What’s in a Book Cover?
As I’ve written, I am hard at work this year editing my historical novel about travel along the Oregon Trail. I’m far enough along that I can envision its potential publication. So recently I started thinking about what I’d like the book cover to look like. I have some experience working with a group of […]
How the California Gold Rush Changed Emigration Patterns to the West
The Great Migration of 1843 was the first significant group of emigrants to head west. That year between 700 and 1,000 emigrants left for Oregon, mostly families seeking free land. In 1843, it was still uncertain whether the United States or Great Britain would govern the Oregon Territory, but it was clear the land was […]
May Is National Photo Month—Label Those Photos and Preserve Your Memories
I learned recently that May is National Photo Month. Photographs are easier than ever to take and to share—with cell phones and Instagram we can record our lives by the day or by the minute. Now that Memorial Day is here and summer is beginning, you may be filling up your digital camera’s storage with […]
NOLA Road Trip From Hell
In May 2010, my husband, his mother, and I took a road trip to New Orleans, Louisiana (called “NOLA” by natives). My daughter was graduating from Tulane Law School. We would attend her graduation ceremony, then help her move her belongings back to Kansas City until she rented a place in Olympia, Washington, where she would […]
The Doll I Never Played With
My mother had a collection of Storybook dolls when she was a girl. Several of them lasted until I was a child. They were all about four to five inches tall, porcelain with painted faces and painted shoes, “real” hair stitched and glued to their heads, and dressed in beautiful costumes. I remember playing with […]
Twelve Lessons Learned While Doing Sudoku
When I retired several years ago, I told myself I wouldn’t sit around doing crossword puzzles all day long. As a word person, I love crossword puzzles. But many are too easy for me—it’s no fun to fill out the squares without even stopping. And some are too hard—namely, The New York Times puzzles on […]
Daddy’s Date . . . No, Make that Grandpa’s Date!
The church where my sister was married had a very firm rule that any children who were members of the wedding party had to be at least five. My son, at age six, qualified to be a ring bearer. My daughter, who would turn three just days before the wedding, could not be a flower […]
A Visit to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, Baker City, Oregon
Ever since I began researching the Oregon Trail route for my novel about travel along the trail, I have wanted to go to the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon, run by the Bureau of Land Management. I finally had the opportunity to visit it in late April, as my husband and I […]
Family Resemblances Redux
I hadn’t seen this picture of my mother until I found it in an old picture album when I was preparing a slide show of her life for her funeral last summer. I love the youth and innocence she depicts from a time long before she was my mother. Until I saw this picture, I […]
A Kitchen Bargain
My father liked to cook, but my mother did not. Cooking was required of a good homemaker, and she vowed to be a good homemaker. So she prepared the meals all the years her children were growing up, and did so reasonably well. But her heart was never in it. My parents made a deal […]