Thomas Keyes Reed

Tommy Reed seems to have been particularly close to his sister Patty. On May 25, 1846, J. Quinn Thornton recorded an incident in which Patty’s enthusiastic affection nearly bowled Tommy over.

    The Reed family left the lake camp in February 1847 with the First Relief, but Patty and Tommy were too weak to continue and had to be taken back to the Breen cabin to wait for the next rescue party. Patty took care of her little brother. When James Reed arrived with the Second Relief, Tommy didn’t recognize him and asked Patty, whom he had come to regard as his mother, if that were really his father.

    After their rescue, the survivors put on a lot of weight. Patty later wrote that Tommy became "as stout as a little alderman."

    Thomas Reed never married. He lived in San Jose most of his life, and in his later years he made his home with Patty. When he died in 1915, Thomas was the last surviving male of the Donner Party. He, too, is buried in the Reed-Lewis plot at Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose.

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