I usually post about Oregon history during the last week of the month, but this week I am feeling the pause between years. The week between Christmas and New Year’s has always felt to me like time to heave a big sigh and relax, to sit in the moment suspended […]
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Perfect Christmases
When I think of my childhood Christmases, I think of going to my grandparents’ home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. They moved out of that house when I was six or seven, and some of my earliest Christmases were spent at my home rather than traveling to my grandparents’ house. So […]
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The Brass Bucket: A Family Heirloom
Ever since I have known him (46 years now), my husband has kept his magazines in a brass bucket. This bucket was something he acquired from his great-aunt. Why she had it, I do not know. She lived on a farm for many years, a farm that has been in […]
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Of Books & Nooks Offers a Holiday Giveaway
The Of Books and Nooks authors—all of whom are Kansas City area authors—are teaming up to bring readers an 8-book holiday giveaway. I am always impressed by the level of writing talent in Kansas City, and I am happy to be included in this group. There is something in this […]
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Researching an Oregon Parsonage
Many of the scenes in my current work-in-progress take place in a Methodist parsonage in Albany, Oregon. The minister, his wife, and their young daughter live there in 1867. Albany in 1867 was a small town, though it was the county seat of Linn County, Oregon. I envisioned a small […]
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My Gratitude Journal This Thanksgiving
I’ve written before about the journal I have kept for the past twenty years. About two years ago, sometime after the pandemic started, I decided to add a paragraph each day listing things I was grateful for. I’d read about the healing powers of keeping a gratitude journal, and this […]
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A Story That’s Fun To Tell: My Mother and the Ballard Locks
When my parents lived in Bellevue, Washington, in the 1980s, they owned a small cabin cruiser. I don’t recall much about the boat, and I never went out in it. They mostly sailed on Lake Washington, but occasionally, then took it into Puget Sound and up into the San Juan […]
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Teaching My Kids to Drive
I wrote recently about my own experience learning to drive. I don’t remember that being a contentious time with my father, though starting to drive a manual transmission took a bit of doing. But teaching my kids to drive? That was harrowing. My son, poor kid, as the oldest, had […]
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My Middlebury Trash Can
When I moved onto campus at Middlebury College in the fall of 1973, I shipped a trunkful of belongings ahead of me. Then, on the plane with me before Freshman Week, I brought two suitcases, a carry-on, and a guitar case. But I didn’t bring a wastepaper can, and the […]
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Docks and Locks in 19th Century Oregon City
In my novels, starting with Now I’m Found, which was set in 1848-50, I show steamboats traveling the Willamette River. Steamboats began plying the waters of the lower Willamette in 1850. However, the boats had to stop at the Willamette Falls in Oregon City, which were too high for boats […]
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