There is within this story post-traumatic stress disorder, shame, and survivor guilt, but I also hope there is transformation. Everyone in the Spalding family was affected by what happened at Waiilatpu on that cold November day in 1847. In our generation, boundless articles and theories exist about post-traumatic stress, about how shame and trauma shape our life choices, but we are still coming to terms with how to walk beside those who struggle with these profoundly painful memories. They must sort out perceived guilt for action or inaction (survivor guilt) and actual culpability for a tragedy. I relied on survivor commentaries as well as on my own experience as a mental health professional and professional articles. One of particular interest was written by Kathleen Nader, DSW, “Guilt Following Traumatic Events” as part of the online PTSD Resources for Survivors and Caregivers.2 I created a daughter, Eliza, who assessed herself a failure for what she might have done in normal circumstances without understanding that how we respond in traumatic circumstances is quite different. Both Elizas made judgments about actions that were misinterpretations of what the human heart is capable of in those traumatic times, whether one can aid others as much as desired, whether one can stop or interfere with the harm going on. I had Eliza the daughter overestimate her sense of control at times and other times live with a grave sense of worthlessness. Recovery involves seeing that “traumatized self” with new eyes. I also found Brené Brown, DSW, and her work Daring Bravely about wholehearted living to be very insightful for understanding the Elizas’ lives.
This novel explored the Elizas and their families’ response to the trauma but did not delve deeply into the trauma of the Nez Perce people and their struggles from the war waged by neighboring tribes, the month-long siege by neighboring peoples, and the wrenching away of a family whom many loved and cared about, as evidenced by their absolute joy recorded when the missionaries were allowed to return to Lapwai. Timothy’s being unable to rescue Eliza had a profound effect on her, but I suspect it also challenged Timothy’s sense of powerlessness. Yes, the non-Indians wrote that story, and other stories of the Nez Perce and Chief Joseph’s leading his people to Canada that ended in tragedy. But the natives have told stories, too, about their asking for people to come and bring them the “Book of Heaven,” and many descendants still sing of the Spaldings. My own work for seventeen years with Sahaptin linguist tribes caused me to wonder if all native peoples might be dealing with PTSD based on the missed understandings, tragedies, and lost hopes that the coming of the non-Indian brought to their own communities. They have dealt with deaths by disease and wars; disconnection from homelands and relocation to reservations; and too many times to count, the forced march of their elders, women, and children to wilderness places. A contemporary book, Lewis and Clark Among the Nez Perce: Strangers in the Land of the Nimíipuu by Allen V. Pinkham and Steven R. Evans, published by the Dakota Institute Press in 2013, offers new insights about this tribe of remarkable people and what the “strangers” may have missed that the Spaldings discovered by living side by side with them for fifteen years. Few have missed the traditions of hospitality and kindness of The People shown to that early expedition and to the Spaldings and that continue to this generation.
With good intention the Missionary Board responded to the call for someone to go and teach the Book of Heaven, and they sent the Spaldings and Whitmans. But what happened—even without the trauma of Waiilatpu—caused as dramatic a cultural change as would the first contact of earthlings with beings of a far-off planet.
It’s my hope that this story allows each of us shaped by tragic and painful events to see that we are not alone and that there is a way to weave new cloth. May it also increase our compassion for those struggling, including ourselves. As Dr. Nader noted in her article, mentioned earlier, such change may require a counselor, clergy, or a wise friend. I’d like to add the power of story and grace are also avenues to peace.
Finally, but not least, I want to acknowledge Andrea Doering, Barb Barnes, and the many team members of Revell who have lovingly carried my stories into your hands. I am humbled by their enthusiasm for these stories and for the commitment to quality at all levels of publication. Joyce Hart, Hartline Literary, my agent of many years, continues to be my champion as I champion her! Leah Apineru of Impact Author has kept me on board with social media. Paul Schumacher of AdquestInc.com designed and manages my website and makes sure my monthly Story Sparks appears in the hands of those who have signed up for this bit of encouragement. Thank you. I have special gratitude for Janet Meranda, Loris Webb (my Canadian prayer partner), and Linda McCormick for early readings of this work and their suggestions. Of particular note are other members of my prayer team: Carol Tedder (who also handles my event requests with grace), Judy Schumacher, Judy Card, Susan Parrish, Gabby Sprenger, and friends Marea Stone, Sandy Maynard, Blair Fredstrom, and Jean Hendrickson. These women and their families have had us in their homes, prayed for us, and offered undue support for Jerry and me and my writing life.
I’m grateful as well to independent booksellers who continue to carry my titles all these years—this being the twentieth year of my entry into fiction—and who hand sell my titles, giving me new readers every year. My husband, Jerry, my faith community of First Presbyterian Church in Bend, Oregon, and my brother and sister-in-law, Jerry’s daughter and son and families, and friends have kept me stable and loved through the writing of this book. There are many others too numerous to name whom I claim as family and friends, and especially my faithful readers. You make my hours of writing worthwhile. I hope the Elizas touch your lives as they did mine and that all your memories will nourish and transform. Thank you.
Jane Kirkpatrick
www.jkbooks.com
1. Curt Meine, ed., Wallace Stegner and the Continental Vision: Essays on Literature, History and Landscape (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997), 128.
2. See http://giftfromwithin.org/html/Guilt-Following-Traumatic-Events.html.
Author Interview
Q: How did you decide to write this particular story?
A: The unanswered question always brings me in. Eliza Warren’s memoir noting her mother’s death, a space in the text, and then the very next sentence being “In 1854 I married Andrew Warren” intrigued me. What might have gone on inside that space that she didn’t want to talk about? Added to that question was hearing of and later reading about her father’s crying through town that “My daughter is dead!” following the marriage. What was that about? There had also never been an exploration of Eliza the child as an interpreter during the Whitman tragedy. I wanted to study that as well.
Q: How did you decide to tell one woman’s story through diaries and letters and the other as a first person?
A: I wanted the two stories to be distinct in the readers’ minds and I didn’t really want to rewrite all of the stories about the Spaldings as missionaries. After all, there are many volumes of works written about them. I wanted to consider what the mother might have experienced following the tragedy and her own survival and especially about her husband’s insistence that their daughter attend the murder trial. Speculation also exists about Henry’s state of mind after the tragedy, and I wanted to show his wife’s faithfulness but also some of what I think would have been worries about his volatile behavior. I thought the diary format could serve as a border to that story. I really wanted this to be more of the daughter’s story, so having her tell it and not be aware of her mother’s perspective until later I thought added interest. Plus, I think the daughter did have a hard life, carried great wounds, and was both stoic and stumbling. I hoped that the first-person format with a wider narrative could soften her and help the reader see the scared ten-year-old child within some of the more controlling actions of her later life.
Q: As you noted, many people have chosen to write about this family. How do you know where your story is going to go and how is your story different?
A: I don’t always know. I start writing before I think I should or I’d just
keep researching! There are no novels to my knowledge based on the daughter’s life, and the mother is only a minor character in some fiction written about that time period. So the daughter is the focal point for me. A novel allows one to speculate about the why and how one felt regarding an incident. Biography or nonfiction allows one to explore what and when but must hesitate about exploring people’s feelings. Novels are meant to move people, to bring emotion to the surface and enable us to see our lives in new ways. To paraphrase French writer Marcel Proust, “The real journey of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes.” I wanted to show Eliza’s journey toward seeing with new eyes.
Q: Eliza’s cookstove became a metaphor in this book for marriage. How did you come up with that?
A: It just seemed to fit. In one draft I’d written, “The cookstove, I decided, is like a marriage needing constant attention to keep the fire going but not allowed to get so hot it burns things and not so full of green lumber it smokes.” I didn’t realize she was going to say that, but it seemed to fit. A different version is what remained in the text, but the gist is the same. Plus, the stove has the added advantage of being a warm image inside a cold metal exterior that has to be heated up. I think that speaks to the changing temperatures of a marriage or any close relationship, even between parents and children.
Q: You wrote about the bond between people who have survived a tragedy as Eliza and Nancy Osborne did in this story. Have you experienced anything like that?
A: Several years ago my husband and I flew in our small plane with two friends, Ken and Nancy Tedder. She was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with their first child at the time. We hit a clear-air wind shear and crashed, missing three houses, power lines, and trees, hitting 450 feet from the end of the runway. My husband and I had many broken bones while the Tedders fortunately did not. Nancy went into labor, but it was stopped. But we all dealt with the trauma of the crash and what happened afterward. In this case, the happy ending is that Nancy delivered a full-term baby six weeks later and still has no memory of the accident. Guilt, worry, wishing we had done something different all visited my life. Since then, our lives have been forever intertwined with the best of threads. They are as family, and one of the greatest joys of my life was the morning Ken called to say Nancy had delivered a healthy baby girl named Lisa. That call helped rewrite that story of disaster. So yes, we survived a terrible accident and the relationship with that family will forever be richly distinct.
Q: You teach writing classes and have said your own practice includes one from Structuring Your Novel by Robert C. Meredith and John D. Fitzgerald where you answer three questions before you begin writing. How did you answer those questions for this novel?
A: Here you go:
1) What is this story about? It’s about a mother and daughter who survived a great tragedy.
2) What is my attitude toward this story? What do I feel deeply about? That memories can hold us hostage and separate us from flourishing relationships within our present moments.
3) What’s your purpose in writing this story? What might you be trying to prove? That what we remember isn’t always the way it actually, factually was and that new stories can transform old wounds and old shames, weave new memories that nourish.
I hope I met my purpose in The Memory Weaver.
Discussion Questions
Marcel Proust is credited with writing, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” How does this quote describe events in the two Elizas’ lives? What about in other characters’ lives? Was it misinterpretation or guilt or shame that affected Andrew’s life? Or Henry’s? Have you had occasion to discover this truth for yourself? In what way?
Misinterpretations often happen between generations, including between mothers and daughters. What were some of the misinterpretations that Eliza the daughter held? Do you have any experience with a misunderstanding with your own mother/daughter/father/son due to a misinterpretation of intent, meaning, or memory?
Why did Henry Harmon Spalding ride through Brownsville claiming his daughter was dead? What was he fearful of? What did he believe to be fact? Was Henry a loving father in your mind? Why or why not?
What gains and losses did Eliza the mother experience by being left alone so frequently by her husband? Are there frequent or long separations within your parents’ lives? Your own? What discoveries do you think your parents have made during those separations? What might they have missed in not having time alone? What have you discovered?
What factors made Andrew Warren decide to leave the Willamette Valley in 1859? Did he believe Eliza would follow him? Why did she? Where did her reluctance stem from? Would you have gone with him? Do you think that Eliza’s decision to go or not was affected by not having made the overland crossing as her parents and so many pioneers had?
Why did Henry insist that his daughter Eliza attend the trial of the Indians accused of the crimes at Waiilatpu? What impact do you think this had on a twelve-year-old girl? Was Eliza the mother’s worry justified?
Was Eliza the daughter’s sense of abandonment and betrayal by the Nez Perce warranted? Why or why not? Was Eliza the mother’s sense of betrayal of the Foreign Mission Board justified? Why or why not?
Did Eliza’s relationships with her sisters and brother ring true? How much of the tension in their lives was typical sibling combat and how much was related to perceived slights or privileges given by parents to one sibling or another? How much might have been related to how each dealt with the tragedy at Waiilatpu?
Why do you think Eliza stole her mother’s wedding ring? Did the author provide authentic motivation for that action and the way that Eliza dealt with it and how it affected her brother, her father, and her stepmother?
What made Henry Harmon Spalding decide to follow Eliza and Andrew into Touchet country? Did his action surprise you? What influence do you think Rachel had in his life? What influence did Eliza the daughter have in his life? What kind of marriage do you think Henry and Rachel wove together?
What drew Nancy Osborne and Eliza the daughter together? How much of their relationship was a shared guilt and how much was two young women needing companionship in a remote land? Have you shared a tragedy with anyone? How did that change your relationship, or did it?
Eliza the daughter used many Nez Perce names for beloved animals (Yaka and Maka) and her father (Papo) and sometimes lamented the loss of her fluency in the language. At the same time, she expressed anger that the Nez Perce had sent her and her family from Lapwai. She was also disturbed that Timothy had not rescued her. How do you account for this discrepancy between a fondness for a people while carrying a sense of betrayal? Have you held on to certain negative feelings while still lamenting a loss? How does this affect your daily life, or does it?
The author writes in the acknowledgments that “both Elizas made judgments about actions that were misinterpretations of what the human heart is capable of in those traumatic times, whether one can aid others as much as desired, whether one can stop or interfere with the harm going on.” Do you agree or disagree? What evidence is there that both Elizas dealt with survivor guilt?
Does the way that Eliza came to terms with the tragedy offer any insights for your own life? Do her actions inform a recent practice of veterans of wars returning with counselors and friends to the site of great loss in an effort to find reconciliation and forgiveness? Are there areas in your life that may need a journey with a trusted friend to bring peace to your days? What next steps might you take to make that journey?
Author Wallace Stegner wrote, “It is not an unusual life curve for Westerners—to live in and be shaped by the bigness, sparseness, space, clarity and hopefulness of the west.”1 How do you think those qualities of the West shaped Eliza the mother and Eliza the daughter? How does the landscape you live in shape you?
Thank you for making room in your lives for my stories.
Jane
Vi
sit Jane at www.jkbooks.com, sign up for her Story Sparks newsletter, and follow her on her Words of Encouragement blog and Facebook and Twitter.
1. Meine, Wallace Stegner, 128.
Jane Kirkpatrick is the New York Times, CBA, and Pacific Northwest bestselling author of more than twenty-seven books, including A Light in the Wilderness, a 2015 Spur Award Finalist, and A Sweetness to the Soul, which won the coveted Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center. Her works have been finalists for the Christy Award, Spur Award, Oregon Book Award, and Reader’s Choice awards, and have won the WILLA Literary Award and Carol Award for Historical Fiction. Many of her titles have been Book of the Month, Crossings, and Literary Guild selections. You can also read her work in more than fifty publications, including Decision, Private Pilot, and Daily Guideposts, and in her Story Sparks newsletter. Jane lives in Central Oregon with her husband, Jerry.
She loves to hear from readers at http://www.jkbooks.com and http://Facebook.com/theauthorJaneKirkpatrick.
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