The Lost Woman

Pregnant Teen Dumped in Remote Area to Die

Lover leaves Kate Vernon in Slate Range to perish

By RICK FERREIRA

Special to the News Review

Residents of Ridgecrest, Trona and China Lake may be alarmed to hear of the alleged attempted murder of a teenage girl named Kate Vernon, formerly a Nebraska citizen, who was relocating to Southern California.

An unidentified man, said to be the father of her unborn child, is reported to have abandoned her in the Slate Range and continued on to the Los Angeles area.

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations for this alleged crime has expired. The event actually occurred in 1869, and Kate was a member of a wagon train.

Please forgive my dramatic introduction of this story. But if the News Review had existed in 1869, the headline news may very well have looked like what you have just read. And the reaction of the average reader may have been the same — for a crime did indeed occur in Ridgecrest’s own backyard.

A young woman endured a horribly undeserved trauma, and her child eventually became a victim as well.

And except for a few people who heard the story from the prospector who found Kate’s tattered and weathered diary, or the few more who read about the prospector in a mining history periodical published in the 1950s, the world has continued on without knowledge of these events.

You might say that for almost everyone in the world, this unknown drama has just occurred. The word is just reaching our ears and our eyes. And Kate, also known as “The Lost Woman,” might well have been victimized just yesterday.

There is another reason to regard Kate as freshly abused — the mysteries. Although little is recorded about Kate’s story, two huge questions have yet to be answered about this forsaken teenager.

First, where is her diary today? Second, what was Kate’s ultimate fate?

If we can draw together the accumulated experience and memory of the citizenry, perhaps we can answer one or both of these questions and eventually give Kate some small amount of justice.

After all this time, if Kate’s suffering can move from the condition of anonymous obscurity to public understanding and recognition, at least she will not have suffered in loneliness.

“The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword.” In the case of pregnant teenage Kate, this can be said to be true. She was on a California-bound wagon train when her trip was cut short and she was left to die.

But she did not die. The native inhabitants helped her build a tiny rock cabin, give birth to her son and eke out a meager living in a secluded canyon on the mountainside.

The whole while she kept a journal, only ceasing to make entries in about 1876 when her little boy Lee sickened and died at the age of six.

Nearly 30 years later, Kate’s diary would be found by prospector Joseph Ward.

Old Joe shares Kate’s story

Joe Ward was born on the Isle of Man and had coincidentally immigrated to the United States at the age of 16 in the year that little Lee Vernon died. Joe hoped the dry desert climate would help his tuberculosis.

"Old Joe Ward,” as he would someday be known, was educated in mineralogy, and had some success in locating mines.

A loner and poet, he spent most of his time prospecting with his favorite burros. Out of necessity he would leave his valued possessions with friends.

Meanwhile Joe freely shared Kate’s story with others. Mary Carrasco of Lone Pine recalls hearing Old Joe’s tale of the Lost Woman when Mary was nine. And later as a teenager she heard the story repeated by others with whom Joe had conversed.

The story was eventually published in a 1950s edition of the Tonopah Times and quickly reprinted in Lucille Weight’s Calico Print magazine. By then Joe was dead. He had suddenly sickened out in the desert, and was so quickly rushed to Los Angeles for treatment that even some of his local family did not know what had become of him.

After a year in the hospital, he died in 1946. But what had become of the diary?

In the 1930s Joe had located a mineral lode in the Slate Range and had sold the claim to a friend, Dick Gilbert, an employee of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios who admitted to having been bitten by the “gold bug.” He developed the mining claim into an operating business.

All too soon, however, World War II closed off access to his gold mine.

Where is the diary?

After Gilbert read Kate’s story in the Calico Print, he added his verification of Joe’s words, including the idea that the diary would have been left with someone Joe trusted out in the desert.

Gilbert even supplied an old, old photo of Kate’s cabin, located somewhere near his mine. But the location of the diary was a mystery even to him.

So where does that leave Kate's story today? I have had no success in located any of Gilbert’s family, but that does not mean there is no one left that does not remember Joe Ward, who still has family here in Southern California.

Those remembering Old Joe include Lee Widder of Temecula, and John Nicoll of Weldon. John remembers seeing Joe prospecting out in the desert, lamenting his lifestyle as “lonely, so lonely.” John and his wife Rita have spent a good deal of time researching Joe’s old claims, activities and poetry.

But none of them had heard of Kate or her diary.

So what physical evidence remains of the crime against Kate? As it turns out, quite a bit.

Several years ago I set out to follow in Kate’s footsteps, to find the actual location of her ordeal. In the process I located relatives of Old Joe as well as legal documentation that supports Dick Gilbert’s claim to have identified Kate’s cabin.

Author finds Kate’s cabin

Eventually, with the help of the Department of the Navy and Leroy Doig, the China Lake historian, I even found Kate’s cabin, forgotten since the 1930s.

Searles Lake was a lonely place in 1869. Far from white civilization, it was a good place to die if one was not prepared. When Kate woke up one morning to find her lover and horse gone, she was ill prepared indeed. He had left her only a little food and water.

Kate was left for all intents and purposes abandoned on the face of the Moon, within sight of the place known as the Trona Pinnacles.

John Searles was operating in this area at this time, but I don’t know whether Kate ever connected with him.

In fact, it was the local native inhabitants who helped Kate survive. With their help she built her tiny rock cabin — no bigger inside than a closet — set up a small garden, and bore her child Lee.

Surely this is more consideration than her own society would have given an unwed mother.

After Lee’s death, Kate stopped writing in her diary, no doubt her grief too great to put into words. At some point she left her cabin, the diary remaining at the mercy of time and the elements.

Area’s not as lonely today

Today this area is not quite as lonely as in 1869. But it’s still quiet, except when a Navy jet rushes overhead.

The eerie and majestic Trona Pinnacles still stand, as alien as the surface of another planet. In fact, this natural wonder is often used in Hollywood science-fiction productions.

Remember when Kirk ventured to the center of the galaxy to meet God? God lived at the Trona Pinnacles, you know.

Searles Lake is still there. As is the Slate Range. And up one canyon lie the ruins of Kate’s cabin, still identifiable from a 1930s image. The spring reported in the legend still produces water just above the homesite. A little root cellar in the floor of the cabin preserves only wild grass now.

Lee’s gravestone has not been seen since the 1930s.

Perhaps one day the cabin will be restored to its former humble completeness. Perhaps Lee’s little gravesite will be rediscovered. Perhaps one day Kate’s diary will be found in an old dusty box in the attic of someone whose grandparents knew Joe Ward.

Perhaps we will even learn Kate’s final fate.

The diary no doubt contains personal information that could help answer the ultimate question: Where is the Lost Woman?

One tantalizing clue was found in a forgotten mine tunnel not far from Kate’s place — a woman’s crumbling dress. Was it Kate’s? Did she find mineral riches and return to her own society a wealthy woman?

Who knows?

And who will be the one to find the answer? With all the history and memories in Ridgecrest and Trona, maybe ... just maybe ... it will be you.

Rick Ferreira works in film restoration and is a graduate of the UCLA film school. He came across Kate Vernon’s story while in college and continues his investigations to this day.