Indian Woman, 93, Is At Rest In Park

Rites For Ellen Moses, Who Died Where She Was Born on Spalding Mission Ground, Attract Crowd.

Spalding, April 13 - Indians from the Nez Perce reservation, with more than a score from the Umatilla reservation in Oregon and a scattering of Spokane and Colville tribesmen, gathered at the Presbyterian church in this historic village this morning at 10 o'clock to pay tribute to the memory of Mrs. Ellen Moses (Heyumedapyathlayakminmy) who died Sunday afternoon where she was born 93 years ago, a stone's throw from where the Rev. Henry Harmon Spalding and his wife Ella established the mission 101 years ago to spread the seeds of Christianity among the Indians.

The little church commenced to fill shortly after 8 o'clock and when the hour for the rites drew near Indians and whites were crowded in the church yard, heads bared, while many knelt as the casket was being carried into the edifice. The solemnity of the occasion was marked on faces of the assembled crowd.

Five Indian ministers of the Presbyterian church and a deacon were seated on the rostrum. Women and children predominated in the church, the men standing outside with ears cupped to hear what ministers were saying in tribute to Mrs. Moses.

In Nez Perce Tongue.

Excerpts from the scripture were read in English and then repeated in the language of the Nez Perces. During the service tribal folk in the congregation muttered prayers. Those officiating were the Rev. James Dickson, Spalding; the Rev. Stephen Reuben, Lapwai; the Rev. James Kash Kash of Pendleton; the Rev. Daniel Scott, Stites; the Rev. Starr J. Maxwell, Lapwai, and Deacon George Moody, of the Meadow creek church in the Ferdinand section. The Indian choir sang. The casket was banked with flowers.

The service lasted more than two hours and at 12:15 the funeral cortege wended its way to the cemetery where rest the bodies of Henry Harmon Spalding and Eliza Spalding and many others whose names are intimately associated with early history of Idaho. Mrs. Moses was buried only a few feet from the resting place of Mr. and Mrs. Spalding in the state memorial park, dedicated in 1936 to commemorate the coming of the Spaldings and to remind posterity of what they accomplished for future generations. The first printing press in the northwest and the first grist mill were located on ground now included in the park site.