Louisa Hawkins Canby - Death & Remembrance

Death & Remembrance

The people of Portland, Oregon, upon learning the size of the pension that a general's widow could expect ($30 a month, which was increased to $50 by a special act of Congress a year later), raised and presented to her $5,000. Although this was meant as a gift, Mrs. Canby treated it as an interest-free loan, instead. She supplemented her income with the interest from the $5,000 but willed that the principal be returned to the people of Portland upon her death.

Louisa Hawkins Canby was buried beside her husband June 27, 1889. Nearly four years later, R. O. Fairs, a Confederate veteran organizing a reunion of the Sibley Brigade, wrote to the War Department asking for help in locating Louisa Canby. Not realizing that she was deceased, Fairs explained: "I wish to show her we still entertain kind remembrance and esteem for her, by inviting her to our reunion."