TRUCKEE, Calif. — O Mary I have not rote you half of the truble we have had but I have rote you anuf to let you now that you dont now what truble is but thank god we have all got throw and the only family that did not eat human flesh.
--Donner party survivor Patty Reed, 12,
writing to her cousin in 1847.
At about the age when children are most attracted to scary stories, they're apt to hear one in fourth-grade history class that tops anything whispered at a slumber party or summer camp.
It's the saga of a band of 82 emigrants reduced to cannibalism when they were trapped at Donner Lake by a 22-foot snowfall in the winter of 1846-47.
While some tales lose their power to captivate over time, people can't seem to forget the Donner party, which set out from Springfield, Ill., 140 years ago last month on what should have been a demanding but routine trip west. The episode, which has been called the most spectacular disaster in the history of Western migration, continues to captivate researchers, descendants of party members and amateur collectors of Donnerana who spend their free time exploring the mysteries and controversy that still surround the event.
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