Archived Story
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
By Robin Flinchum/Special to the Desert Dispatch
RANDSBURG -- About 100 faithful fans, friends, and family members made the eight-mile trek into Mojave Desert back country near Randsburg on Saturday to pay their last respects to Evelyn "Tonie" Seger, known locally as the Queen of the El Paso Mountains. Seger, who spent the last 40 years of her life in this remote spot looking after a 2,087-foot tunnel hand-dug by a man named Burro Schmidt, died in her own bed at the age of 95 on May 30.
Contributed photo
Mourners gather near Randsburg on Saturday to pay their respects to Evelyn 'Tonie' Seger.
Inside Seger's ramshackle house, heated in winter by a wood stove and with only outdoor bathroom facilities, one room was set aside to display photos and articles telling her life story. Outside, a slightly battered, flag-draped casket -- provided by a friend of Seger's when he learned that she wanted a casket at the service even though she would be cremated -- sat on a bluff overlooking the mountains.
Friends and family read poems, sang songs and told stories about Seger's legendary temper, her quick wit, her affinity for speaking sign language and her love of the desert sunrise.
"She continued to watch the sun come up faithfully every day until she died," said Seger's long-time caretaker David Ayers.
Mourners at Seger's memorial service included representatives from a variety of California off-road vehicle groups as well as local law enforcement and emergency service providers, and others attending from as far away as Vermont, Los Angeles and Singapore.
Ayers's dedication made it possible for Seger to remain at home during the last few days of her illness. Ayers said he met Seger while he was exploring the desert and was struck by her independence and spirit. Three years ago he made the decision to move into a small building on the property and look after her full time.
"She had a mean right hook," he said, "but I loved her."
For many of those in attendance, the death of Tonie Seger represented the end of an era.
"Tonie was one of the last of her kind," says Ron Schiller, Chairman of the High Desert Multiple Use Coalition and a long-time friend. "It used to be there were folks like her all over the desert in little mining camps and claims. Now her kind is as much of an endangered species as the desert tortoise."
Seger first arrived at the Schmidt tunnel in 1963, after she and her ailing husband purchased the land in hopes the desert climate would benefit him.
"I was scared to death when I first came here," Seger told a reporter shortly before she died. "I said no, but he wanted to be here. There was no well then, and we had to drive three miles down the hill to get water."
Seger said she promised her husband she would dig a well on the property, but one day while they were filling water jugs, he fell down by the truck and died.
"I cursed him," she said, "and then I got to work digging that well."
She had made a promise and she stuck to it. By the time the well was dug, however, Seger discovered how much she enjoyed the desert and playing host to the visitors at Schmidt's tunnel.
Dug by Schmidt between 1906 and 1938, and dubbed by Ripley's Believe It Or Not as "the greatest one-man mining achievement in history," the tunnel has long been a local attraction.
"I like people," Seger said. "I've never been lonely in my whole life."
Seger was a native of Vermont and had two husbands and three children there. During WWII she worked alongside her daughter, now Barbara Corbett, in a defense plant in Connecticut. Seger was a mechanic and Corbett was an electrician. The two even double-dated, Corbett says, before her mother married Milo Seger in Wisconsin in 1962.
Seger later said she had traveled a great deal and seen a lot of the world before settling at Schmidt's tunnel.
"My mother was a great adventurer," Corbett says. "She did what she wanted to do."
Seger's memorial was held just a few feet from that well, which was capped in concrete and proudly signed by her in 1972.
Some of Seger's ashes will be buried under a monument to be built at the site; the rest will be taken to Illinois by Seger's granddaughter, Cherly Kelly, and buried there with Seger's son. She was survived by her daughter and one son, 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
"I worked hard," Seger said in her last interview. "I showed them that a damn city woman could do it. I think I did pretty good, don't you?"