Mary Frances Kelly White: Adventurer, farmer and businesswoman

The eldest of nine children, Mary Frances Kelly epitomizes the American pioneer success story: she was daring, courageous and not afraid to flout convention. The daughter of Irish immigrants Patrick and Eleanor (McDermott) Kelly, she was born on Dec. 17, 1840, in Philadelphia. Her father was an urban laborer of some kind and her mother was a “tailoress,” indicating that she sewed men’s clothing. By Mary Frances’ death in 1911, she was the sole owner and manager of a farm in Eastern Washington that she personally had built to more than 1800 acres.

Nothing is known of her childhood; but in 1860, when she was 20 years old, Mary Frances took a ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus on foot, then sailed to San Francisco. She was accompanied by one of her three sisters, probably 12-year-old Sophia — the two girls apparently traveled by themselves. Their two other sisters could not have made the journey: Katharine, a milliner, remained in Philadelphia until after 1864, and Ella was not born until the very year that Mary Frances and Sophia embarked on the first leg of their journey. Incidentally, all of the Kelly women appear to have been involved in the clothing industry in some way.

Shortly after her arrival in northern California, Mary Frances moved to Sacramento. A marriage certificate dated 1860 indicates that she married a man named John Kane there, but they apparently separated not long afterward. No record of a divorce can be found. He moved to Philadelphia and lived until 1886. However, on June 1, 1865, in Sacramento, Mary Frances married Enoch Washington White (1832-96). She was 25 and he was 33. Enoch was a good-looking man who loved horses. At the age of 21, he had helped drive a herd from Kentucky to California; and before his marriage he had been a teamster for either Red Star Freight Lines or Wells Fargo.

For the next 17 years, the couple and their growing family lived on a farm outside of Dixon, Cal., which they called the “Chicken Hominy Ranch.” Mary Frances gave birth to six healthy children: Frank, Edward, James, Emily, Samuel and Grace. She also lost a son named Edward in infancy, then named her third son after him. During this period, Mary Frances’ widowed mother and most of her siblings slowly made their way from Pennsylvania to California.

Looking for greener pastures and more lucrative ways to make a living than raising chickens in California, in 1882 the Whites decided to move to Washington Territory. They traveled in a two-horse covered hack and a Conestoga wagon pulled by four horses.

The family arrived in Colfax on the night of July 14 and camped on the site where the Whitman County Hospital now stands. That same night, heavy winds fanned a fire that began on the south end of Main Street into a conflagration that destroyed 58 buildings downtown. The two older White sons immediately joined the firefighting.

Two months later, Mary Frances and her family moved to a 160-acre homestead in the Pleasant Valley area between St. John and Steptoe, where the following year she gave birth to her seventh and youngest child, David. She was 43. The family worked hard, raising wheat, apples, horses, cattle, chickens and turkeys. They also added 640 more acres to their farm with the result that, by Enoch’s death in 1896, their 800 acres were seriously encumbered with debt.

Mary Frances took immediate charge of the family finances and the farm. In the 1900 and 1910 federal censuses, her occupation is listed as “farmer,” whereas before her husband’s death she had been described as a “homemaker.” Within a few years she paid off the debts and began enlarging her holdings. By the time of her death in 1911 in St. John, she had purchased an additional 1,050 acres.

Her obituary describes her as a “highly esteemed pioneer woman” who had “a host of friends” in Oakesdale and Colfax. She was buried in Bethel Cemetery in Steptoe. According to her son David, it was his mother’s pioneer experiences that gave her the fortitude to succeed in whatever she did.

Meyer taught history at Washington State University for 25 years. She has been active in Whitman County Historical Society since 1992.