Mother Sprinkled Husband's Ashes Across US, Teaching Daughters Resiliency

Laura Fahrenthold brings her two daughters, Nell and Susannah, to travel across the US, sprinkling her late husband's ashes all over the places.

(Photo: Instagram/laurafahrenthold)
Laura Fahrenthold and her two daughters, Nell and Susannah.

How it all started

The mother of two shared that everything started when she was at a campground in Portland, Oregon, in 2010. She had to pee in the middle of the night, and because she was terrified, she brought her late husband's ashes with her. She tripped, and the ashes spilled and dusted her all over.

The 46-year-old mother took a leave from her city government job and brought her daughters camping across the country. She brought her husband's ashes because she was afraid to leave them at home. There were no intentions of buying an RV at first, but she bought one and traveled 31,152 miles spreading Pittman's ashes across America.

She journaled all their adventures in 2018 in "The Pink Steering Wheel Chronicles."

 

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A post shared by Laura Fahrenthold (@laurafahrenthold) on May 29, 2018 at 8:24pm PDT

Mark Pittman's death

Mark Pittman, Fahrenthold's late husband, was an investigative journalist for Bloomberg News. On November 25, 2009, he was 52 years old when he died of a massive heart attack at their home in Yonkers, New York.

Their daughters were eight and ten when they saw the incident. Fahrenthold said that she felt like someone ripped their life apart when her husband died, and her two kids were looking at her. The mother and her children were all traumatized, and she just wanted to get "the hell out of" there.

Fahrenthold taught her daughters resiliency

Fahrenthold was afraid that her husband's death would define her daughter's lives, causing them to have problems witnessing something like that at a very young age. She wanted to build their other muscles to become stronger and self-reliant.

She taught her daughters how to read a map, go fishing, change a tire, and blow through blades of grass to whistle. They climbed mountains, went water rafting, and built a campfire. She wanted to build her children up to have experiences bigger than their dad's death.

The sprinkling of her husband's ashes

The mother of two did not know how her daughters would react to the idea of the sprinkling of their dad's ashes. They first sprinkled the ashes on a treetop until it became a sort of a game to her children. Nell said that it was like having "mini funerals."

They did it in Niagara Falls, Graceland, and the Grand Canyon. They also went picnicking in Newark, Ohio, because that's where Fahrenthold and Pittman had their picnic wedding. After a few weeks of pitching tents and a mudslide, she bought a beat-up RV using the money her mother wired her.

During summers and school holidays over the next five years, the trio traveled all over America and Canada. Pittman's wife admitted having sprinkled her husband everywhere they went. She wanted wherever her daughters would be as they grew up, their father would always be there.

Fahrenthold wanted to honor her husband as an investigative journalist. Her husband did his best to let the Americans know about the truth. She said that Pittman was a bootstrap guy from a blue-collar family.

The trio made its final stop in 2015. It released Pittman in his boyhood home in Kansas and to the sunflower field where he proposed to Fahrenthold.

Another plot twist

Fahrenthold found a folder at home that says, "Mark's Writings." Pittman wrote about a motorcycle trip to a Hopi Mesa Indian reservation. The trio also went there because the mother felt compelled to. 

During their trips, Fahrenthold was terrified a lot of times, but people always helped them. She has raised her daughters to be independent because she was afraid of what might happen to them if she suddenly dies.

Nell, 20, is now studying as a photographer at FIT, while Susanna, 19, is an EMT, teachers sailing, and navigation for Tall Ships America. Fahrenthold is currently working on her new book, "The Airbnb Chronicles." There, she talks about her adventures renting out her home.

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