompanied her son Orus to Oregon in 1846. Tabitha became known for her many benevolent activities, most notably for establishing an orphans' home which later became Pacific University. In the last years of her life, "Grandma" Brown lived with her daughter Mrs. Phernie Pringle. She died there on May 4, 1858 and is in buried in Salem's Pioneer Cemetery.

The census of 1900 shows John and Maud living in West Salem: John, age twenty-five, born in 1875; Maud, age twenty-eight, born in 1872, and Lizzie, their daughter, aged 12 months. Living with them as boarders were William Lyons and his wife, Florence (Maud's sister.)

Three years later John's name appeared in Salem's newspaper, the Daily Oregon Statesman, on Sunday, August 30, 1903 when, as foreman of the T. L. Davidson stock farm in Yamhill County, it was noted that "J.R." had arrived in town with a large drove of beef cattle to be placed on the Salem market.

The early twentieth century brought a great misfortune to Maud when, on April 18, 1914, her husband John Zachary, began serving an indeterminate sentence of three to twenty years in the Oregon State Penitentiary. John did not survive his sentence, dying in the prison hospital on November 27, 1915. He is buried a short distance from his great-grandmother in Pioneer Cemetery.

In 1917 Maud moved from West Salem to 1134 North Front Street in Salem. She was the widowed mother of five children: John Raymond, Aldes R., Lloyd R., Elizabeth Pearl (the eldest), and Theresa Bell. Maud took employment as a laundress which in those days involved much hard labor: Maud probably tended heavy tubs of hot water balanced over open fires, washed with harsh lye soap and wrung heavy work clothes by hand. Clothing was hung out to dry over the dusty yard - perhaps over mud in the rainy season.

Records show that by 1927 she and her son, John, had moved to Portland, living with Aldes R. Zachary, who was employed as a driver. Maud continued to support her family through her employment. She died on November 15, 1954.

The family remembered that in her earlier years Maud was a fun-loving person, spinning many a tale for the family's entertainment, but her determination to survive and her difficult experiences gave her the reputation as a very stern old woman. If we could place ourselves on unpaved Front Street, with its mix of river traffic, commercial enterprise, taverns, and boarding houses in the years that Maud lived and labored there, if we had to live in the condition she found herself, would we survive as well as she did?

One wonders about her ancestry, and why her family came to Oregon. How did she manage the twelve years between her husband's death and her move to a son's home? History is silent about much of her life, as it is about many other women of her time.

Compiled by Virginia Green.