A remarkable trip
Twenty-two-year-old Alice Ramsey had a plan. Her husband approved. Her sisters-in-law were game. A fourth participant, sixteen-year-old Hermine Jahns, might well have come as the cheerleader. They left New York in 1909 driving their Maxwell car headed for San Francisco. Alice became the first woman to drive cross-country taking her crew 59 days. The trip was 3900 miles long.
I’m thinking about young Alice helping promote the Maxwell car (her expenses were paid but that didn’t stop them from having to change a tire 11 times) as I prepare for my road trip this June. My brother invited me to visit and stay at their nearby guest house. Rupie is welcome too. I could have booked a flight for Rupie and me, but the idea of a road trip sounded good. Something I could do to feel independent driving from Redmond, Oregon to Mondovi, Wisconsin. 2,564 miles. I’ll attend a family reunion, be meeting great-nieces and nephews, hanging out with special nephews (police officer and firefighter/medic) and their precious wives. My brother and sis-in-law always celebrate the Fourth of July in some dramatic way. This year, I’ll be watching fireworks with them as well as sitting quietly while fireflies flicker their way across their Hay Creek.
But then my decision to drive back got better. My dear cousins Mike and Linda who live in Wisconsin, decided while they were in Thailand this past winter, that Linda should fly out to Oregon and drive back with me and Rupie! I love her company. She’ll likely quilt the whole way. Or knit. We laugh a lot together, talk about books. What a joy to have someone along when things go wrong as I bet Alice Ramsey discovered.
Alice had a few things go wrong on her cross-country trip in 1909. Once they ran out of gas. Checking the tank required taking out one of the bench seats and putting a ruler down into the 20 gal tank. Another time while dealing with storms and muddy roads in Iowa, the transmission needed water. They didn’t have a container to speak of, so her pals filled their toothbrush cups a dribble at a time from the standing water in the nearest ditch.
Linda and I will have paved roads to travel on. After Ohio, Alice followed telegraph lines or railroads. Pretty impressive to arrive pre-GPS.
Alice and her crew returned to their families in the east by train but she continued to drive and make news in driving in the Alps and other places. My cousin Linda has a roundtrip plane ticket so she’s planning to drive back with me then fly home in July. Imagine that. Do I have terrific relatives or what?
I confess I’m a little anxious, mostly about spending a month away from home and not having a book contract with a deadline all of which keeps the foray into deep grief at bay. I will be continuing to finalize book three (where Alice has a cameo role). But I can edit in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Plus my oldest friend in the world, Kay is coming for a weekend. We haven’t seen each other for years, but she’s been a rock for me as a caregiver herself before her husband died at the beginning of COVID. We shared a duplex in the early 70s, worked in the same social service office. Our husbands bonded. We’ll chatter and read, that’s what good friends do.
I’ll be home in Oregon at the one-year anniversary of Jerry’s death. I’ve scheduled an event for that day in Aurora. Jerry and I were a team working on the three novels and the quilt book and its photographs that is all Aurora. Doing something that day of the anniversary of his death, allows me to bring Jerry to heart. That’ll be a good thing.
I can tell him about the road trips. I’ll be telling you about what’s happening online. Or maybe Rupie will narrate the trip. Either way I’ll carry with me all your prayers for traveling mercies beginning June 15th, bringing Alice Ramsey to mind.
Jane on Video!
On May 31st I was invited to chat at Bend First Presbyterian about creativity, writing and my spiritual journey. I added talking about stories. The worship team calls it a sermon but I call it a message. I’m just a messenger. As part of the process, I pre-recorded the live presentation. You can view it on their website here – it is also below as well!
I used a teleprompter so it sounds a bit stilted. I couldn’t tell if people smiled or laughed at what I said. (Chocolate voice, anyone?) The channel has fabulous presentations on creativity by organists, film makers and artists among others. It’s been a nurturing and inspirational series I’m pleased to be a part of. I did the live presentations on May 31, and it was a lot of fun. More importantly, people told me they were moved by my story and said they’d give their own stories more credit. Terrific!
Our family and children’s pastor, Becca Ellis, is also a film maker. Her presentation about artists will be debuted at the Tower Theater in Bend (I have a book signing at Round-about Books that very night, June 9th). But we can see it on Becca’s channel, www.youtube.com/@youarthere. Currently there’s one of her films highlighting a Bend artist. It’s a treat to listen to these artists speak about their inspiration and how God has worked in their lives.
With the Enduring Tides news
In May, the second book of the Women of Cannon Beach was a bestseller on the Oregon Coast. Beach Books in Seaside, Oregon, said it was number 6 in sales. Hurrah! And at the Cloud and Leaf bookstores in Manzanita, With the Enduring Tides outsold Theo of Golden, this summer’s New York Times big bestseller. Mary Gerritse, the anchor of my coastal series, lived for a time in both Seaside and Manzanita. Nationally, the title also was number 12 (of 50) top sellers for Christian books in May. So very happy that Mary and her family’s story is reaching beyond the coastal shores. I think it’s because Mary’s story of resilience during a wide range of challenges resonates with readers facing their own difficulties. It’s my joy to be a part of that journey.
Spreading Compost
Some of you know that Jerry wanted his body to be composted with Earth Funeral. As a result, I’ve had four containers of earth that includes his physical body. In California, friends put compost around a very tall saguaro cactus on our property. I used some to nourish a house plant. On the Saturday of Memorial Day, a few family and friends made our way down the reptile road to the homestead. People said I drove way too fast on a gravel road with a parachute of dust behind me. Everyone had that parachute! The car seemed to remember the road. The property is now a part of Cottonwood Canyon state park and while it isn’t accessible to the general public, we were allowed a very special day.
Dennis and Sherrie Gant who had been such a huge part of the building and in our lives ever after, knocked on the door. A young researcher is living in the house this summer working on big game sheep habitat issues (why is the John Day Basin herd doing so well and why is a Montana herd dying from pneumonia? Jerry would have loved that the house is being used for such as this). From New Jersey, the researcher said this was the most beautiful place she had ever stayed at. She invited us in to see the house, use the bathroom (Hurrah!), while we answered her questions about the house, how it came to be there. Our story. I gave her a signed copy of Homestead. Sherrie noted that the wallpaper she and Jerry selected and she put up looked great! No loose glue, no frayed patches. For me the wood finishes brought back memories of my parents bringing the lumber from Wisconsin, our drying and planing it (I took a week’s vacation to help do that work), and how beautiful the floor still was. The view out of the kitchen window astonishes.
We ate sack lunches from the Dirty Cowgirl Saloon in Wasco, and each person received a small cup of Jerry’s compost that they could spread wherever they wished. His grandson from NC and family made it; Jerry’s son Matt did too along with his daughter Mariah and two grand-daughters – Jerry’s great grands. The roses are gone. They aren’t irrigating the lawn nor the field that is slowly returning to what it once was. Twelve-foot-tall sagebrush thrives! I put my cup of compost over the land where we’d buried the dogs. Ricky. Josie. Hansel. Fritz. Gus. Abby. Jerry with his birddogs and one Kelpie cattle pooch. It was Rupert’s first trip. A slight breeze whispered over the balm. People sat around in camp chairs and told stories. I read a Joy Harjo poem “First Morning.”
It was perfect for Jerry’s memory. I was amazed at the work it had taken to build the house and shop/hangar and how God had granted us such beauty and an extraordinary life. It was a Memorial Day to remember. I hope that yours included wonderful memories of those who have gone before. As the Harjo poem ends “We will carry your memory here, until we join you, in just a little while, in one blink of star time.”
Events
follow Jane on Facebook author Jane Kirkpatrick for events and other news in between Story Sparks issues.
Emma Day with Jane Kirkpatrick
July 29th – 11:00-2:00pm Emma Day at Granny Fi’s Shortbread, 21338 Pacific Hwy. E, Aurora, OR 97002. Ticketed fundraiser for the Aurora Colony. Join Jane and other program people for an entertaining tea celebrating Emma Giesy and the Aurora Colony.
Writing Class & Presentation
June 30 – 1:00 – 3:00pm – Writing Class, and Presentation 6:30-8:00pm, Marten Center, Mondovi, Wisconsin (Jane’s hometown). Sponsored by Mondovi Public Library. Snacks by Friends of the Library with Books for Sale by Flora’s Books and Bread (Eau Claire).
Word Whisperings
Theo of Golden
by Allen Levi
Simon & Shuster, 2023.
When the chairman of the library board in my hometown of Mondovi, Wisconsin contacted me about coming to speak and maybe teach a class while I was back visiting. she told me about this book. She said everyone in town was reading it. “We’re Theo people,” she said. Of course I had to read the book. And it is a treasure.
The premise is an elderly man visits a small southern town and sees exquisite portraits of local people hanging on the wall. He gets the idea to purchase the drawings and give them to the subjects. The reader isn’t sure why he wants to do this, but as he makes the acquaintance of the portrait subjects, he changes and we come to see how those portraits change everyone. An interview with the author revealed that he did indeed walk into a small café and see portraits on the wall. That’s where the story came from. His imagination took him on a trip of spirit and self-discovery. That’s the same thing that happens to readers.
Rupie's Renderings
My mom took me to a “Burundi Meeting.” It wasn’t bad. I got to roam around the “Wonder Room” at her church. I wonder why they call it that? I’d call it the wander room. People sat around a table and talked. They laughed. I got scratches and pets under the table, sniffed shoes and legs (some nice legs there! Hey, I’m a boy dog.). Sharon (who mom said was the associate pastor which I totally don’t know what that is) picked me up and let me just relax on her lap while people talked. And talked. And talked. They talked about “raising funds”. Our neighbor, Sheldon, raises tomatoes and zucchini and other good things to eat, but I don’t know what “funds” are. Or how to raise them. I guess the funds do good things.
They help people called Batwa to raise food. And they get something that allows them to vote. (I get no votes at my house. My mom makes all the decisions). And those funds send kids to school! I liked going to school. Whenever I did what my mom wanted, I got a Charlie Bear treat. On the way home from the Burundi meeting, (which the chairman said I was now a member of) we stopped at Trader Joe’s and mom came out with a big bag of Charlie Bears. She doesn’t want me to run out when we’re on our road trip to MN. Now that’s something I would vote for! I hope you get your treats and if you need to raise funds, that they grow and flourish!
A final travel piece
It wasn’t the black SUV’s with right hand drivers maneuvering potholes the size of kiddy pools as we left the hotel in Bujumbura, Burundi that I remember most. Nor was it the skilled riders on bicycles stacked with mattresses like pancakes. The joy of traveling with then Pastor Jenny, roommate Maggie and African Road colleague Kelly Bean in 2015, was memorable as a girl’s road trip. But it was the Batwa people we met in the hills of Burundi that brings tears, still. We were welcomed by a people exiled from the landscapes of their hearts – the rain forests. They lived in poverty like I had never witnessed despite my years working in inner cities and rural communities. But their spirits graced us, strangers.
Through translators they expressed gratitude for our presence, said how they prayed for us, and thanked us for traveling so far just to meet them. No matter what we said, they clapped their hands softly like rain pattering on a shake roof. They invited us into their eucalyptus-thatched homes, showed us the small flames they cooked over, shared their children with us.
We suggested to Evariste, our liaison and champion of his people, that they needed rice, better shelter, so much more than identity kits. But he knew. What these villagers needed first was dignity. They were non-people in their country. Without an identity card they couldn’t seek medical care, marry, baptize their children, work, vote, nor pursue their dreams.
Our partnership with the three villages has expanded so they now grow their own food. We help provide uniforms and books for more children attending school than ever before. They are healthier. Our committee at Bend First Presbyterian made the commitment to the three Batwa villages to send $18,000 per year. Through prayer and grace and you, we have been able to meet that commitment, a word that means “to make a deposit against which you can later draw.” I draw on that “deposit” that has given my life meaning, especially in challenging times. I invite you to join me in having that same joy of knowing your gifts truly have changed lives as you help meet that commitment here. Or give through a check to First Presbyterian, Venmo or Paypal putting Burundi in the memo. Thank you.
Enjoy your June whereever you travel, in person or in your mind!
