This Road We Traveled

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “You’re claiming Judson and Nellie Louise?”

  “A little. Nellie, especially. Our family took her in. She found her own strength there, I think. It’s quite remarkable that they returned from California and made a foray into Canyon Creek on their way.” She looked at the additional chair. “It must have been quite a time getting what was left of that seat off Mother’s wagon.”

  “I think they wanted to show that they could do it, revisit a spot of tragedy and take something away from it to remind them of their . . .” Virgil sought for words.

  “Resilience.”

  “Yes. Resilience. And maybe repair.”

  Judson’s former good cheer had returned with them. Nellie’s patience and loving had built Judson up, convincing him that he had a life ahead, the missing limb strengthening who he was rather than taking something from him. Could there be a better outcome for an orphan than to believe himself both capable and part of a larger family, whether he had parents on this earth, alive or not?

  “Are you feeling well?” Virgil had always been an attentive man.

  “I’m just full of reminiscence. Pregnancy will do that to you.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Pherne smiled. How fortunate she was to have this man in her life. Even with the trials of the Scott-Applegate Trail, he had not become embittered or blameful. He accepted his decisions in the matter. He had come into his own in this Salem country, well out from under the shadow of her brother. He chose good farmland away from spring-flooding streams. His wheat and fruit trees flourished. He acted as an advisor to Fabritus and Virgilia, who had already named their place with future hopes as “Smith Fruit Farms.” They’d planted apple starts bought from a man named Luelling who had put dirt in the floor of his wagon and brought trees across the plains. Fabritus brought peach pits. The young man had a future in mind, one that Virgil participated in without being a father-in-law’s hovering shadow.

  Pherne sat at her writing desk, a small table Virgil had constructed. Her hearth was as warm and complete as she could ever have dreamed, though simply furnished but for the table and chairs. The baby’s arrival would mark yet another confidence in the future. She folded the drawing to send to her mother.

  Virgil came to her.

  “What’s this?”

  Virgil handed her a cloth-wrapped object. “It isn’t silver but I thought, well, I remembered that dream you had so long ago. About the bird and walking in another’s shoes.”

  She opened the wrapping, revealing a tiny wooden sparrow with delicate feathers carved with care. They’d never discovered the story of where the harp-back furniture that Pherne had found in the cabin came from. They accepted it as a detail in the miracle of life. “‘A byrd in hand—’”

  “‘—is worth ten flye at large,’” Virgil finished.

  “It’s beautiful.” She thumbed the carving in her palm. “A bird doesn’t only represent the cleansing of a house, you know. It says to me that I am being held in the hands of someone who cares. And in the psalm, a bird represents the soul.”

  “We found it, Mrs. B.” Judson’s grin encompassed his entire face. He pushed aside his red-rock hair. “It fell out when the wagon rolled down the hill. Nellie Louise pawed her way down the side and, halfway there, found it stuck in the dirt.”

  “I almost missed it. The bell was the same color as the ground, all tarnished. Judson put it into a vise he built at the back of the wagon we bought, and he polished and polished it with kerosene.”

  “It looks better than it did new, except for that dent there.” Tabby turned the refurbished school bell in her hand. Shook it to hear that familiar clang. “Why would you undertake such a dangerous trip?”

  “Because it was a small thing we could return to you.”

  “And we got the chair back too.” Nellie Louise gazed at Judson with such admiration it made Tabby’s heart sing.

  “Aren’t you clever! Did you bring my throne to me, then?”

  “We gave it to the Pringles.” Nellie Louise blinked. “Maybe we should have—”

  “No, no, you did exactly right. It was Pherne’s to begin with. She’ll like having that extra chair. And that it’s from her own Missouri collection, well, that’ll mean even more. It’s nice to have something from home.” She held up the bell, clanged it once again. “Thank you.”

  Nellie Louise hugged her.

  Tabby didn’t know whether to ask the obvious or wait until they offered. She couldn’t wait. “Did you find your parents then?”

  “We failed at that.” Judson dropped his eyes and Tabby chastened herself for not waiting yet again, for pushing young Judson back toward a place it looked as though he’d left behind—until she stuck her impatience into it.

  “But the destination wasn’t as important as we thought it would be,” Nellie Louise said. “People will always be enticed by the possibility. Didn’t you tell me that once, Mother Brown?”

  “I doubt I said anything as elegant as you just did. And you can call me Gramma Brown. All my little charges do.”

  “Trying to find them was a good reason to go,” Nellie Louise continued. “But as we made stop after stop asking, inquiring, leaving notes, I understood at last that I might never find them. They might look for me in Oregon, but we didn’t have any evidence of that either. When I wrote the notes to contact me, I realized they couldn’t. I didn’t have a home or a way for them to find us.”

  “That made us think about the ‘us’ part.” Judson’s blue eyes took on a sheen.

  “Where did I want to be in case my trying to reach my parents proved successful? I decided I wanted to come back here, to this family, the one I already had.”

  Judson said, “Then one thing led to another and—”

  “You decided she couldn’t make it back all alone.”

  “No, I decided I wanted to marry my best friend.” He tugged her to him with his good arm. “Nellie Louise will open a shop and sew dresses and whatnots. And I’m going to build her a house to do it in. Or have it built. We didn’t find Nellie’s parents. And we didn’t get rich in the gold fields. But we found something even better.”

  “Each other.” Nellie beamed.

  Oh, they are so sick with love.

  “I’ve gotten my old job back and we’ll make it, like you said we could, Mrs. B. We’ll make it.”

  “We want to get married in the log church here at Forest Grove. Do you think we can do that?”

  “I don’t see why not. You go talk to Reverend Clark. Do it quick. I’m making him go to the legislature and he’s taking me with him.”

  At times, Tabby could not believe her prosperous life in the second half of her being. It had begun with that coin in the tip of her glove. No, she thought further. She had spent all that she’d earned from those gloves she’d sewn. Her prosperity began when she had given everything away, when she had nothing left and when she’d prayed to understand what her poverty was meant to teach her. From that day forward, God had opened doors of service and she kept walking through them.

  She’d purchased a new hat for the trip to the legislature meeting in Salem in a downtown building. She looked out through the wavy glass windows onto the bustle of a city. So much activity in so short a time. She tapped her walking stick. This waiting in the wings for a performance she couldn’t even participate in was enough to make an old woman’s heart beat harder. The men had been discussing the charter now for hours. It was not enough that those in charge approved the town’s incorporation of the school. They must also fund it. Nothing said “I support this idea” more than an infusion of coinage. Local supporters would have to raise more money, she knew, selling things. Virgilia would bake a dozen cakes for a cake walk, Nellie Louise would make a batch of lotion and sew up a storm. Pherne would paint a scene of old Salem some would buy, and the men would donate beef and fruit, with all the proceeds going to the college. Her college. But their good intentions needed the seed that could only come from a collective commitment of
“resources” toward the end of advancing education.

  Tabby tapped her walking stick. This had gone on long enough. She stood, rapped on the meeting room door. Harvey Clark came out.

  “How’s it going in there?”

  “We’re making progress, Mrs. Brown. I think. The stickler now seems to be that if they allocate funds for it, they want to name it.”

  “After themselves?” He shushed her to keep her voice down. She imagined with disgust a major university carrying the name of some legislator or big donor. That would never do. This university must welcome and speak for every child and not the privileged few.

  “No, they just want the naming privilege.”

  “They don’t like the name Tualatin Academy?”

  “That’ll stay, as the school for younger scholars. They want a name that says something larger than the Tualatin Plains or even Forest Grove. More like the Oregon Institute, a name with a wider vista.”

  “As long as they fund it and don’t call it Governor Curry University, we can live with it, can’t we?”

  “We can. I’ve got to get back in there.”

  He closed the door, but then opened it an inch or so, so she could hear the discussion. She wasn’t sure why this had become so important to her. She’d had so many successes in her life. Even if they refused this time she’d be back for as long as she had breath. What are they arguing about in there now? She pushed the door open a little farther with her walking stick. They still haggled over the idea of it? No, they were exploring other sites. Well, that could work, she supposed. But Reverend Clark had donated the land for it, so no purchase from legislative funds was necessary. Without thinking she said as much, out loud with one foot inside the room. The men turned to her. “It’s true. You won’t have to fund a purchase, you can put public funds into the construction and operation, invest in minds. As it should be.”

  She thought afterward that no one asked who she was, nor did they chastise her boldness. Instead, they took a vote and it passed. They chose the name “Pacific University.” She liked that name. What could be grander than the call of a western ocean that stretched across to the Orient, the very seas that John had once sailed upon?

  “I approve,” Tabby said.

  The men chuckled but indulged her interruption. She could have mothered every one of them, she was that old. They’d been taught good manners by their mothers.

  “Now, the funding,” Tabby said.

  Harvey Clark’s eyes grew big as fists and he shook his head, put his finger to his lip to silence her. Have I pushed this too far?

  “I believe the woman is correct, gentlemen. How does $50,000 sound to the little lady?”

  Tabby nearly fainted. But she gripped her walking stick instead and said out loud, “As the patriot Benjamin Franklin wrote, ‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.’ You gentlemen have worked wisely. The children of Forest Grove and the future scholars from around the world thank you for giving their dreams wings through Pacific University.”

  1858. Virgilia opened the sealed envelope addressed in her own hand all those years before. She’d forgotten the letters she and Nellie Louise had written the evening before they took that fateful cutoff trail. When Fabritus brought the letter in from Oregon City, it all came back. She’d have to send Nellie’s to Forest Grove right away. It was years past the time they’d promised to send them. She opened the letter as greedily as her son took to her breast.

  Dear Virgilia of my future,

  I know I’m supposed to write a letter about my hopes and dreams of where I’ll be in 1851 but instead I think I’ll write a poem.

  Your friend, Virgilia

  Virgilia laughed at the youthfulness of the introductory words. And then she read.

  What I Wish For

  A pewter knife.

  A reason to bake cakes to give away.

  To envy no one.

  To like the person

  I’ve become with both warts

  and winsome ways.

  When broken

  To find tools to make repairs.

  I want my family safe and sound

  all around

  close enough to call upon

  in danger, times of trial

  and celebrations, too.

  A good husband, one who loves

  me and is guided by his faith.

  But if that mate should fail to wing

  my way then I wish

  to have a say

  in how I face my days.

  Most of all I hope

  to create steps

  of imagination, courage, kindness, hope;

  rungs of a ladder

  that take me ever

  out of fear and darkness

  into light

  I share with others.

  Virgilia Pringle

  written on August 9th, 1846

  35

  Feet or Wings

  Dear Sarelia, as this memoir is the story about myself I’m telling myself, let me say that you, too, will learn things through the years, things to remind yourself about. I ponder, for example, how once I wrote that I was born with feet, as are we all, but without wings. Now, I see we have both. You may correct your old gramo by pointing out that she has none of those fluttering feathers (as does Beatrice) growing out from her shoulders, but wings take many shapes. God gives us wings we cannot see but can feel as he lifts us through the air to ascend to heights we never imagined, heights he has in store for us because of his great love for us and because we are willing to fly.

  This will be my last entry, Sarelia. I suspect you may be happy about that, such a busy young woman you’ve become at twenty-two years of age. You have little time to read the meanderings of an old woman. Especially as you prepare for your wedding to that young Charles Northup. Reverend Northrup. Your grandfather would be so proud. And still you have time to help your mother with your baby sister. Mary Ella is right now nearly the same age as you were when you asked me to write my mem-o-are. But I did once say I would tell you of the greatest challenge of my life, and I would be remiss if I failed to finish what I started.

  You may have guessed by now my greatest challenge, and I confess, it has been only in the telling of my tales that I could find the words to describe it. I had thought it would be that old foot of mine, lame with my walking stick, my companion all my life. I imagined it might be family squabbles and repairs. Or the terrible loss of loved ones held so dear. Your brother Oliver for one and my son John and Dear Clark and Captain John. Or the demands of the Scott-Applegate Trail and our near deaths, your great-uncle John’s and mine. Even those times of pecuniary struggles when I lacked resources—God soon provided. His manna we are taught we must not hoard but use only what we need and give the rest away. Trusting in that has been a rocky road for me.

  Now, my greatest challenge . . . did you know, Sarelia, that Webster tells us a challenge is a call to engage in a contest, or a claim to question truth or fact? But here is an oddity: the word comes from the Latin word calvi, meaning “to deceive.” I’ve thought often of that word root, to deceive. I’ve decided that to refuse to accept a challenge is the deception. To let one’s heart hesitate so long the challenge is missed, that forms the trickery. To resist our calling, whatever that may be, to keep our feet planted in one place rather than use them to go forward, or from fear, to fail to spread our wings—that perhaps is the greatest cheating of any of our lives. What a deception it would be to turn our backs on what we’re called to do, discovering that purpose. For within that action of acceptance of our worthiness for service comes our greatest joy.

  Did I tell you that three years ago, the trustees of the university asked me to consider going back to Missouri and to Maryland and Vermont and Massachusetts to raise funds for our dear Pacific University? But I declined. Oh, I would have loved to have seen my son Manthano and held my grandbabies once again, but comes a time when one must recognize one’s limits and I could not have made the trip alone. I did
not wish to be a burden to others. There are younger folks with honeyed tongues who can raise money for our cause.

  This spring I will accept your dear mother’s invitation to live with her and your father beside Pringle Creek in Salem. Perhaps that is the greatest challenge, to accept the kindnesses of others, to live to be “worthy of the calling,” as the apostle Paul would say, adapt to change; more, to let the joy that comes from those commitments, whether we succeed or fail, wash over us. Agree to go, dear Sarelia. We cannot stay. And there it is, my greatest challenge: to face the uncertainty of each day, trusting that there will be enough—enough to meet our needs and enough to give away. We must keep both our feet and wings in good repair to face the uncertain road that is our life. I hope my mem-o-are has told that story most of all.

  With love, your gramo,

  Tabitha Moffat Brown

  Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments

  The Oregon State Capitol honors 158 people with their names engraved throughout the rotunda or in legislative chambers. Only six names honor women. One of those is Tabitha Moffat Brown. In 1987, the Oregon legislature named her “The Mother of Oregon,” writing that she “represents the distinctive pioneer heritage, and the charitable and compassionate nature, of Oregon’s people.” I learned of this designation following a P.E.O. presentation in Forest Grove some years back. Members took me to Old College Hall and told me of Tabitha’s journey. Years later, I found her story “A Brimfield Heroine” in Covered Wagon Women Diaries and Letters from the Western Trail 1840–1849.[1] But it wasn’t until the spring of 2013 when Lisa Amato, a Friend of Historic Forest Grove, approached me at a book signing that Tabby’s story caught my imagination. “You should write about Tabitha Moffat Brown,” Lisa Amato told me. And as I always do, I suggested that she should write the story. “Oh, I have, in a way.” She’d coauthored a book with Mary Jo Morelli and Friends of Historic Forest Grove called Forest Grove (Arcadia Publishing, 2010). “But that’s not really about her and we think her story needs a novel to explore who she was and how she came to be known as the Mother of Oregon.” The idea percolated. I talked with my editor Andrea Doering at Baker/Revell and we decided that discovering Tabby would make a fascinating story. And so you have before you This Road We Traveled.