Catherine McLauren

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Frio Canyon, April 19, 1881. Remember that date.

Because what happened that day would be the last of its kind in this canyon; and it would cost a woman her life. Her name was Catherine McLauren. Kate, to those who knew her.

And on that April morning, Kate was home with her three small children and a neighbor boy named Allen Lease. Her husband John was not there. Just Kate, those children, and young Lease, when a Lipan Apache band came and started to plunder the house.

Now, what Kate did next: you think about it. She had been shot with a bullet. Shot.

And still, she looked at her six-year-old, a little girl named Maud, and she sent that child running for help. Six years old. Running through Frio Canyon.

Because her mother asked her to. Help did come. John McLauren made it back that night.

But it was too late. Kate died shortly after her husband returned. When the cemetery in Leakey was established, Catherine McLauren and Allen Lease were the first burials.

The very first. A town's place of rest, begun with loss. The marker calls it the last Indian raid in Frio Canyon.

The last. Kate McLauren didn't know that's what history would call it. She just knew her children needed help, and she had one way left to give it.

That little girl Maud ran, and the world remembered.

What the marker says

A victim of the last Indian raid in Frio Canyon, April 19, 1881. Mother of three small children, "Kate" McLauren was home with them and a neighbor boy, Allen Lease, when a Lipan Apache band started to plunder their house. Although shot with a bullet, she sent her six-year-old child, Maud, for help, but died shortly after her husband John's return that night. When the cemetery in Leakey was established, she and Lease were the first burials. Recorded 1971