Bertha and Gussie: A tale of Two Sisters

About Bertha and Gussie Bertha (Behnke) Erhart and Augusta (Behnke) Harley were born In Quartz Valley, California on August 24, 1871, and September 22, 1867 respectively. The story is that Bertha, my grandmother, came to Sawyers Bar as a baby over Salmon Mountain strapped to the side of a mule. Presumably Gussie, and the rest of the family, came with her. Both lived almost their entire lives in and around Sawyers Bar, a mountain mining town about 50 miles west of Yreka in Siskiyou county, a place so canyon-buried that even today the town (if you can call it that) does not have electricity. Both kept diaries, which fortune has delivered into my hands. What follows is their account, of their lives, written in their words, set down here just as they recorded them in a box full of yellowed but beautifully preserved note books, ledgers and diaries.