Catherine Anderson

In 1908, Mary Ellicott Arnold and Mabel Reed, life partners from the age of sixteen, traveled from their home in New Jersey to the Klamath River area of Northern California, known locally as “the Rivers.” They went as field matrons for the then-named Office of Indian Affairs. Ostensibly, their job was to provide a civilizing influence on the native Karuk people, to be exemplars of Christian piety and domestic virtue.