Marietta Palmer Wetherill

Marietta Wetherill: Life with the Navajos in Chaco Canyon (1997)
by Kathryn Gabriel

The Story of Ruth Wetherill

Marietta and Richard Wetherill had five children.  The last was Ruth, born two weeks before Richard was murdered by an angry trading post customer near their home in Chaco Canyon in 1910.  Marietta remained in Chaco Canyon less than a year before moving to a valley in the Jemez mountains near Cuba, New Mexico.  She was assisted by a friend named Ray Miera from Cuba, Bill Finn and another cowboy.  She loaded her five children onto a wagon and drove straight east to the beautiful Jemez mountains establishing her new home there.  It was in stark contrast to the hot dry Chaco Canyon area.  The cool days and nights and a valley of lush grass beneath giant Ponderosa Pines were perfect for raising livestock.  She began to increase her holdings as young Richard gathered Mustangs.  It was here that Ruth died one year to the day after Richard was killed.

Ruth Wetherill's Grave Site in the Jemez Mountains

Before Ruth's death her older sister's Marion and Elizabeth were playing in the streambed below their cabin gathering Wild Iris flowers. They returned to the cabin with bundles of flowers.  Marion gave Ruth a Wild Iris which she promptly ate.  Wetherill family members have repeated this story for several generations and suggested this caused her death because of the poisonous principle in the Iris plant. Some of the facts bear this out as the season of her death is part of the bloom cycle of the Wild Iris.  There is however, a discrepancy in the symptoms Ruth exhibited and the actual symptoms of Wild Iris poisoning.  The discrepancy lies in the literature that describes the poisonous compound and it's location in the plant, which is in the roots and not the flowers.  Family lore has indicated that Ruth had breathing problems and was taken outside of the cabin in the evenings into the cool night air to help her breathing.  In addition Marietta said "her finger nails were turning blue". The poisonous principle of the Wild Iris does not cause these symptoms or anything close to it.  Marion blamed herself her entire life for Ruth's death but in fact had nothing what soever to do with it.  Marietta even blamed her for the death.   It may never be known what caused Ruth's death exactly, but the wild Iris flowers did not contribute to it.  In any event it was a tragic death which followed the murder of her father and subsequent events which included the death of Bill Finn.

It may never be known what caused Ruth's death exactly, but the wild Iris flowers did not contribute to it.  In any event it was a tragic death which followed the murder of her father.