Calamity Jane’s turbulent visits to her sister’s Wyoming homestead

At the mouth of Sinks Canyon near Lander, the tiny community of Borner’s Garden thrived in the late 1800s with a schoolhouse, post office, and a few homesteading families. One of these families were John and Lena Borner, who were raising their six children in this rural community named after John’s fruit trees and large garden. Their son Frank Edward remembered as a small boy hiding behind his mother’s skirts when a woman rode up to their cabin. He later learned that she was his Aunt Calamity Jane.

Martha Jane Canary, more widely known as Calamity Jane, was Lena’s big sister, and her uncouth ways were not always welcome in Lena’s quiet home. Jan Cerney wrote about the incident in “Calamity Jane and Her Siblings: The Saga of Lena and Elijah Canary.” “He recalled that his mother Lena asked her what she was doing there and what she wanted,” Cerney wrote. “Lena told Calamity to leave and never come back. Apparently, at that time, Lena had had it with her sister Martha.”

Bill Wilkinson, a great-nephew of Martha Jane, said his aunt was at the mining camps on South Pass in Wyoming around 1870-71, where she first met freighter John G. Borner, her future brother-in-law. Borner had been badly hurt and broken his leg and was taken to the rooming house where Martha Jane was working. The young woman set his leg and later made trips to Salt Lake to check on her siblings. After his leg healed, Borner resumed his trips to Salt Lake and made the acquaintance of Lena and Lige Canary.

John Borner was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1835 and immigrated to America before being injured in the Civil War. In 1872, Borner and two other men moved to an area near the mouth of Sinks Canyon, squatting on what was then Indian land. Chief Washakie knew the men and encouraged them to settle in the valley to help provide protection for his Eastern Shoshone band from his enemies. Although Borner had originally brought Lena Canary to the area as a companion at Fort Washakie, romance blossomed, and John Borner and Lena Pauline Canary were married in 1875.

Accounts differ as to whether Borner and his infamous sister-in-law got along. Tobe Borner related that his father had no use for Calamity and felt she was a poor influence on his growing family. However, Tobe also said that Martha Jane was present at his birth in May 1877. Old-timers in Lander stated that Calamity Jane and her sister Lena ran a laundry together in a small log building on Main Street. When Calamity was sober, she would help her sister. John Borner’s dislike grew mostly because of her drinking and swearing. Calamity often stayed at the Borner School when she came to visit, since she was not welcome in the Borner home.

Tragedy visited the Borner family in October 1888 when Lena died at 31 after suffering ill health for two years from injuries sustained from being kicked by a cow. Heartbroken and tired of fighting with neighbors over irrigation pipes, John Borner moved his family to Greybull the following spring, where he built a cabin and later corrals and barns. He never remarried. Aunt Calamity Jane would occasionally visit but had mostly gone on her way to create myths about her life. She passed away in 1903 at 51. At Borner’s Garden, only memories remain. The schoolhouse where Calamity Jane stayed was moved to the Lander museum, and the old homes have long since fallen down.