A Letter from Bessie Hyde

A friend in Utah recently received, though friends of friends, a previously unknown letter from Bessie Hyde. She wrote it to her aunt and uncle, Ruth and Millard Haley of Pittsburgh, hours before her departure from Green River, Utah. The letter sheds some new light on the Hydes as they prepared to depart on their fatal river journey.
On a factual basis, Bessie mentions the scow as five-and-one-half feet wide, not five feet wide as most other sources state. If accurate, this would make the boat a bit more stable, yet less maneuverable than previously thought. Bessie also mentions a recent visit to Pittsburgh—perhaps on her 1927 trip East with Glen.
More significant, I think, is the vagueness of their plans and the lack of any mention of writing, publicity, or the setting of records. This aggravates a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind. When I wrote my biography of the Hydes I tried to rely on factual data instead of rumor and myth. Yet I may have inadvertently bought into the prevalent “record-setting and publicity” motive for the Hydes’ adventure. Reviewing the data now, I can find little factual basis for that assumption, other than the cryptic notes made by Dock Marston on an interview with Adolph Sutro made some thirty years after that Hydes perished. (Sutro had ridden with the Hydes for two days below Phantom Ranch and been the last to see them.) Yet the notes of the interview did not reveal what the questions were, or the actual verbatim responses. And in previous correspondence between Marston and Sutro, Sutro claimed to remember very little about the trip.
In fact, if Bessie’s letter is at all indicative of their trip plans, it appears they were simply on a grand adventure, much as Glen and his sister Jeanne had been on their Salmon River journey two years earlier. Any strong thoughts of publicity may have come much later—on the river when Sutro was with the Hydes; later, in the evolution of Sutro’s memories; or even in Marston’s much-abbreviated question-and-answer notes with Sutro.
The lessons to me as a historian are to beware of myth, avoid assumptions—mine or another’s—and be vigilant to the power of suggestion on memories and perceptions. And remember that people often hear what they intend to hear. The best sources are nearly always those recorded at the time by those who were directly involved. With that, here’s Bessie:

Green River, Utah
Oct. 20, 1928
Dear Aunt Ruth and Uncle Mill,
I certainly did enjoy seeing you all in Pittsburgh and only wish my visit could have been longer.
Margaret wrote that Upton was there for a few days and I know how glad you were to see him. How is he getting along in school?
This is a funny little town (they claim over six hundred population - but it just isn’t possible).
We plan on leaving in three or four hours. The boat is practically finished. It’s rather large 20 ft. long, 5-1/2 ft. wide and 3 ft. high, and is guided by a large sweep oar at each end.
We will go down the Green River and then the Colorado, (how far will depend on how bad the water gets) making about a three two months trip. From the river we’ll go to Los Angeles and spend three or four days there, and then on up to San Francisco. I plan on doing a lot of sketching on the trip, as, of course, the scenery will be wonderful.
We had one great scramble getting ready to leave-packing for the river trip-packing the trunk to be sent to Los Angeles-and storing the other things in the attic at the other house. Packing is an awful bother anyway, although I must admit Glen did most of it.
I’m terribly excited and awfully anxious to start.
Write to me sometime (at Hansen, Idaho), and I’ll write you all about the trip when we get out.
Love to Sally Lou
Lovingly,
Bessie Hyde
Footnote: I was able to track the source of this letter back to Millard and Ruth Haley’s only living child, Sarah Louise Turan. She was a toddler when the letter was written and was the “Sally Lou” in the letter. Upton was her elder brother. Unfortunately, Ms. Turan could shed little other information on the story of the Hydes.

Brad Dimock