The Conversion
By Jane Kirkpatrick
Moro, OR
It’s said that converts become much more rabid than those born into the faith. That’s true for me having grown up in Wisconsin but “converted” to an Oregonian in 1974. Not long after I met my husband (who was born in Ashland), I took a leap of faith moving with him to 160 acres of rattlesnake and rock on the lower John Day River in Sherman County. The remoteness and challenges there introduced me to the pioneering spirit of the past as told through Oregon’s earliest pioneer women. Since then I’ve written 16 books, traveled the US and abroad telling stories, all but one based on the lives of actual people or events that helped define Oregon’s history.
I’ve long believed that stories are the sparks that light our ancestor’s lives, the embers we blow on to illuminate our own. Each time I heard about some fascinating pioneer woman my mind wondered what her life had been like, how she endured, where she drew her strength from, and what she might have to teach me about my own contemporary hopes and dreams. These connections happened casually: someone mentioned an Indian woman named Marie Dorion who might have spent five weeks with Sacagawea and is now buried on French Prairie near Salem. Two Indian women married to French Canadians, affiliated with white, male fur trapping expeditions and both pregnant? They must have had something to talk about. But could they?
Answering that question took three novels and connections with descendants from Quebec to Astoria. I read a boy’s essay reprinted in a historical society journal about his ancestor’s dream to build a hotel along the Deschutes River and how they accomplished it through their affiliation with the Wasco, Warm Springs and Paiute people. I was employed by that very tribe working in mental health and I wondered how the native people told that story. Finding out taught me about integrity in seeking our dream. The Antelope area’s Muddy Ranch showed me that landscape is a thread tying all Oregonians together. Touring Shore Acres state park in Coos County made me ask: what kind of woman would inspire this and why didn’t people talk about her? Reading a historical book about quilting took me to Pennsylvania, Missouri, Washington state and four books later, back to Aurora, Oregon.
These histories of endurance, of men and women who kept commitments and who honored community as they met challenges, have given me encouragement I would have missed if I hadn’t moved to Oregon, if I hadn’t listened to the stories and breathed across the embers an Oregonian’s spirit of curiosity and wonder. Oregon’s pioneers and the keeper of their stories have shaped who I am and who I might become. They’ve taught me this: ordinary lives explored through story offer spiritual insights, give meaning to our challenges. Such stories help transplants to this state become true believers in Oregon’s greatness as they seek to find their own.
