Reverse Gold Rush Journey: My Trek to Kansas City
It was 34 years ago this week that my husband and I arrived in Kansas City to live. Early June, 1979. We had just finished our last law school exams, and didn’t even stay in California for our graduation ceremony, because the preparation course for the Missouri bar exam had already begun, and we needed […]
Family Lore and Small Town Gossip on an Interfaith Marriage in 1898
I am the latest of a long line of Catholic women who married Protestant men. The stories of our weddings show how interfaith marriages have changed over time. This post is the story of the first such marriage of my ancestresses that I know about. In Sacramento, California, in 1898, my great-grandmother, Cecelia Ryan, an […]
Memorial Day. Remember. Today and always.
Join the nation in a moment of silence at 3:00pm on Memorial Day to remember our fallen soldiers.
Water Sports, Card Games & Airplane Letters
As Memorial Day approaches, I remember long summer days of swimming and waterskiing until we were exhausted, followed by cutthroat card games in the afternoons and evenings. My family rented a cabin on Coeur d’Alene Lake in northern Idaho, beginning when I was thirteen or fourteen, until my parents bought land on the lake and […]
Sticking to Goals as a Writer (and Not)
I had a boss once who always knew what percent of the year had already passed – it was roughly 2% per week, a little more than 8% each month. He would cite the percentage down to a fraction. I’ve come to adopt that attitude, as I watch time and life slip through my hourglass. […]
Reunions, Memories, Age, and Wonder
I recently received a notice about my fortieth high school reunion this fall. Fortieth!!! How can it be forty years since I graduated from high school? I still feel seventeen. Well, except when my back hurts. And my knees creak. I remember when I was fifteen and my parents went to their twentieth high school […]
Jesse Applegate and the Great Migration of 1843
In May 1843 – 170 years ago this month – Jesse Applegate and his brothers and their families left Missouri for Oregon. They were among the early pioneers to Oregon, four years earlier than the emigrants of 1847 in my novel about the Oregon Trail. In fact, 1843 was the first year of significant migration […]
Remembering: It’s What Mothers Do
My daughter chastises me for not documenting her childhood completely in her baby book. She claims I didn’t write as much about her as about her older brother. This week – the week of her birthday as well as of Mother’s Day – I’ve gone back and looked at her baby book. I didn’t do […]
Diversity in Families: A Mother’s Day Gift from My Son
On Mother’s Day, when he was eleven or twelve, my son gave me a pair of earrings – dangling strings of tiny freshwater pearls. I was surprised when I opened the little box he sheepishly handed me to find such a personal and beautiful gift. The earrings must be inexpensive, because he bought them with […]
Insulation – Then and Now
My husband and I need to replace our furnace. If possible, we also want to even out the heating and cooling in our house – one upstairs room is perpetually hot in the summer, and a basement bedroom needs a space heater in winter for comfort. We had a furnace salesman give us an estimate […]