Mesannie Wilkins

[4][2][5] In September 1954, while battling a bout of pneumonia,[6][5] Wilkins not only lost her only surviving "family member", Uncle Waldo (who was 85 and blind),[6] she was also diagnosed with either tuberculosis or cancer and given just two years to live by her doctor.

[2] Having to sell off all her livestock to pay for medical bills, the doctor, realizing Wilkins was "dirt poor", offered to get her into a state funded retirement home.

[2] After the passing of Uncle Waldo in September 1954, Wilkins raised $32 by selling homemade pickles[5][7] and mortgaging her home[8] enough to buy supplies and a horse.

Staff writer, Lindsay Tice writes, "[She was] a woman who liked to wear pants and speak her mind, she wasn’t well regarded by local folks at the time.

"[4] Hester Gilpatrick, a neighbor, recalls Wilkins in a news interview for WCVB-TV: "I remember seeing her have temper tantrums, I don't know how many times.

"[11] Wilkins tied feed pails to her horse (hoping people along the way would be generous and provide food) and a bedroll for herself.

As news spread of her journey, people would offer food and a place to sleep for Wilkins and her horses.

Small towns let her sleep in their jails, while fancier hotels would offer her free room and board.

[5] On one occasion, a printer printed self-portraits and postcards created by Wilkins; which she sold to admirers for spending money.

"[7] While in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, she met a man who was making a painting of her horse, Tarzan, as she went outside to saddle him up.

[8] She met other celebrities along her journey, including Art Linkletter (with whom she dined and appeared on his television program, Art Linkletter’s House Party)[13] and Groucho Marx, appearing on his American comedy quiz show You Bet Your Life on October 18, 1956.

[14] In August 1955, Wilkins arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming and experienced their annual "Frontier Days", which claimed to have the largest rodeos in the world.

[2] She arrived with Tarzan and Depeche Toi by her side; and a new pack horse named King; Rex had died only 180 miles (290 km) short of their destination in Tulare, California from tetanus.

[5] She experienced blistering desert heat, freezing and blinding snowstorms, and unfamiliar, dangerous terrain.

A decade after returning to Maine, Wilkins wrote and published a book in 1967 from the journals she had kept, called Last of the Saddle Tramps — a 7,000-mile equestrian odyssey through the USA.