The United States just celebrated its 245th birthday on Sunday, July 4, 2021. In recognition of this event, last week I created a graphic to use in promoting my novel, Lead Me Home. I used an image of the current U.S. flag in the graphic, but that got me thinking […]
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William S. Ladd: Tycoon in 1860s Oregon
One of the story lines in the novel I am working on now involves a businessman in 1864 seeking to increase his investments in the burgeoning new state of Oregon. Readers of my earlier novels will remember Caleb (Mac) McDougall. As he explores his business opportunities, it seems that every […]
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Politics in 1864: The National Union Party
The news in 2021 is full of stories of political conflict. Republicans are split between Trumpists and Never Trumpers with economic and social conservatives scattered across the mix. Democrats are spread from moderates to liberals to progressives. But as a student of American history, I have come to believe that […]
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Alien Terrain on Earth: Craters of the Moon National Monument
Six years ago in late April, my husband and I drove from Washington State to our home in Kansas City. I had decided to buy my father’s car from his estate, and we needed to get it across country. We drove much of the Oregon Trail route—in reverse, from west […]
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Byron Pengra and the Oregon Central Military Road
Once the emigrants to Oregon survived the plains and the Rockies, they still had to traverse Oregon Territory. I’ve written before about some of their choice—raft down the Columbia River, take the Barlow Road around Mount Hood, or take the Applegate Trail to the south then up the Willamette Valley. […]
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Interview and Book Review: PARIS IN RUINS, by M.K. Tod
I’m always curious about the reasons other historical fiction writers are drawn to the genre. I have friends who write about Kansas City’s past and others who write about places they have traveled (France, Mongolia, and Hong Kong, for example). M.K. Tod’s latest novel, Paris in Ruins, is set in […]
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Abigail Scott Dunaway: First Suffragette in Oregon
In recognition of Women’s History Month, this post is about the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in Oregon, with a focus on Abigail Scott Dunaway, known as Oregon’s “Mother of Equal Suffrage.” I came across Abigail Dunaway in researching prominent women in early Oregon. Abigail was born in Illinois […]
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Colonel Charles Drew and the 1864 Treaty With the Klamath Indian Tribes
My current work-in-progress is set during the Civil War in Oregon. The Civil War was a factor in Oregon politics, but of more pressing concern to many of the citizens of Oregon were conflicts between whites and Native Americans. As emigrants to Oregon moved from the Willamette Valley into other […]
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Vaccines Then and Now
As of early February 2021, the news is full of stories about vaccines against COVID-19, the pandemic that hit the United States early in 2020. For almost a year now, we have restricted our activities on almost every front. Working from home. Limited church services. No restaurants. Buying as much […]
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Childbirth in the Mid-19th Century
In my current work-in-progress I have two female characters who are pregnant, one for the eighth time and the other for the ninth. And they are only in their early thirties. This was not at all unusual for the mid-19th century. Pregnancy and childbirth in the 1860s were common . […]
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