Gabrielle Burton's Books
Mar.15.2011
The Donner Party You know how some died. Here's how some lived.
"My heart is big with hope and impatient with desire." --Tamsen Donner, a letter to her sister
In the spring of 1846, Tamsen Donner, her husband, George, their five daughters, and eighty other pioneers headed west on the California-Oregon Trail in eager anticipation of new lives in California. Everything that...
Mar.01.2009
Tamsen Donner. For most the name conjures the ill-fated Donner party trapped in the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1846–47. Others might know Tamsen as the stoic pioneer woman who saw her children to safety but stayed with her dying husband at the cost of her own life. For Gabrielle Burton, Tamsen’s story, fascinating in its own right, had long seemed something more:...
About Gabrielle
Moved to Venice Beach after 30 years in Buffalo, NY. Nope, not the snow, I loved the snow, the city, and the people. Family brought me here. 4 of my 5 kids here plus grandkids. I love Los Angeles and find it endlessly interesting. I'm a bit of a hermit...






