Emma Rowena (Caldwell) Gatewood, known as Grandma Gatewood, (October 25, 1887 – June 4, 1973), was an American ultra-light hiking pioneer. After a difficult life as a farm wife, mother of eleven children, and survivor of domestic violence, she became famous as the first solo female thru-hiker of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) in 1955 at the age of 67. She subsequently became the first person (male or female) to hike the A.T. three times, after completing a second thru-hike two years later, followed by a section-hike in 1964. In the meantime, she hiked of the Oregon Trail in 1959. In her later years, she continued to travel and hike, and worked on a section of what would become the Buckeye Trail. The media coverage surrounding her feats was credited for generating interest in maintaining the A.T. and in hiking generally. Among many other honors, she was posthumously inducted into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame in 2012. Biography Early life and education Gatewood was born to a family of 15 children in Guyan Township, Gallia County, Ohio. Her father Hugh Caldwell, a farmer, turned to a life of drinking and gambling after his leg was amputated in the Civil War. The child-rearing of the family was left to her mother Evelyn (Trowbridge) Caldwell. Emma and her siblings slept four to a bed in their log cabin. Her formal education ended with the eighth grade, but she enjoyed reading encyclopedias and the Greek classics, and taught herself about wildlife and woodland plants that could be used as medicines and food. She also enjoyed writing poetry. Marriage and children On May 5, 1907, at the age of 19, she married 27-year-old Perry Clayton (P. C.) Gatewood, a college-educated primary school teacher, and later tobacco farmer, with whom she had 11 children. Almost immediately her husband set her to work burning tobacco beds, building fences, and mixing cement, in addition to her expected housework duties. Although P. C. was recognized in the community as a man of above-average intellect, he had a mean streak. Within months of the wedding, he started to beat his wife, a vicious pattern that continued for the duration of their marriage. In 1924, he was convicted of manslaughter after killing a man during an argument. He was ordered to pay restitution to the widow of the victim, but his prison sentence was suspended because he had nine children