Note: Year of birth is based upon tombstone lettering that Louisa was age 83 at time of her death. Therefore, she would have been age 83 years, 3 months and 2 days if the month and day of her birth was May 26th, as noted in other family documents.

Louisa Jane Ham, daughter of John Abram Waymire (1813-1891) and Harriet (Clark) Waymire was born in 1834 near Logansport, Indiana. Louisa married May 16, 1852 in Polk County, Oregon to Charles Benjamin Ham (1824-1898). They had 10 children.

Caroline Frances 1853-1947
Harriet Abbie 1856-1926
Amanda Jane 1857-1941
Mary Jane 1859-1939
John Milton 1860-1934
Henry 1863- moved to Alaska 1897
Samuel 1865- died in childhood
William E 1870-1913
Charles Benjamin 1872-1901
Alice Pearl 1879-1961

The Waymire family genealogy is well documented in the 600+ page tome, "The Quest for John Rudolph Waymire"; he was the first of the family in America. Harriet Clark was the daughter of Mormon pioneer Richard Clark (1776-1854) and Ann Elizabeth Sheffer (1785-1866). The Clark family ancestry is also well documented.

When Louisa was still a girl, her father, grandfather and many of the Waymire family began the long trek from Indiana to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Louisa walked most of the journey, However, there were times along the Oregon Trail when she was allowed to drive a team of oxen. The family arrived in the autumn of 1845. The loses, the sacrifices and the arguments which led to a splintering of the wagon party of the then largest wagon train to attempt the crossing of the continent have been told in several historical accounts, two of which are:
"Terrible Trail: Meek's Cut-off 1845" by Clark & Tiller, published in 1966.
"The Brazen Overlanders of 1845" by Donna M. Wojcik, published 1976 by the author, Portland, Oregon.

In the 1870s Charles & Louisa Ham moved from Oregon into Whitman County, Washington Territory where they established their new farm. It was only after her husband's death in 1898 that Louisa left the Wilcox area and moved into the town of Colfax and lived there until her own death in 1916. The place of burial for Louisa's husband, Charles Benjamin Ham, is not known. It is thought that he perhaps was buried next to his son, Samuel, in a small cemetery the family prepared on their Wilcox property...lost now to time and nature.

Narrative composed by a great x3 granddaughter.