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The Death of Princess Katrinka

"Of Royal Indian blood, Princess Catherine Wilson, 98, who spent nearly a century in Calaveras County, was found dead beside a trail to her cabin Wednesday morning. When her familiar figure was not seen patiently plodding about her Happy Valley home where she was born, neighbors searched for her, to find her body slumped to the ground. A gentle rain was falling when searchers came upon her body. Mrs. Wilson, the last of her clan … and daughter of a chief, was given the old Indian name of Katrinka by which she was known there. She was born in Happy Valley in 1838. She remembered the first white settlers to arrive in Calaveras County in 1848. Princess Katrinka kept track of her age by each fall of the year when, in days of old, her tribe used to go forth to hunt, she dropped a pebble into a stone jar. When the pebbles were counted at her death the jar contained 98. Funeral services were held yesterday on the Lombardi Ranch next to her two long dead brothers and her husband."

STOCKTON REC ORD December 25, 1936