The Secret Saddle_Anna Troy's Emancipation
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Frank and Caroline Hempe were my great-grandparents also, as their son, George Hempe, was my grandfather, and he did marry Anna Troy. Frank Hempe had a very successful ranch in Union County outside of La Grande, Oregon. They came from Illinois with Frank's younger brother, Anton, and his father, Joseph, after Frank's mother, Catherine Shifferdecker Hempe, died of Typhoid Fever. She is buried at the Madonnaville Cemetery near Tipton, Illinois. Frank and Caroline did lose an eight month old child after he was scalded in a horrific accident. The family did own a steamboat dock on the Mississippi River and owned a farm there before they moved to Oregon. Joseph died at eighty-nine years of age of pneumonia at the Hot Lake Sanitarium not far from La Grande. Frank's ranch in Union County grew all of the crops mentioned in the book, including Italian prunes. He was well thought of in the community, and was a member of the Redman Organization, and head of the Knights of Columbus in the Catholic Church there.
Anton Hempe was his brother's partner for a short time, and then Anton purchased his own ranch, and also owned a saloon in La Grande. My dad, Bert Hempe, admired his uncle so much that he wanted to own a saloon all his life, and eventually did. He bought My First Tavern, on 51st and Sandy Blvd in Portland in 1977 after he retired, and ran it until he passed away in 1984. Anton's wife's name was Delia.
There really was an accident where one of the workers on the Hempe ranch was accidentally electrocuted, and George did testify at a trial where the man's family sued the Grand Ronde Electric Company. I found the transcript of the trial online. The electric company won the case and the man's family got nothing.
Frank was a very successful farmer, He purchased all of the shares and land mentioned in the book, and he did buy the first REO in the La Grande area. According to Sister Helen, he did have a bad accident with his car where he went down an embankment, which was the eventual cause of his death. I do not know when the accident happened, what his injuries were, or how long he lived after the accident. The family moved to Walla Walla, Washington, after the accident, when I assume they sold the ranch in Union.
Frank's daughter, Mary, did marry Oscar Berthelot in Walla Walla, and she died in childbirth a year after they were married, and her child was stillborn. I do not know the actual cause of her death, but she and her son died on the same day, according to ancestry records. Her Father died a month after his daughter. Bert Hempe was born in Keating, Oregon, on Christmas Eve ten days after his grandfather died. Agnes married Nicholas Newhouse and died at a very young age also. Ida lived into her eighties in Walla Walla, and Caroline lived with her daughter until her passing. Sylvester married a woman named Margaret Ellen and they had a ranch in Union County that they worked for many years.
George and Anna Hempe were married in October of 1908, and they lived with the Frank Hempe family after their marriage. They really did meet when her rig broke down on her way to the Hempe Ranch to apply for the teaching job at the Hempe School. She boarded with the family after she got the job. Sister Helen told me about their meeting and the Church Social, where George bid on her basket of food. Anna told her daughter about those two romantic stories many times. According to Sister Helen, John was born in the hospital in Baker City, and she was born at the Troy Ranch. The George Hempes did move to Cove Oregon and lived at the Perry Place where Joseph was born. George continued to work for his father for several years. Mary was born on the Hempe Ranch. After Mary was born the growing family moved to Keating, Oregon, which is close to the Troy Ranch. Bert was born there on Christmas Eve of 1916. George was also born there, but his birthdate was the only one that I changed. George was born in May of 1920 not 1918. It was necessary to move his birthdate up a couple of years in order to move the story line along a little faster.
Sister Helen told me that the family lived in Baker City for a short time and that George worked as a policeman there. Not long afterward, they moved to the outskirts of Sandy, Oregon, where they had a small Dairy Farm for many years. The family was very happy in Sandy, until my dad, Bert, fell off of the garage and broke his leg playing "Annie-Annie-Over". Sister Helen told me this was the saddest time of their lives. Bert did bring home diphtheria from his visit to the hospital and his beloved brother, Joseph, died from it. The whole family caught the dreaded disease and were quarantined, so that none of them were able to attend his funeral. My father held the guilt of his brother's death all of his life, and he did change his name to Bert Joseph for that reason.
Sister Helen was Student Body President of her class at Sandy High School, and she taught at Eagle Creek School for a year after her graduation. She became a nun and did many good things during her many years with the Sisters of Holy Names. She was Mother Superior at Christie School at Marylhurst, turning it from an orphanage to a home for abused and disturbed children. She was responsible for many children turning into thriving successful adults. The chapel of the convent was packed with her students at her funeral in 2003, when she was ninety-three years old. That is just one of the many wonderful things she accomplished during her lifetime.
Her parents moved into Portland, Oregon, when George got a job as a longshoreman, and the other children graduated from St. Stephens. George was heavily involved in the Longshoreman Strike of 1934, according to Sister Helen. Anna and George Hempe celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary on October 8th, 1958, with a wonderful party at their home in Portland. Only a few weeks later, on November 5th, George died suddenly of phlebitis. Anna was devastated as George was her whole life. I remember well when she came to our home for Thanksgiving dinner a couple of weeks later and did nothing but stare unhappily into space. Her sister Margaret was staying with her, as she was also a widow. Margaret was driving on November 30th, Anna's 72nd birthday, when they were hit by a drunk driver. They were both badly hurt but Margaret survived. Anna was in a coma for ten days and joined her husband in heaven on December 10th, 1958. The loving couple had both passed two months after their fiftieth anniversary, which was how they would have wanted it. Anna's mother, Mary Sweeney Troy, died at the age of ninety-four, four years earlier, following her husband, John Troy, who passed away in 1936 at eighty-four years old.
My mother, Vivian Hill, did telephone my father, Bert Hempe, for several weeks before they finally met when he came to meet her at her aunt's store. She told me that daddy just looked at her with those big brown eyes, and said, "Wow!" This is where the next book will begin. As you can tell by the information revealed about her life to that point, the true facts of her story and her ancestors is a riveting tale in itself, leading back to both sides of the Civil War. As she was an orphan, she did not know most of the information that I have found out about her mother's side of the family. I do wish I had learned of this exciting history earlier, as I know she would have been amazed at what I have discovered.
The other real character in the book is Charlie Siringo. He was a Pinkerton man, who did all of the things mentioned in the story, except anything to do with Jude Burden (Buddy Dampierre) as Jude and his mother, Dolly Dampierre, are totally fictional, as was Jack Bane, Gus, Bart and all of the characters who came into the saloon or were associated with those characters.
Charlie Siringo was a well-known crime fighter who did infiltrate the Hole-in the-Wall gang and was responsible for the arrest of the criminals mentioned in the story. He was a friend of Wyatt Earp, and he did move to California, lived close to Wyatt, and is buried there. I do not know his wife's name or anything about her as all I could find out was that he was married. Charlie owned a ranch in New Mexico and there is a street named after him there. Many of the characters mentioned in connection with Charlie are real, and I tried bringing in all of the real facts that I discovered in my research into this story. Joe Lefors, Tom Horn, Frank Little, and Governor Steunenberg were all real characters. Tom Horn and Frank Little both were hung under the circumstances mentioned, and the governor of Idaho was assassinated as depicted in the book. The man Charlie met on the train, Sonny, was a fictional character, as were all of the trips and e
vents I have written with Charlie in them, as I have no idea if he ever traveled to any of the places mentioned. He was a writer, and the stories about his books are true, except for the last one. "The One Who Got Away" was never written by Charlie Siringo, as he probably caught all of the bad guys he went after.
Jude Burden, and his mother, Dolly Dampierre, Tilly, Molly, Amanda, Gus, Sonny, the wagon drivers, Freidrich, Sam Miller, Belinda, Jack Bane, Ah Kim and all of the other characters mentioned in this story are figments of my imagination, and any similarity to anyone living or dead are strictly a coincidence.
Many of the facts in this book about my ancestors were found in ancestry records, and in the book researched and compiled by my cousin's wife, Virginia Hempe, a factual book about the Hempe family, as well as through interviews with my aunt, Sister Helen Hempe, before her passing. The other factual information about Charlie Siringo and friends and places and true events were found through online research, thanks to the help of my researcher and favorite person, my husband, Darris. Many of the facts about Sandy, Oregon, were found in the Sandy historical books from the Sandy Historical Museum: Whistle Punks and Misery Whips, and Sandy Pioneers, Early Settlers and Barlow Road Days by the Sandy Pioneer Association.
Thank you for reading this second book in The Emancipation Series. Although many of the characters and the basic facts are real, the story line is totally fictional. I hope you read The Emancipation of Mary Sweeney first, and that you have enjoyed both of these books. The third book in the series, "The Children of the Compromise: The Hills and the Lowes", will be an exciting adventure which goes back to the mid 1800's. I hope you love them all as much as I have loved writing them.
About the Author
Dani Larsen
"The Emancipation of Mary Sweeney" is Dani Larsen's first novel. She started writing it in the 90's after delving into her ancestry and spending time with an aunt, who told her wonderful stories about her great-grandmother, Mary Sweeney. Dani was living in California at the time and was attending the College of Alameda. Fictional History became a favorite genre for her, while she was tutoring for her Creative Writing Professor.
Betty Roberts, the first female Oregon Supreme Court Judge, had been one of Dani's high school teachers. When she spoke with her at her 25th class reunion, in her Oregon home town, Betty encouraged her to go back to school. After raising five children, with a ten year old daughter still at home, she worked hard at getting her Associates Degree in English at College of Alameda, where she tutored for Professor Jon Ford in his Creative Writing and English classes. She minored in History, and her four point GPA earned her the title of Class Valedictorian. She was thrilled when UC Berkeley called to accept her application and offered her a scholarship in the English Department, from where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in English Literature.
This historical fiction novel about her great-grandmother began while she was attending classes, raising her daughter, and her three year old granddaughter, who had been dropped off on her doorstep during her last year at Berkeley. She continued working part-time throughout, and went back to her sales career after graduation.
Dani wrote a story for a national Magazine that was published in 1997 and won second place in a creative writing contest about the Millennium in "The Olympian" Newspaper in 1999. She worked as a freelance journalist for several years, publishing seventy plus human interest articles for the Sandy Post and the Clackamas County Gazette in Western Oregon. These were all published under the name Dani Bailey.
A High School boyfriend, who had recently lost his long time wife, contacted her in late 2006. A year later, they were married and bought a home in a retirement community, in Arizona. They spent a lot of time traveling and researching for her book. Finally, feeling her novel was perfected with the added research, she decided it was time to publish.
The Secret Saddle: Anna Troy's Emancipation is the second book in her Emancipation Series. This novel follows her grandparents in their young married lives in Eastern Oregon through the trials and tribulations of raising a growing family in the Wild West in the early 1900's. This historical fiction weaves the family through the struggles of the time as they are pursued by an evil ne'er-do-well whom the kindly George Hempe mistakes for a friend.
Dani has raised six children (including her granddaughter). She has twelve grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Her husband has two grown daughters and five grandchildren. She enjoys writing, traveling, ball room dancing, swimming, golf, and arts and crafts. The third book in the Emancipation Series is in the planning stages.