Susanna Draper Stroup

The Payette Enterprise
Thursday, February 21, 1935

Mrs. Stroup One of Early Pioneers

Susanna Draper Stroup was born in Hartford, Iowa, April 7, 1855. In early childhood she went with her parents to Alba, Missouri. Here she grew to womanhood, and as she neared the age of eighteen, she was married to Jacob Stroup. On the 19th of March, 1873, they started on their honey-moon, headed for Walla Walla, Wash., where they expected to make their future home.

They came most of the way by rail. Their first lap took them to Omaha, Neb. where they entrained on the new Union Pacific train for Ogden, Utah. Reaching that place they purchased a wagon and a team of mules, and outfitted for the remainder of their journey by wagon. It was early spring in the mountains and the trip was a trying one. Every where there was either soft snow or deep mud. It took three weeks to make the trip from Ogden, and the only people they met were either Indians, the Overland Stage or long trains of freight wagons which kept cutting the ruts deeper and deeper into the mud.

Only those who have made the trip can appreciate the joy they experienced in the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. C.C. Glenn of Glenn's Ferry, where they crossed Snake river. These lovely but lonely people sought to induce the honey-mooners to stop near them and become helpers in subduing that portion of the great desert plains. And only those know the joy they felt when they came to the top of the hill overlooking Boise City, as it was then called.

After resting a few days in the valley near Boise, and having replenished their supplies, they renewed their westward journey. They entered the valley of Payette river a few miles above the old Falk Store. A short way west of Falk's Store, was the Post Office where they met Mr. McFarland, the postmaster. He, like the Glenns, sought to interest them in the possibilities of this section, telling Mr. Stroup of a tract of land on the banks of Snake river. It was Washoe Bottom. After looking at land near Malheur Butte, Mr. Stroup returned to Washoe and pre-empted the land Mr. McFarland had told him about. This piece of land is still the property of the Stroup estate. It has never been sold, nor changed hands since Mr. Stroup received his government patent.

It was on this claim that Mr. Stroup and his young bride established their home. And here, on Thursday morning February 14, 1935, that young bride, now a matron of mature years, took her leave of friends and loved ones, to follow her husband into the great unknown. He had been in the "wild west" five times before he was married, and likewise he had preceded his erstwhile bride some ten years in the land of no return.

Mr. and Mrs. Stroup saw the railroad come into the Payette valley in 1883. The railroad passes just in front of the Stroup home. Mrs. Stroup watched the progress of time, from the wagon trains to the first railroad into the valley, saw the little settlement of Boomerang grow to the present Payette, and on April 2, last year, saw the streamline train pass her home. While viewing the new train from the yard of her home, Mrs. Stroup's grandson, who is an airmail pilot, passed over and flew low enough to wave a greeting to his aged grandmother.

Mrs. Stroup was a charter member of the Portia Club, and was a writer, having several pieces of poetry published in leading magazines.

Mrs. Stroup is survived by three daughters and two sons, Mrs. Jessie Moore, Mrs. Franklin Russell, Mrs. Alta Coughanour, Guy and Streeter Stroup; twelve grandchildren, five great grandchildren, and four brothers. Two sons, Alonzo A. and Jacob R. preceded her to the beyond.

Funeral services were conducted Sunday afternoon from the Landon Funeral Parlors, with Rev. S.P. Hagler of Ontario, officiating. Interment was made in Riverside cemetery.

I came to thee a blushing Bride In eighteen seventy-three.
The savages, the barren wastes Looked terrible to me.
But as years went rolling by, And I grew reconciled,
I learned to love thee, Idaho, And soon became thy child.
And now I lay me down, at last, Near him whom I loved well,
Who won, and brought me here a Bride In thy dear Clime to dwell.