The cold air and snow will in plenty descend

And whiten the prospect around

The keen cutting wind from the north will attend

And cover it over the ground

When the hills and the dales are all candied with white

And the rivers are froze on the shore

When the bright twinkling stars they proclaim the cold night

That's the time to remember the poor

The poor timid hare through the woods may be traced

By her footsteps indented in the snow

When our lips and our fingers are all dangling with cold

And the marksman a-shooting doth go

When the young wanton lads on the river slide

And the icicles hang at your door

When in plenty you are sitting by a warm fireside

You will tremble to think of the poor

For the times fast a-coming when our Savior on earth

All the world shall agree with one voice

All nations unite to salute the blest morn

And the whole of then earth shall rejoice

When grim death is deprived of its killing sting

And the grave rules triumphant no more

Saints angels and men hallelujah shall sing

CRUNCH

In subsequent years, the tale of Oatman came to be retold with dramatic license in the press, in her own "memoir" and speeches, novels, plays, movies and poetry. The story resonated in the media of the time and long afterward, partly owing to the prominent blue tattooing of Oatman's face by the Mohave. Much of what exactly occurred to her during her time with the Indians remains unknown.

Born into the family of Royce and Mary Ann Oatman, Oatman was one of ten siblings. She grew up in the Mormon religion. In 1850, the Oatman family joined a wagon train led by James C. Brewster, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), whose attacks on, and disagreements with, the church leadership in Salt Lake City, Utah, had caused him to break with the followers of Brigham Young in Utah and lead his followers — Brewsterites — to California, which he claimed was the "intended place of gathering" for the Mormons.

The Brewsterite emigrants, numbering fifty-two, left Independence, Missouri on August 9, 1850. Dissension caused the group to split near Santa Fe, with Brewster following the northern route. Royce Oatman and several other families chose the southern route via Socorro, Santa Cruz, and Tucson. Near Socorro, Royce Oatman assumed command of the party. They reached New Mexico early in 1851 only to find the country and climate wholly unsuited to their purpose. The other wagons gradually abandoned the goal of reaching the mouth of the Colorado.

The party had reached Maricopa Wells when they were told that not only was the stretch of trail ahead barren and dangerous, but that the Indians ahead were very hostile and that they would risk their lives if they proceeded further. The other families resolved to stay. The Oatman family, eventually traveling alone, was nearly annihilated in what became known as the "Oatman Massacre" on the banks of the Gila River about 80–90 miles east of Yuma in what is now Arizona.

Royce and Mary had seven children at this time, ranging in age from 17 to one year. On their fourth day out, they were approached by a group of Indians, asking for tobacco, food and rifles. At some point during the encounter, the Oatman family was attacked by the group, and all were killed except Lorenzo, age 15, who was clubbed and left for dead; Olive, age 14; and Mary Ann, age 7. Lorenzo awoke to find his parents and family dead, but no sign of Mary Ann and Olive. He eventually reached a settlement where he was treated. Three days later, Lorenzo, who had rejoined the emigrant train, found the bodies of his slain family; "we buried the bodies of father, mother and babe in one common grave." The men had no way of digging proper graves in the volcanic rocky soil, so they gathered the bodies together and formed a cairn over them. It has been said the remains were reburied several times and finally moved to the river for reinterment by Arizona pioneer Charles Poston.

The Indians took some of the Oatmans' belongings along with the Oatman girls. Although Olive later identified her captors as Tonto Apaches, they were probably Tolkepayas (Western Yavapais) living in a village 60–100 miles from the site of the attack. After arriving at the village, the girls were initially treated in a way that appeared threatening, and Olive later said she thought they would be killed. However, the girls were used as slaves, to forage for food, lug water and firewood, and other menial tasks; they were frequently beaten and mistreated.

After a year, a group of Mohave Indians visited the village and traded two horses, vegetables and blankets for the captive girls, after which the girls walked for days to a Mohave village at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado rivers (in what today is Needles, California). They were immediately taken in by the family of a tribal leader (kohot) whose non-Mohave name was Espianola or Espanesay. The Mohave tribe was more prosperous than the group that had held the girls captive, and both Espanesay's wife Aespaneo and daughter Topeka took an interest in the Oatman girls' welfare. Olive expressed her deep affection for these two women numerous times over the years after her captivity.

Aespaneo arranged for the Oatman girls to be given plots of land to farm. Whether Olive and Mary Ann were truly adopted into that family and the Mohave people is unknown. She later claimed that she and Mary Ann were captives of the Mohave and that she feared to leave. She did not attempt to contact a large group of whites that visited the Mohaves during her period with them, and years later she went to meet with a Mohave leader in New York City and spoke with him of old times.

Both Oatman girls were tattooed on their chins and arms in keeping with the tribal custom for those who were tribal members. Olive later claimed (in Stratton's book and in her lectures) that she was tattooed to mark her as a slave of the Mohaves, but this is inconsistent with the Mohave tradition in which such marks were given only to their own people to ensure that they would have a good afterlife.

During a drought in the region (probably in 1855, according to climate records), the tribe experienced a dire shortage of food supplies and Mary Ann died of starvation, at the age of ten or eleven, along with many Mohaves.

When Olive Oatman was 19 years old, Francisco, a Yuma Indian messenger arrived at the village with a message from the authorities at Fort Yuma. Rumors suggested that a white girl was living with the Mohaves and the post commander requested her return (or to know the reason why she did not choose to return). The Mohaves initially sequestered Olive and resisted the request. At first they denied that Olive was even white; others over the course of negotiations expressed their affection for Olive, others their fear of reprisal from whites. Francisco, meanwhile, withdrew to the homes of other nearby Mohaves; shortly thereafter he made a second fervent attempt to persuade the Mohaves to part with Olive. Trade items were included this time, including blankets and a white horse, and he passed on threats that the whites would destroy the Mohaves if they did not release Olive.

After some discussion, in which Olive was this time included, the Mohaves decided to accept these terms, and Olive was escorted to Fort Yuma in a 20-day journey. Topeka (the daughter of Espianola/Espanesay and Aespaneo) went on the journey with Olive. Before entering the fort, Olive insisted she be given proper clothing, as she was clad in a traditional Mohave skirt with no covering above her waist. Inside the fort, Olive was surrounded by cheering people.

Olive's childhood friend Susan Thompson, whom she befriended again at this time, stated many years later that she believed Olive was "grieving" upon her return, because she had been married to a Mohave and given birth to two boys. Olive herself, however, denied rumors during her lifetime that she had been either married to a Mohave or was ever raped or sexually mistreated by the Yavapai or Mohave. In Stratton's book she declared that "to the honor of these savages let it be said, they never offered the least unchaste abuse to me".

Olive almost certainly didn’t marry a Mohave or bear his children. If she had, it would have been a highly unusual, thus memorable, piece of tribal history. The late Llewellyn Barrackman, who was the tribe’s unofficial historian, reported that if Olive had, “we would all know.” He added that the children would have stood out as mixed-race Mohaves who could have been easily traced to her. Furthermore, though she married after her ransom, Olive never had biological children, which raises the possibility that she couldn’t. Finally, a half century after her ransom, when the anthropologist A.L. Kroeber interviewed a Mohave named Musk Melon who had known Olive well, he said nothing about her having been married.

Within a few days of her arrival at the fort, Olive discovered her brother Lorenzo was alive and had been looking for her and her sister. Their meeting made headline news across the West.

In 1857, a pastor named Royal B. Stratton wrote a book about Olive and Mary Ann titled Life Among the Indians. The book sold 30,000 copies, a best-seller for that era. Royalties from the book paid for Lorenzo and Olive's college education at the University of the Pacific. Olive went on the lecture circuit to help promote the book. These appearances were among the few occasions on which she appeared in public without a veil to cover her tattooed face.

In November 1865, Olive married cattleman John B. Fairchild . They lived in Detroit, Michigan, for seven years before moving to Sherman, Texas, where Fairchild was president of the City Bank. He made his fortune there in banking and real estate. In 1876 Olive and John adopted a daughter, Mamie.

In her forties, Olive battled debilitating headaches and depression. In 1881, she spent nearly three months at a medical spa in Canada, largely in bed. Oatman seemed to suffer from some chronic form of post-traumatic stress for most of her later life.