Uintah County

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The word came as a shock to the entire community Saturday morning that death had claimed Mrs. Kate Jean Boan at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. C., Ruple. Her illness was known but news had been given out that she was recovering and would soon be well again. She was over from the new home on Homestead No. 3 near Moffat with Mr. Boan and the children to spend a few days with Vernal friends. Taken suddenly ill on Monday the last day of July of a complication of diseases that baffled medical skill, her condition hung uncertain between recovery and relapse until last Saturday the thread of life snapped. This leaves motherless the two younger children Quincey and Phillis. Mr. Boan and the family have the sincere sympathy of all.

Kate Jean O'Meilla was born May 14 1859 in [New?] York State. Her life was the price of the mother's. The father to perpetuate the Union, was a sacrifice on the bloody field at Shiloh. she was given to be reared of foster parents and came to womanhood under their wise directions. Her married life began in Colorado as the wife of Wesley A. Blake, officer of the signal service in charge of Pikes Peak Station. After reappointment brought the Blakes to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he fell ill and died. Mrs. Blake turned her energies into the newspaper profession being on the staff of the Salt lake Tribune at the time of securing an appointment as matron at the Indian school at Whiterocks in 1885. She later married A. Q. Boan, who now survives her. She is the mother of six children, five of whom are living.

A most fitting funeral service was held from the Vernal First Ward chapel Monday a 2 p.m. Rev. M. J. Hersey of St. Paul's Episcopal Church presiding. Mrs. Boan was a distinctive character among women, possessed of virile, striking personality, keen, original and ambitious. Her true biographer must say that she was of the dynamic type, a woman not to be led but to lead, the kind that could plant the flagstaff of the press in a frontier country and dare to dip her pen in vitriol if she thought it need be. Her nature bred enemies but they admired even while they hated. She was not devoid of faults but had a world of virtues such as of charity, hospitality and of ambition to be a public benefactor. hers was a nimble wit but withal she had a very broad view of serious human affairs which enable her to give substantially to the world in her public service. This she did as founder and editor of the Uintah Pappoose, the pioneer newspaper of Eastern Utah, printed in Vernal, Utah, 1901. This effort was a very creditable one, the pages of the Uintah Pappoose bristled with good humor, good sense and good advertising of local people and place.

Her service in the Indian School at Whiterocks was praiseworthy but last and perhaps most enduring she was known for her own inimitable self, that something for which everyone praised her acquaintance and may she live as long as those memories.

Contributed by Marilyn Hersey Brown

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