A Light in the Wilderness (32 page)

This book would not have been written without the passion, research, patience, organization, and goodwill of researchers and Oregonians Janet Meranda and Dr. Bob Zybach. They discovered Letitia Carson’s forgotten story in the 1980s while students at Oregon State University and Letitia’s story never let them go. I am often gifted with story suggestions from readers, though I rarely choose them for projects of my own. Instead I encourage others to write the story of the man or woman calling their name. Sometimes, they do just that. Dr. Zybach and Mrs. Meranda are writing scholarly works based on Letitia’s life and they hoped I would consider a novel. A biography tells what and when something happened, but it doesn’t explore why or how that person might have felt. Such is the realm of fiction. I hope I have done their research proud; any errors in known facts are mine. The speculation of the uncertainties are mine as well, though I welcomed Jan and Bob’s suggestions for filling in the historical unknowns. As Bob noted one day in our ongoing discussion, “The yin and yang explanation would be that you are using historical data to develop Letitia’s
story, while we are using Letitia’s story to develop historical data.” I loved that characterization of our mutual work.

Dr. Zybach was especially generous in providing me a copy of his master’s thesis on the role of storytelling on the landscape of that Soap Creek Valley. His passion for the place and Letitia’s role within it was a constant enthusiasm for my efforts. A journey on the Soap Creek Auto Tour introduced me to the land where Letitia walked and the flora, fauna, and the Sulphur Springs where she might have found healing. Bob’s interest through the years in the Kalapuya people of the region added to the richness of what he had to share, including videos of Kalapuya people baking camas and reports of old stone ovens near the Carson claim.

Mrs. Meranda and her husband John made the trek to our home more than once and to other sites around the state, carrying bags of material we referred to as “Jan’s bag East” that she left with me and “Jan’s bag West” for the material she kept with her. We walked where Letitia walked on land now owned by Oregon State University. They were both “local-Google,” allowing me to ask questions they responded to in seconds. What warm and funny and superb researchers passionate about story. I couldn’t have been in better hands.

Letitia’s story moved me. The more I researched this period through the eyes of a black woman, the more compassion I had for her. Her triumph came years into her journey and after much hardship, out of which grew the resonant strength of this pioneering woman. I learned much about my own journey as a woman, as a westerner, about my adopted state and its exclusion and lash laws. But most of all I discovered the nature of freedom in the midst of chains and the strength of character it takes to persevere through the bondage of the spirit and the law. Safety is a state of mind, a matter of faith.

———

The Oregon Historical Society records, the Benton County Historical Society, and the Oregon California Trail Association are rich
humus for details and the wonderings of Letitia’s life. I’m grateful to the work of these fine historical sites.

Thanks go as well to Andrea Doering of Revell, a division of Baker Publishing, who when I told her of this story suggested that Letitia would have friends, perhaps both white and native. Thus grew the stories of Nancy Hawkins and The Woman that I interwove. Revell’s acceptance of me as one of their newest authors has been welcoming and warm and I’m grateful for their support and encouragement in telling this story.

Greg Nokes, author of
Breaking Chains
: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory
, provided me with an advance copy of his book published in 2013 by Oregon State University Press. Greg’s personal conversations about Oregon’s exclusion laws, his insights into the lives of Oregon’s African American community, and his generosity of sharing information proved invaluable to creating the story of Letitia with authenticity and care. I am deeply grateful. Near the end of my writing, Greg was contacted by a descendant of Smith Carson, Davey’s brother. He put Lila Hyder in touch with me, and she provided new genealogical information and details woven into my story but also of great use to the biography being written by Janet and Bob. I thank her. Jenneane Johns of Myrtle Creek is a descendant of the Eliff child Letitia midwifed when she first moved to Southern Oregon. The Johns family has marked where Letitia’s cabin stood with an apple tree. They are the keeper of yet another portion of Letitia’s story.

Archivists at the Platte County Genealogical Society, the Ben Ferrel Museum docents, and members of the Weston Historical Society offered documents and speculation about life in Missouri when Letitia lived there and made us welcome as we visited Weston and Platte City. Gwen Carr of the Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers joined us for the hunt for Letitia and Adam’s grave site. That organization works to uncover, honor, and preserve the history of black Oregonians. I am grateful for their research and education. They can be reached at www.oregonnorthwestblackpioneers.org.
Descendants of Martha Ann on the Umatilla Reservation, especially Joseph Lavadour, offered insights and photographs, though none of Letitia are known to exist. I’m grateful for their support in this true story imagined.

I’m grateful as well to a wonderful collection of colleague writers; my prayer team of Carol, Judy, Susan, Judy C, Gabby, and Loris; family, friends, and all editors, from my current and previous work, and readers: you act as wind chimes of creativity, bumping together in ways that I hope leave readers with the music of words worthy of their time.

To my readers, thank you for making room in your heart for my stories.

Finally, I am grateful to my husband who, despite medical issues, allowed me to rise early and live for hours in the 1840s and ’50s. I look forward to our thirty-eighth year together and am so glad you’re back to doing the cooking.

Jane Kirkpatrick
www.jkbooks.com

What inspired you to write about Letitia Carson?

Her story is so compelling! How did an African American woman change her life from former slave to plaintiff, engage in a lawsuit in a state where a person of color was excluded from even being and could not testify against a white person, and where even a white woman had little status? How did she decide to stand out? How did she face the injustice of being a woman of color and decide not to be a victim but to become clear about what mattered in her life and then have the courage to act on that? That’s what I wanted to explore.

Did you find it troubling to write about an African American woman when you are not of that race?

When I wrote about an Indian woman, Marie Dorion, I was asked by a reporter what business did I have writing of Indians when I wasn’t one. I was a bit taken aback because I have male characters too and I’m not one of those either. But I said something like I had Indian friends, I did my research, I tried desperately to live inside her skin, and that we were first, together, women. Later I mentioned the
reporter’s comment to the tribal historian and he was thoughtful, then said, “You didn’t write about an Indian woman. You wrote a story of a strong woman who happened to be an Indian.” That’s how I approached Letitia’s story, about a strong woman who also happened to be African American.

What prompts you to choose a particular woman for a story?

Most of the historical women I’m drawn to lived in the West during the 1800s. I like that period of history, and history is the spine of my stories, with characters providing the flesh and blood of life. I especially like ordinary women—such as Letitia—whose stories resonate and allow a reader to ask themselves how they would deal with that kind of challenge and to see that the strengths these women demonstrate are present in all our lives. I think women like Letitia inspire us to greater things. I’m also drawn to ask where these women drew their courage from. My husband and I spent thirty years “homesteading” a remote ranch, and I knew that one day we would have electricity, running water, a telephone, maybe even email, or I wouldn’t live there. But these women only knew what they had before them; they lived more in the present. I like to celebrate those women and let them teach me about living with what I have now.

Is there more to Letitia’s story that you’ll write? Her life in Southern Oregon, perhaps?

I think not, but then . . . one never knows. I usually tell readers that they get to finish the story in their hearts and minds. In the process they’ll discover something about themselves they otherwise never would have known. The two researchers who introduced me to Letitia are writing a biography that will follow her through the remainder of her life. I’m looking forward to that.

How do you decide what to include in a story based on a real person?

I create a timeline of what is known about that character, the “who, what, where, when” facts. And then I explore the why and how of their lives: Why was Letitia in Missouri having been born in Kentucky? Why did she go west? How did she travel with Davey: as a laborer, a slave, a common-law wife? How did she feel being the only person of color in the wagon company? How did she handle the patrollers? How did she meet the desires of her heart? Somewhere in the answering of those questions I identify the character arc: what she wanted, what got in her way, how she had to change to accomplish what mattered to her. There are many details I may know both historically and within the genealogical record that I have to leave behind. Too many details will numb the reader’s mind; too few and they’ll question the authenticity. It’s a balancing act. And I’m looking for the moment when I and, I hope, my readers will cheer for the character. I usually know where I’m going to end the story before I first begin.

Will you ever co-author a story?

Gosh, I haven’t really thought about that. I’ve participated in novella collections, but we write the individual selections alone. I think I’m pretty quirky as a writer and I’m not sure a co-author would share the way I work or the lens through which I write. My threads are landscape, relationships, spirituality, and work, and having others write with the same threads could be a challenge. But I never thought I’d ever write a book in the first place, so twenty-six books later I’ve learned that anything can happen.

What’s your favorite novel you’ve written?

The one I’m working on now.

What’s next?

I’m working on yet another story of a remarkable woman. You’ll have to wait and see . . . or follow my newsletter,
www.jkbooks.com/storysparks
or visit my website and blog, or visit me on Facebook and Twitter to stay abreast of the stories that steal my heart and that I hope will steal yours as well.

Nonfiction books on the African American experience that assisted in my understanding of Letitia’s journey include the following:

Angelou, Maya.
Letter to My Daughter
. New York: Random House, 2009.

Kentucky Narratives
, Vol. 7, of
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives of Kentucky: Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938
.

Larsen, Carolyn A. Bless.
We, Too, Lived: A Genealogy of the African-
Americans
in a Midwest Cemetery, 1850–1950
. 2009.

Lucas, Mario B.
A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891
. Kentucky Historical Society, 2003.

Mangun, Kimberley.
A Force for Change: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Oregon, 1912–1936
. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2010.

McConaghy, Lorraine, and Judith Bentley.
Free Boy: A True Story of Slave and Master
. Seattle, WA: V Ellis White Books, University of Washington Press, 2013.

McLagan, Elizabeth.
A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788–1940
. Portland, OR: Georgian Press, 1980.

Nokes, R. Gregory.
Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory
. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2013.

Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers,
Perseverance: A History of African Americans in Oregon’s Marion and Polk Counties
. Salem, OR: Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers, 2011.

Pascoe, Peggy.
What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Ravage, John W.
Black Pioneers: Images of the Black Experience on the North American Frontier
. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2008.

Taylor, Arnold.
Rose, a Woman of Colour: A Slave’s Struggle for Freedom in the Courts of Kentucky
. iUniverse, 2008.

Williams, Heather Andrea.
Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery
, John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Wojcik, Donna M.
The Brazen Overlanders of 1845
. Portland, OR: private printing,1976.

For further reading online, visit the Friends of Letitia Carson on Facebook.

———

For further reading about Oregon’s Benton County and the Soap Creek Valley the following resources are suggested:

Fagan, David D.
History of Benton County, Oregon: Including Its Geology, Topography, Soil and Productions (1885)
. Portland, OR: Walling Printers, 1885.

Glender, Eugene.
Eugene Glender
:
Growing up on a Tampico Family Farm 1910–1941
. Monograph 9. Soap Creek Valley History Project. Corvallis, OR: OSU Research Forests, College of Forestry, 1994.

Hanish, James.
James Hanish: Biographical Sketch and a Tour of Berry Creek, Benton and Polk Counties, Oregon: 1930–1938
. Monograph 6. Soap Creek Valley History Project. Corvallis, OR: OSU Research Forests, College of Forestry, 1994.

Zybach, Bob.
Historic Soap Creek Valley Auto Tour
. Corvallis: OR: Oregon State University Press, 1990.

———.
Using Oral Histories to Document Changing Forest Cover Patterns in Soap Creek Valley, Oregon, 1500–1999
. Unpublished master’s thesis, Oregon State University, 1999.

Zybach, Bob, and Kevin Sherer.
Oral History Interviews
.

The Benton County Historical Society and the Oregon Historical Society provided important reminiscence and histories of the area where Letitia and David Carson chose to live.

———

Other works about the Oregon Trail providing detail and depth:

Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. and comp.
Covered Wagon Women, Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails 1840–1890
. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1983.

Mates, Merrill J.
The Great Platte River Road
. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1969.

Unruh, Jr., Jesse.
The Plains Across
. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

The work of the Oregon California Trail Association www.octa.org whose lecturers, books, and web material are invaluable to the historians and novelists passionate about this period.

———

As I am a novelist and believe deeply that story reveals truths sometimes hiding in the most factual of histories, I include these novels that informed me about both the journey west and the challenges of a woman of color:

Bateman, Tracey.
The Color of the Soul
. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour, 2005.

Crew, Linda.
A Heart for Any Fate: Westward to Oregon, 1845
. Portland, OR: Ooligan Press, 2009.

Jones, Edward P.
The Known World
. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

Kidd, Sue Monk.
The Invention of Wings
. New York: Viking, 2014.

Margolin, Phillip.
Worthy Brown’s Daughter
. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.

Morrison, Toni.
Beloved
. New York: Vintage, 2004.

Perkins-Valdez, Dolan.
Wench
. New York: Amistad, 2010.

Pitts, Jr., Leonard.
Freeman
. Evanston, IL: Agate Bolden Publisher, 2012.

And the poetry of Maya Angelou, Mary Oliver, and Gwendolyn Brooks, especially “To Be In Love” from
Selected Poems
by Gwendolyn Brooks (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999).