living, and their children are Mary, William, Peter, Eugene. Simon P.
Breen married in 1867; his wife is living; their children are Geneva and
Mary. James F. Breen, the present Superior Judge of San Benito County,
married in 1870; his wife is living; their only surviving children are
Margaret and Grace. Peter Breen died, unmarried, on July 3, 1870, by
accidental death. Isabella M. Breen was married in 1869, to Thomas
McMahon, and with her husband resides at Hollister, San Benito County.
William M. Breen, whose portrait appears in the group of the Breen
family, was born in San Juan in 1848, and was not of the Donner Party.
He married in 1874, leaving a widow, and one child, Mary.

Margaret Breen, the heroic woman, devoted wife, and faithful mother,
had the satisfaction of living to see her infant family, for whose
preservation she had struggled so hard and wrought so ceaselessly, grow
to manhood and womanhood. In prosperity, as in adversity, she was ever
good, kind, courageous, and "affable to the congregation of the Lord."
She was always, self-reliant, and equal to the most trying emergencies;
and yet, at all times, she had a deep and abiding faith in God, and
firmly relied on the mercy and goodness of Him to whom she prayed so
ardently and confidently in the heavy hours of her tribulation. The hope
of her later years was that she might not be required to witness the
death of any of her children; but it was willed differently, as two of
them preceded her to the grave. April 13, 1874, ripe in years, loved
by the poor, honored and respected by all for her virtues and her
well-spent life, she quietly and peacefully passed from the midst of her
sorrowing family to the other and better shore.

The following lines from the pen of Miss Marcella A. Fitzgerald, the
gifted poetess of Notre Dame Convent, San Jose, were published in the
San Francisco Monitor, at the time of Mrs. Breen's death:

In Memoriam.

Mrs. Margaret Breen.

The spring's soft light, its tender, dreamy beauty
Veils all the land around us, and the dome
Of the blue skies is ringing with the music
Of birds that come to seek their summer home.

But one whose heart this beauty often gladdened
No more shall see the fragrant flowers expand;
For her no more of earth--but fairer portion
Is hers, the beauty of the Better Land;

The beauty of that land to which with y