Mrs. Steen Taken; Knew Early West

Resident of Lewiston After 1882, Had Varied Northwest Career - Dayton Home Refuge in Indian War Days.

Mrs. Elizabeht Ann Steen, a native of McHenry county, Ill., where she was born April 1, 1845, who came west in a covered wagon with her parents and settled near McMinnville, Ore., then moving to the Walla Walla county, later to Dayton, and in 1882 locating in Lewiston, died yesterday morning at the home of her daughter in Clarkston, Mrs. Herbert Reeves, Fourteenth and Bridge streets. She had been an invalid for many years.

Built Portland's Center.

She was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Alexander Teel. Upon reaching Oregon territory, her father, before proceeding to McMinnville, erected a log house at Portland, and the site of this is now claimed to be the center of the downtown district of that city. The journey west was fraught with many hardships and Mrs. Steen often told of the trials and tribulations they suffered at the hand of the Indians and how they were sometimes prevented in traveling by great herds of buffaloes.

In 1859 her parents located in the Walla Walla valley, living on the Lone Pine farm six miles southeast of that city. She was married June 18, 1863, to Richard Perry Steen by the Rev. Cushing Eeles, a pioneer Presbyterian missionary. During the Nez Perce war of 1877 the Steen home at Dayton was the refuge for settlers fleeing the central Idaho country.

Two Children Survive.

Of eight children born, two survive; Mrs. Euretta A. Reeves, at whose home Mrs. Steen died, and Mrs. Luella Mae Rummens of Seattle. She leaves two sisters; Mrs. Eva A. Graham of Walla Walla and Mrs. Emma Kirby of Sunnyside, Wash., a brother, the Rev. W. A. Teel of Gault, Calif., and the following grandchildren; Miss Laurene Boyer, Olympia, Wash., Mrs. Norman Topping, Beverly Hills, Calif.; Mrs. Homer Sweetman, Seattle; Miss Beatrice Rummens, Seattle, Richard Boyer, Long Beach, Calif.; Richard P. Steen, Lloyd Steen and William R. Rummens, also of Seattle.

Mrs. Steen was a life member of the Presbyterian church.