A Little Celebration

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?

2667. An invitation to a ball should be given at least a week beforehand.

A Wee Bit of Excitement

Okay, it’s NOT a ball, but it is exciting. I’ve been awarded the Mayor’s Arts Awards 2013. I’m in rich company. What is so satisfying for me is not only recognition for my writing but my historical work. For those of us who love history and the stories behind our communities, our families and the human roles in important events, I feel a great deal of pride that I stuck to it, pouring over old records, ephemera, pictures and microfilm. Took the time to interview living participants. We historians often work alone, eating cold lunches on the fly, travel to places on our own dime just to figure out something that happened 80 or 150 years ago.

When I first decided to get a degree in history, I discovered right away that I wasn’t interested in the minutia of the French Revolution or a specific battle date, but the stories and feelings of the people who lived in any time. Maybe this came from growing up reading my great-grandfather’s pocket journal accounts on being on the Battle of Gettysburg as an assistant surgeon in the Union Army. Later, in college and many years after I explored the whole collection of war-time journals to better understand what he was feeling, how he dealt with terrible events around him. I’ve explored the Comanche Indians as prisoners of war in my senior thesis using letters and saddle reports at the Library of Congress, explored early history of Hawaii, the early pioneers in Washington Territory, 19^th century West Coast traders, early schools. I give talks and do demonstrations, but I especially love working with kids, teaching history hands-on. (That’s why I’m so good at making butter in a churn)

It Takes a Village

Of course, winning something doesn’t mean you got there by yourself. For writing, I have my wonderful critique group, various writer’s groups, the PNWA (for learning about the business) and Village Books for selling books (mine too) and bringing awesome authors for book talks to hear their words and stories. For history, my education at Kalamazoo College, my stipend student time at the Smithsonian, Mission Houses Museum (for introducing me to 19^th life in Honolulu with a bent to Hawaiian studies), Whatcom Museum and Skagit County Historical Museum and Center for Pacific NW Studies. And especially history friends in my home town Candance Wellman and Edradine Hovde and Mike Vouri, chief interpreter at San Juan Island Historical National Park. We’s all crazy about history. If I left someone out, you’re still somewhere in the file in my brain. Thanks!

Historical Novelists’ 4 Day Book Fair

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?

4093. The Author. – If you would write to any purpose, you must be perfectly free from without, in the first place, and yet more free from within.

Oh, Goody. A Gathering of Historical Fiction Novelists

Thanks to Francine  Howarth for setting up this Spring Book Fair. I write historical set in the 19^th and early 20^th century. The Civilian Conservation Corpswas a Great Depression relief program that put thousands of young men to work in the forests, national parks and state parks, and agricultural lands

Please check out the other wonderful writers in this blog fest. http://francinehowarth.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-contribution-historical-book-fair.html

Where to Find Tree Soldier:

It’s in book form or Kindle.

In the USA: http://goo.gl/Zv3UD

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tree-Soldier-ebook/dp/B004C44F0Q

Tree Soldier: The scene

Park Hardesty is an “enrollee” in the Civilian Conservation Corps. An Easterner, he has come West to work in the New Deal program and to escape his part in a terrible accident that caused the disfigurement of his brother. He has just delivered some fish to a mountain lake and on the way back to the CCC camp, he is knocked down by tree. Local outdoors woman, Kate Alford, has rescued him but caught in a storm, hypothermia is taking hold.

Back Cover Blurb

One mistake can ruin a life. One mistake can transform it. A government forestry camp set deep in the mountainous forests of the Pacific Northwest might not seem the likely place to find redemption, but in 1935, Park Hardesty hopes for just that. Blaming himself for the fiery accident that caused his brother’s disfigurement and the death of the bootlegging woman he loved, planting trees, building bridges and mentoring tough, homesick New Jersey boys brings him both penitence and the renewal of his own self-worth. When he wins the love of Kate Alford, a local naturalist who envisions joining the Forest Service, which allows only men, he also captures the ire of a camp officer who refuses to let her go. Just when he is ready to seek his brother’s forgiveness, he is falsely accused of rape. Every aspect of his life he has tried to rebuild is put in jeopardy. In the end, the only way he can defend himself is to tell the truth about his brother, but he risks being kicked out of the camp. Worse, he could lose Kate’s love forever.

Here’s a book trailer: Tree Soldier

Excerpt

Kate woke abruptly a few couple of hours later and found that Hardesty had kicked her shoulder with his feet. Fumbling for the flashlight, she shined it on him and found him stirring restlessly under his covers. He was still asleep, but hardly peaceful. His whole body was trembling like a horse’s skin flicking off a swarm of flies. His face was pale and his head moved with agitation. Slipping out of her bedroll, she crawled over. Hardesty held one of the top blankets tightly in his hand, but it shook like he had palsy. Alarmed, she touched his good shoulder and found that he felt damp and cold. His sandy hair was plastered on his forehead and his breathing was shallow.

“Mr. — Park,” she corrected. “Park?”

When he didn’t respond, she went back to her rucksack and took out a flannel shirt. Coming back, she wiped his face and neck, wondering how she’d change his shirt without disturbing his shoulder if she had to do that. When she touched his forehead, it felt cold.

“Park?” She sat back, uncomfortable about his worsening condition. She looked at her watch: two-thirty with two and one half-hours to go until daylight. She had nothing else to give him except her own bedding. She pulled the wool camp blankets across his body and rearranged the ones beneath. Sitting back near the tent wall, she turned off the light and listened to the light tap of the rain outside as it resumed again. She wanted to sleep, but knew that she couldn’t until this crisis was over. And it was a crisis.

Increasingly as the time passed, Hardesty’s breathing became more and more audible above the patter as he breathed through his teeth. Suddenly, he began to mutter. At first, she couldn’t understand him, but when the words became clearer, she realized that he wasn’t speaking English. She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like French. Whatever it was, she was sure that he was addressing a woman. For awhile he spoke to her in a low voice, then seemed to argue with her or was it with himself?

“Marie!” he called suddenly. “Marie!” His actions became agitated, his legs moving under the blankets. His words were slurred.

“Arrete, Marie. Je t’en pris. Mon frère – Paul!” Hardesty flung his arm out, hitting Kate’s knee. She took it without thinking and holding his hand, sought to comfort him in the dark. He felt both cold and clammy to her and when his struggles continued, she spoke to him a soothing voice.

“Park, please listen. Park. You’re all right. You mustn’t be afraid.”

“Quoi?”

She heard him turn in the dark space and wondered if his eyes were opened. He acted as though he were awake, but when he continued muttering in French, she felt increasing alarm and confusion because he wasn’t fully conscious.

“Mr. Hardesty, you must be still. You’ll hurt yourself.”

She felt for his forehead with her other hand and continued to talk above his stream of foreign words. Suddenly, he stiffened and cried out in anguish.

“Mon frère. Quest-ce j’avais fait? Tu est mort. Tu est mort!” He came forward at that, then collapsed back holding his shoulder. When Kate hastily got the flashlight on she found him out cold.

Next Big Thing Blog Hop

What’s is Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Millions 1857?

4094. The Author. Give yourself the natural rein/ think on no pattern, no patron, no paper, no press, no public; think on nothing but follow your own impulses.

Once Again Blogging & Hopping

Thanks Pam Beason for the invite. Be sure to check her out.

Here are the answers to questions about one of my WIPs.

What is the working title of your book?

Mist-shi-mus: A novel of captivity

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’ve always wanted to write about Hawaiians in the NW and use the backdrop of the Pig War.

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical.

Which actors would you choose to play you in a movie rendition?

I would love the actress who played Sybil on Downton Abbey to play Jeannie Naughton. A younger Daniel Day Lewis for Jonas.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?s

Seeking answers to a growing mystery, a recently widowed woman embarks on a journey to find the lover she thought murdered years before, unaware that she is stirring up an old struggle of power and revenge at which she is the heart.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I need to do some more revisions before I send it out again. May try both ways. Agents at conferences have been interested.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About a year and a half. Research is always going on as well as developing scenes. It’s in its fourth draft. Technically done, but I need to restructure it.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

MM Kaye’s Shadow on the Moon.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The history of Hawaiians in the Pacific NW. I first heard about them after moving from Hilo, HI to the NW in the late 1970s. A long time research project of mine. Hawaiians first came in 1793 then settled in the Village at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River in 1820s. My characters are up on San Juan Island when Hudson Bay’s Company set up sheep stations on the island in the 1850s. Friday’s Harbor was settled by Joe Friday, a shephard for HBC. Today it’s a lovely village.

The twelve year joint occupation of the island by American soldiers and English Royal Marines is also running through the story as well as the northern Indians who came to work and sometime terrorize local Indian tribal communities.

Thanks for coming by!

Nana

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Reciepts for the Million 1857?

4181. The Training of Daughters, Etc. Educate the mind, refine the taste, and exalt the character, by keeping the love of excellence, in all they do, before.

Nana

Today’s my Nana’s birthday. She was born on March 6, 1875. When the West was the West. Her dad was a Civil War vet from Ohio. Her mother already gone west to Kansas at in 1862 when she was twelve years where her parents taught at Shawnee Mission.

Married in 1895, Nana homesteaded in Colorado, Indian Territory and eventually, Idaho where my grandfather had a job as auditor with Boise Power and Light. Electricity was a coming thing. By then she had three sons. In 1915, at age 40, she had my mom.

What Nana Gave Me

My mom was born and raised in Idaho, but went east to University of Michigan to study piano in 1933. She met and married my dad from there and never returned to Idaho. But my Nana came with her in story and pictures and in the gifts and letters she sent me as a girl. Some of those stories were about her own mother whom we called “Bongie” and life in Indian Territory in the 1890s, setting up home in Colorado and eventually to Boise.

It is quite remarkable to know someone who lived through pioneering times. She may be one of the reasons I love history so much. History, for me, has often been personal. When I was writing my college thesis for my degree in history back in the 1960s, I asked if there were any pictures that I might use as I was writing about Fort Sill and the Comanches. Mom said there were some down the hall. I found a treasure trove that I later shared with the Smithsonian Institute. Not long after, I got a letter from Nana. In that letter she wrote about her father going to Indian Territory and living on a claim where he got to know many of the Indians in the pictures. Her personal accounts of people bring color and life to their faces.

Family History

Nana had a love of her own history. As early as 1920, my mom recalls her and her aunt going over family records by lantern light. By 1955, she had traced her March family all the way back to 1638, when Hugh March arrived in Newburyport, MA. In 1959, Nana came out by train from Boise and we took her up to New Hampshire and Massachusetts to see the original tavern built in the 1670s and beautiful home of March’s grandson. I will never forget the look on her face when she saw that tavern and the monument on the village green in Newburyport. Mission accomplished. She had found her roots.

Though I met Nana in person only a few times in her long life (she passed away in 1974 at age 99), her handmade gifts of doll furniture and clothes, dresses for me and letters are with me still. Now that I am a grandmother, I think of her often and what she gave me.  She is the model for my time. Though she was far away from me, as I am with my own young grandchildren, she cast a silver line of story and things made from her heart.

Technicolor Dreams

A few years ago, I wrote an essay about the dreams and hopes of four generations of women in my family. Here is what I wrote about Nana:

My Nana, another of Bongie’s girls, had dreams of home, of finding her Puritan ancestors in New England. After going to business school, she married and followed the railroad with her accountant husband across the West—Oklahoma, New Mexico, Idaho—before they were states. She saw it all: cow towns, mining towns, little towns on the edge of nowhere.

As my grandfather advanced his career, she sewed her own clothes, played her Spanish guitar and added sons until she had three. Once, she settled down long enough for her boys to play football for a deaf school, the only hearing players on the team. They would listen for the other team’s plays and then passed them onto their teammates in sign language. They always won. In World War I they were doughboys. Then at forty, Nana birthed my mother and settled down in Boise, Idaho for the next fifty-nine years.

I loved my Nana, loved the soft velvety feel of her cheek against mine. Loved the sound of her voice, soft with its Western lilt. “I went fer a walk up the crik,” she’d say. Or, “None of your beeswax.”

She dreamed of my mother. Did she dream of me?

I think she did dream of me.

Happy birthday, Nana!

Slugs in the Garden

1056. To prevent Slugs from getting into Fruit Trees. – If the trees are standards, tie a coarse horse-hair rope about them two or three feet from the ground. If they are against the wall, nail a narrow slip of coarse horse-hair cloth against the wall, about half a foot from the ground, and they will never get over it;for if they attempt it, it will kill them, as their bellies are soft, and the horse-hair will wound them.

IT’S SO DARN NICE OUT in the PACIFIC NW (Well the clouds came back , but…)

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and one thing I remember is the cold winters. (And yes, I did walk to school in deep snow). I also lived in Michigan for four years while  going to school (K College had great trays for sliding down the snowy hill in front of the chapel) and in Maryland for two years in high school. After living in Hawaii eight and a half years, I was prepared to freeze to death in the Pacific NW only to discover that the winters are mild and things actually bloom during the winter months.

So I’m putting on my boots and take my edging shovel and go outside. My daffies are up, the helebores are blooming and I see my new double snow drops showing their head. Such joy! For us in the NW, winter is short and sweet. We could get snow in the passes, but I’m hoping for dry.

THE RETURN of the SLUGS

Unfortunately, the slugs will be coming back soon too. Remedy from Mrs. Hale, 1857 is above. The helpful hint below is from the Alta California, 1858. Some time soon, I share the wonders of the tobacco leaf. Enjoy.

What are your remedies?

Historical Blog Hop

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipts for the Million 1857?

4006. Rules to Govern Persons who Attempt to Rescue the Drowning – 1. In removing a body from the water, whether into a boat or drawing it along along by your own efforts always keep the face upward.

Another Blog Hop

Thanks to Jessica Knauss for setting up this Second Historical Fiction Blog Hop. I’m always up to sharing a bit of history through my writing. For this hop, I had to find an excerpt of ten sentences from a novel, “no more and no less.” I looked at several possibilities and chose the one below. And of course, an appropriate comment from Mrs. Hale. Be sure to check out Jessica’s website to find the other writers who are participating.

A Little Background: Initiating New Enrollees at a Civilian Conservation Camp 1935

My award-winning historical novel, Tree Soldier, is set in a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the North Cascades in Washington. The CCC’s were part of the New Deal and the most beloved of FDR’s programs helping the nation get back on its feet during the Great Depression. At one point, Washington State had 9,500 young men enrolled. 6,500 came from out of state, including New York, Illinois and New Jersey.

In this scene, Park Hardesty, from Pennsylvania, and his new crop of squad mates from New Jersey are being hazed by a squad made up of local boys. In real life, all boys new to a side camp in my area were thrown into the river. Those who couldn’t swim got a rope.

“Ready?” McGill nodded to two of his friends and before Hardesty could react, Lorenzo was picked up and tossed far out into the river. He went down, then came up sputtering, grabbing desperately for the taunt rope.

“That was a dirty trick.” Hardesty got right in McGill’s face and slammed him on his shoulders. “What the hell did you do it for? What was the point?”

McGill shrugged him off. “Watch your paws.”

Hardesty watched the boy flounder in the water and hoped Larsen and the two others that held him would bring him in quickly. He hesitated, wondering if it would do any good at all to go in, when he could help haul him in here on shore.

Where’s the Love? Blog Hop

What’s in Mrs. Hale’s Receipt’s for the Million 1857?

2693. Young men frequently amuse themselves by playing with the feelings of young women. They visit them often, they walk with them, they pay them divers attentions and after giving them an idea that they are attached to them, they either leave them or what is worse, never come to an explanation of their sentiments.

Love, Love, Love. In World War II

It’s Valentine’s Day and Heather Webb, author of Becoming Josephine,  has come up with a great way to celebrate love:  Have authors share their favorite “amorous”  scenes from a WIP or other favorite bit of writing. The first thing that came to mind for me was a scene was my WW II Norway novel, The Jossing Affair. It is my first and favorite historical novel, currently a finalist in the Chanticleer Book Reviews Unpublished Manuscripts  Contest for historical fiction.

Once you’re done here, don’t forget to hop over to Janet B. Taylor, Candie Campbell, Kris Waldherr, Tonia Marie Harris, Donna Barker, Julianne Douglas, Laura Kenyon, Betsy Ashton, and Jess Shira.

Here’s my excerpt, but first the premise. Intelligence agent Tore Haugland, posing as a deaf fisherman, has been sent to a remote fishing village on the West Coast of Norway to set up a line receiving agents and arms from England. While there he falls for Anna Fromme,  the widow of a Norwegian teacher. She is falsely accused of betraying her husband to the Germans. Everyone thinks she’s German, but actually she is an American. Haugland and Anna begin to trust each other.  He signs and writes what he needs to say. She tries to understand.

The Jossing Affair Excerpt

So Haugland came, usually after Lisel was asleep. He knew now he was truly in love with her. Whether he had any right to such feelings he wasn’t sure for it went against his principles as an agent for his country and England, but he couldn’t help himself any more. As yet, there was nothing physical, just a deepening friendship he realized she needed as much as he did and he nurtured it along because it would become only more convoluted if he acted on his own feelings.

Once on a moonlit November night when a soft, warm foehn wind was blowing down the side of the mountains, he persuaded her into going for a walk up to the seter. They slipped away up the logging road, heading up into the dark trees where the waning moonlight came through. It lay shiny patches on the forest floor, like rungs on a ladder and as they passed they sometimes stepped from light to light. The forest was still. The leaves had long dropped from the birches and maples, but the pines were full and deep, draping the sides of the path like gigantic curtains. When they reached the seter, he set out flat bread, a small sausage and cheese on the steps. The old milk cans were still there leaning into each other. The lantern blossomed with a match.

“Jens. Like our summer picnic.”

Ja, he signed.

They stayed for a short time, then headed down. “Takk, she said at her door.

He took her hand and held it. The urge to hold and kiss her was so strong, but he dared not act on it. She withdrew her hand, but this is enough, he thought.

He knew she must never know his identity, but he had no idea how long or how far he could go with meeting her without giving away his feelings. So he prepared to withdraw from the village and fell deeper in love, putting duty above need.

Happy Valentines Day!!