They Were Married Where?
June, the month most commonly associated with nuptials, always brings to mind the most unique wedding I ever attended. But, first, a little back story.
He was uncommonly large, six foot two and 260 lbs. of solid muscle. Swift, agile and cunning, to his fellow mountain men, he was known as ‘Liver-eatin’ Johnson’. The Indians called him ‘Crow Killer’. Jeremiah Johnson’s very name was enough to bring instant obedience to the most obstinate Crow child.
He died in a home for Veterans in Santa Monica, California and was buried in the Veterans’ Cemetery, there. End of story? Not quite. Nearly 75 years later a group of seventh grade students successfully campaigned to have his body dis-interred, brought to Cody, Wyoming, and re-interred in Cody’s Old Trail Town.
During the mid 1980s my husband, a musician, played for the weekly dances at the American Legion in nearby Powell, Wyoming where one of the regulars was a middle-aged man named Dick. Dick enjoyed my husband’s music and he loved to dance but his abiding passion was the romance of the Old West. Buckskins, black powder rifles and teepee living were Dick’s dream life; he owned the complete regalia. There was, however, one thing missing - a squaw.
When he met Sue, a woman equally fascinated with the mountain man lifestyle, Dick was overjoyed. Sue hand sewed a beautiful white doeskin dress for their wedding, together they wrote their vows and Dick asked my husband to entertain their guests at Old Trail Town while the buckskin-clad groom and his doeskin dressed squaw rode, horseback, through Cody to Jeremiah Johnson’s gravesite. There, in front of Crow Killer’s remains, they pledged their hearts to each other.
I’ve often wondered what Crow Killer would have thought if he could have seen that day?
For more information on Crow Killer, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver-Eating_Johnson
To view some of the beautifully restored buildings in Old Trail Town, Cody, Wy. see: http://oldtrailtown.org/frontier-towns-historic-buildings-old-west-cody-wy.php
Robert Redford starred in the 1972 movie, Jeremiah Johnson
