Anna Maria
Pittman Lee was born in 1803 and died at the age of thirty-five. She was born in New York City, the thirteenth
child of George W. and Mary (Spies) Pittman. The family was financially secure
and deeply religious.
Anna was
twenty-five when was “converted to God” and declared to remain celibate. At
this time she became interested in the Indians and applied to the Missionary
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When there were no openings in
Canada, she applied for the Oregon mission and was accepted in 1836.
In 1833 the
Methodist Missionary Society voted to carry their work to the Indians of
America. This came about after a group
of Flathead and Nez Perce traveled to St. Louis in 1831 and asked about conversion.
Jason Lee an ordained deacon and elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church was
selected to travel to the Oregon Country and set up a mission.
The mission was
established in the fall of 1834 sixty miles from the mouth of the Willamette
River. In less than a year the Society
sent a farmer and his family, a married minister, and teachers to the mission. Anna
Marie Pittman was chosen as one of the young women teachers. Thirteen people in
all left by ship from New York in July of 1836 and arrived in May off 1837 at
Fort Vancouver.
Anna arrived in
Oregon a celibate missionary, but after meeting Jason Lee she was married within
two months of her arrival. They honeymooned
at the Pacific Ocean then returned to their duties at the mission. Anna, along with physician Elijah White's wife, dealt with the
domestic affairs of cooking, baking, making butter, teaching a Sabbath
School, and sewing clothes for the thirty Indian children who lived at the Mission
House.
Eight months
after their marriage, Jason traveled East to gain assistance from the Board of
Managers of the Methodist Missionary Society. At his departure, Anna was six
months pregnant. Knowing he would be
gone for eighteen months, she had to steel herself to bringing their child into
the world without him.
Here is the
first stanza of a poem she wrote for her husband before he left on his trip.
Must my dear
Companion leave me,
Sad and lonely
here to dwell?
If ‘tis duty
thus that calls thee,
Shall I keep
thee? No, farewell;
Though my heart
aches
While I bid they
thus farewell.
June 21, 1838
Anna became ill and Dr. Elijah White came to help her. After several days of
difficult labor a baby boy was born with the help of instruments. The baby
lived two days and Anna Marie Pittman Lee died the next day. They were buried
together near the mission in a grove of fir trees. She was thirty-five years old.
During the
marriage Anna wrote many letters and poems to her husband. This collection of writing
shows her belief in religious and marital bonds, her faith in God and the
comfort and passion she found in her loving relationship with her husband,
Jason Lee. You can find her writings in Life and Letters of Mrs. Jason Lee by
Theressa Gay. The letters are proof that contradicts the stereotype of
missionary women. She wrote of romance, passion, and child birth with her
husband.
Besides being one
of Oregon’s first poets, Anna was also the first white woman to marry, die, and
be buried in the Oregon Country.
Source: Pacific Northwest Women 1815-1925
