#Stella Knight Ruess

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The 1934 Disappearance of Wilderness Explorer, Everett Ruess.

Background

Christopher Ruess and Stella Knight were married on April 2, 1905. He was a Unitarian minister and she was a dancer and artist. Their first child, Waldo (named after Ralph Waldo Emerson), was born on September 5, 1909. A second son, Everett (named after the author and historian Edward Everett Hale), was born on March 28th, 1914, in Oakland, California.

Both Stella and Christopher had a deep love of books and of art, which they imparted to their children. They were avid diarists as well and encouraged both of their sons to not only keep a diary themselves, but to also copy out long passages from their respective diaries in letters home when they were separated from their parents.

In September 1918, the family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, because Christopher had decided to take a job with the Chautauqua Industrial Art Desk Company. When Stella’s father became ill, she and Everett traveled across the country by train to Los Angeles to care for him. Along the way, they made several stops at memorable locations such as the Grand Canyon and the Yosemite Valley. Everett was nine at the time and began keeping his first diary during this trip. His earliest writings showed his growing fascination with nature and his love of traveling. As Everett grew a little older, he also developed a passion for writing poetry and painting. He was even able to sell some of his watercolor paintings from time to time.

Everett graduated from high school in 1931. Though his parents very much wanted him to attend college, Everett had other ideas. That same year, Everett went off on his first solo adventure, hiking and camping out in the wilderness, as well as keeping a detailed diary about his feelings and experiences, and writing frequent letters to his family. He also loved visiting Anasazi ruins and collecting artifacts from these sites. Thus began his pattern of hitchhiking, camping, and hiking for months at a time before briefly returning home, only to leave once again, starting the cycle anew. He met many people along the way during these solo trips, but a certain shyness and inherent desire for solitude kept him from forming connections with most of the people he encountered during his travels, a fact which he sometimes lamented in his diaries. He tried to support himself by selling paintings, but because he was rarely able to make a sale (and keep in mind that this was during the Great Depression), his expeditions were mostly financed by his parents.

Everett adopted a small and adorable brown and white dog named Curly, from a Navajo Reservation in 1931, to have as a companion. He also always had either a pair of burros or a pair of horses to accompany him out in the wilderness.

Everett suffered from frequent periods of dark moods, which some have theorized may have actually been depressive episodes. In a letter to his older brother Waldo in 1931, Everett alluded to having been suicidal the previous summer:

"Whatever I have suffered in the months past has been nothing compared with the beauty in which I have steeped my soul, so to speak. It has been a priceless experience–and I am glad it is not over. What I would have missed if I had ended everything last summer!"

On September 8th, 1933, Everett was stung by bees at least a dozen times in addition to already being covered in poison oak blisters. In his attempt to escape the bees, he fell into Goddard Creek, but was in so much pain and was feeling so lethargic that he struggled to find the strength to pull himself out of the water and nearly drowned.

However, by 1934 and particularly in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, he was seemingly in very good spirits and doing better than ever before. In his letters to his parents, he spoke of having “great fun” with the locals and even alluded to having come into quite a bit of cash recently (though he never elaborated on the source of this money) and stated that he now had “more money than I need”. Also, for the first time ever, he sent money home to help his parents out.

Disappearance

On November 21st, 1934, two sheepherders named Addlin Lay and Clayton Porter, encountered Everett on the Hole-in-the-Rock trail, where they were camping. According to them, they offered Everett a quarter of mutton, but he declined, saying that he had plenty of food. They then watched as Everett and his burros, Cockleburrs and Chocolatero, made their way southeast, towards Davis Gulch. This was the last time anyone is known to have seen Everett Ruess.

Though almost two months had gone by since Everett’s family had heard from him, they didn’t think much of it to begin with, as Everett had warned them back in the fall that he may not be near a post office for a month or two. However, by late January they were becoming concerned. Their alarm only heightened when they received their own letters to Everett back in the mail, the envelopes still sealed. They began writing letters to every postmaster in every town in the southwest that Everett was known to have visited. When this yielded no answers as to where their son was, they started writing to sheriffs, traders, newspapers, radio stations, and Indian agents. But no one had seen Everett in months or knew anything of his current whereabouts.

The Search

Finally, on March 1st, months after that last sighting back in November, a search party was formed. A man named Jennings Allen, along with a dozen other local men, headed into Davis Gulch on horseback hoping to find some sign of Everett or what had become of him. They turned up nothing until March 6th, when they found Cockleburrs and Chocolatero, Everett’s burros, in a corral. There are discrepancies in the accounts of the searchers as to the condition these burros were found in though, with some claiming that they were “thin and emaciated”, while others said that they were “fat and healthy”.

Nearby, in a natural alcove, they found what was presumed to have been Everett’s final campsite. There were footprints, Anasazi potsherds, candy wrappers, empty cans and an impression in the dirt from a bedroll. Notably absent from this site were Everett’s money, camping gear, cooking equipment, paintings and art supplies, and his 1934 journal. They also discovered two different spots in Davis Gulch where “Nemo 1934” had been etched into the rock. “Nemo”, Latin for “nobody”, is a pseudonym that Everett was known to have adopted and so it is assumed that he’s the one who made these inscriptions. Both inscriptions are now underwater and have been since 1957, when the waters of Lake Powell rose during the construction of Glen Canyon Dam.

Beyond this, nothing more would ever be found that would shed light on what happened to Everett Ruess.

Additional Information

There was a rumor in Escalante, a nearby town, that Everett had been robbed and murdered by local cattle rustlers who mistook him for a government agent. By 1934, cattle rustling was becoming rampant in this area and due to this, the Cattlemen’s Association spread a false rumor that an undercover government investigator had been sent out to the area. As the story goes, Everett arrived in town shortly thereafter.

A Navajo man named Aneth Nez told his granddaughter (Daisy) a story in 1971 about witnessing a young white man being chased and then murdered by Ute Indians near Comb Ridge in the mid-1930’s. After the Utes left, Nez buried the body. Remains were eventually found in that area, but DNA testing confirmed that they did not belong to Everett.

In the 1970’s, a tourist found bones wedged in a crack in Davis Gulch. The bones seemed to indicate that the person had suffered a broken hip and a fractured collar bone. He turned over the bones to a National Park Service ranger, who in turn gave them to his supervisor. However, shortly after this the bones went missing and have never been found.

Theories

Accidental death, perhaps due to a fall or drowning.

Murder

Suicide

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