A Sweetness to the Soul (61 page)

This is a work of fiction and I, alone, am responsible for the words written to bring this story to life. Some actual events in this story were changed for dramatic effect; others were added in an effort to honor the spirit of the Sherars and the truth as it was recorded and remembered.

Eagles still soar over the cascading falls of the Deschutes, and the natives who stand beside the river of their ancestors still speak of the friendly spirits at Sherar’s Bridge. The Dreamcatcher series hopes to keep alive their stories and the stories of other remarkable frontier people who with strength, flexibility, and faith followed their dreams into the future.

Visit
www.jkbooks.com
and click on the cover of
A Sweetness to the Soul
to see photographs of Sherars Falls and learn more about the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

This work of fiction was inspired by Jane and Joseph Sherar, a remarkable frontier couple. I am deeply indebted to them and the integrity with which they lived their lives. I especially thank the von Borstel family—Donald, Jacque, Carsten and others—for their willingness to share stories, photographs, and artifacts of their ancestors, Jane and Joseph and Carrie Sherar. Their enthusiasm and trust made the Sherar story real. Their encouragement allowed me to speculate and freely weave fact and fiction in relating the Sherar’s dreamcatching accomplishments.

Special appreciations go to Wendell and Joyce Clodfelter for holding excitement through the years about the Sherars and spending time with me at the falls, pondering and confirming what I thought I knew and correcting what I didn’t; to Kathy Conroy of The Dalles who allowed Jerry and me to wander around the sagebrush of her Tygh Valley ranch and photograph the old pack trail and walk the walks and view the views that Jane and Joseph Sherar must have seen more than one hundred years before; and to Patty Moore and Anita Drake for their ideas and insights.

I am also deeply indebted to the People of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon who kept the stories of the Sherar family and their Native American connections alive and willingly shared them with me. Few of their memories have been recorded, yet the Sherars could not have made their mark on history without the Warm Springs people—Sahaptin, Wasco, and Paiute.

Of special note are tribal members Olney Patt and his daughter, Orthelia Miller, and Margaret Charley, descendant of Indian Peter LaHomesh, and her daughter, Rosemary Charley, who shared meals and memories with me. My friends and colleagues at the Warm Springs Early Childhood Education Center believed in my ability to write a story blending the best of both the Indian and non-Indian worlds, fact and fiction. I especially thank my friend and Lummi tribal member Jewell Minnick whose daughter and Warm Springs
tribal member, Sunmiet, loaned me her name; and friends Lola Trimble, a Hupa tribal member and Warm Springs tribal members Julie Quaid, Carolyn Strong, Barbara Poncho, Lenora Doney, and Geneva Charley who honored me with gifts of their time, shared experiences, and personal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs as well as the gift of time with their children.

Once I decided to write this book, a variety of people assisted in special ways. People at historical society meetings in both Sherman and Wasco Counties shared ideas of resources and contacts; the librarians at the Wasco County Library located obscure newspaper accounts. The Warm Springs community and the artifacts at the Museum at Warm Springs provided abundant and colorful background information about native life a century ago. The Culture and Heritage Department’s work on the grammar of Sahaptin provided authenticity in language, and I am grateful for permission to reproduce several Sahaptin words.

Ruby Kelly, great granddaughter of a family who worked for the Sherars, remembered stories of the dances at the Sherar House. Orville Ruggles and his son, Phil, walked me to a barn built by Joseph Sherar and let me slip my toes in the “green river” of Finnigan, and told me where I could touch the Sherar brand—at the Branding Iron restaurant in Moro, Oregon. A providential phone call—arranged by Dennis and Sherry Gant—from an octogenarian who once stayed at the hotel as a small boy, confirmed the existence of the sweetgrape arbor in the cliff orchard that I had only imagined.

My friends and family, especially Judy and Dave Hurtley, Craig and Barb Rutschow; my son-in-law and step-daughter Joe and Kathleen Larsen; step-son and daughter-in-law, Matt and Melissa Kirkpatrick; our friends Blair and David Fredstrom; and others too numerous to mention who have shared their children with me and supported me in my vision of this book: I thank them.

Previously written works also contributed to this book. Of special significance were articles by Donald von Borstel and Millie Holmes von Borstel and a letter of Wendell Clodfelter’s from Jane Herbert’s nephew, all printed in the Sherman County
For the Record
, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1985, by the Sherman County Historical Society. The Oregon State Historical Society provided access to Western Publishing Group
Publishers book,
An Illustrated History of Central Oregon
, 1905, numerous photographs, and a copy of a letter from the sons of John Todd. Other books I drew upon heavily include Bruce Harris’s
The Wasco County History Book
, issues of the Sherman County Historical Society’s
For the Record
, William H. McNeal’s book
History of Wasco County, Oregon
, and newspaper accounts compiled by the Wasco County Library. LaVelle Underhill’s article in
The Dalles Chronicle
and her kind conversations with me provided insights.
Pioneer Roads of Central Oregon
by Lawrence Nielsen, Doug Newman, and George McCart and articles in various works by Giles French and Bertha Belshe were very helpful as was Millie Moore-Voll’s book about the Moore home. Several reference works were essential. Marc McCutcheon’s
Everyday Life in the 1800s;
J. C. Furnas, The
Americans: A Social History of the United States, 1587-1914;
and Raymond Bial’s book
Frontier Home
all made creating life in the 1853 to 1893 era a labor of love. Cynthia Stowell’s book,
Faces of a Reservation
was especially helpful for its rich and sensitive rendering of the history of the Warm Springs people and the Confederated Tribes. I am grateful also to her for her recording of the Spokane myth I had Peter share with Joseph Sherar. The myth was originally quoted from
Prophetic Worlds
by Christopher Miller.

I also wish to acknowledge Marilyn Miller for early readings, Carol Tedder for copy editing, my agent Joyce Hart of Hartline Marketing, and Jakasa Promotions for their hard work on my behalf. And I extend a special thanks to Rod Morris, senior editor at Multnomah Publishers, for his faith and confidence in advance of seeing the finished manuscript and his insightful editing that made this book a richer work. There are others too numerous to mention and I hope my omitting them will be forgiven.

Most of all, I thank my husband, Jerry, for his encouragement, his patience, his suggestions for congruency, and his faith that my writing and this book are part of God’s plan for my life. He, more than any other, understands that “desire realized is a sweetness to the soul.”