Epilogue
Christmas, 1902
Margaret looked out over the rail of the steamboat and gathered the collar of her heavy coat closer around her neck. Andrew wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side. “Are you sure you want to stand out here in the cold, dear?”
Margaret smiled up into his face and nodded. “I’d love to see the falls as we pass. It’s been a wonderful honeymoon, but I am anxious to get home to Bridal Veil.”
He nestled his face against her hair. “I know what you mean about coming home, but I think it would’ve been nice to stretch our time away to two months instead of just ten days.”
She reached up and stroked his cheek. “You’ve got to get back to work, and I have my students to see to after the Christmas holidays are past.”
“Yes.” He straightened but kept his arm firmly around her shoulders. “It was nice seeing Samantha, Joel, and their folks when we stopped in Portland.”
Margaret nodded eagerly. “I’m thrilled that Dr. Miles and Lydia promised to allow the children to stay with us a couple of weeks next summer, and that they’ve allowed Joel to get a puppy.”
The blast of the steamboat whistle split the air and covered any response Andrew might have made. The snow-covered town of Bridal Veil lay only a couple of hundred yards away, and Margaret raised her eyes, searching for the falls she’d loved since childhood. “There it is. Look, Andrew! The sun is shining on the water. There’s a rainbow across the top!” She drew in her breath and held it, awestruck at something she’d never seen before.
He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, then tipped up her face and lowered his lips to hers, leaving them there for a long moment. “Beautiful.” He looked into her eyes and breathed the word softly.
Margaret giggled and blushed. “Andrew, did you even look at the rainbow?”
A shrug and a grin met her rebuke. “I’ve seen rainbows before, but they can’t compare to what I’m holding in my arms.”
She snuggled her head against his shoulder and his arm tightened, drawing her close. “I’m so thankful now for the choices Papa made.”
“You mean discouraging you in your relationship with Cooper?”
“Yes. I understand now why he did it—even his decision to bury our note. I was so young, and ready to marry someone because I felt excitement whenever he was around. But I didn’t really know Nathaniel’s heart, and I didn’t think about the things that mattered: how his lack of faith would impact my life, or those of any children we might one day have. Papa realized all of that and wanted to keep me safe.”
Andrew drew back a bit and looked into her eyes. “So you’ve forgiven him?”
Margaret nodded and a deep well of joy bubbled in her spirit. “Yes, I’ve forgiven him, and I’m blessing him for his wisdom when I had none of my own. I used to think he was always trying to change me—never accepting me for the woman I was becoming—but now I understand he simply loved me and wanted God’s best for my life.” She reached up and kissed her husband. “I’ll be forever grateful that Papa listened to the Lord when I wasn’t able to hear. If it wasn’t for Papa’s choices, I wouldn’t have my future with you.”
Author’s Note
While this story is mostly fiction, it does contain certain elements and people who were real. At the turn of the century the Bridal Veil and Palmer sawmills were owned and operated by the Bridal Veil Lumbering Company, founded and run by Mr. Loring C. Palmer. The homes, school, and store were owned by the Company, not the workers, and all supplies were brought into the one store by freight train or the sternwheeler from nearby Portland, Oregon. Latourelle was the closest small town to the west, with Corbett lying just beyond. Latourelle, which is not in existence today, boasted a steamboat landing and was a popular spot for city partygoers. Multnomah Falls, now a draw for thousands of tourists each year (as is the entire Columbia River Gorge), lies two miles to the east. Troutdale, the town between Corbett and Portland where Sheriff Bryant (a fictitious character) traveled from, was a booming small town at the time.
The fire that took place in September 1902 is believed to have been started by sparks from train wheels igniting dry brush approximately two miles east of Bridal Veil and was blown by an east wind up the mountain into the Trickey farm, then on to Palmer. Cecil and Gerald, the two young brothers, actually were killed when they stopped to put on their shoes in a nearby shed. Several people stayed nearly submerged in the millpond when unable to escape, waiting all night in the water for the fire to pass while the boilers exploded at the mill. Palmer was rebuilt on a new site, with millworkers starting to build almost immediately after the fire.
Mr. Luscher, the dairy farmer, did own a successful dairy for many years, located on a large plot of land near current-day Rooster Rock. The dairy was in business until sometime in the 1960s.
Art Gibbs was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He moved to Bridal Veil two years after the book takes place, which is why he’s not depicted fighting the fire. All events referring to Art are fictitious, except for two. He owned a team of horses and skidded logs for Bridal Veil Lumbering Company. His team was touted as being one of the best in the country. He and his wife, Glenna, lived in Bridal Veil for several years, and he went on to use his team to help build a section of the original Columbia River highway. He did have a dog that was fiercely protective, although we don’t have a record of the dog’s name. Buck was named after a dog my son had when he was young. Art and Glenna had a son named Rex (my grandfather), who married Maude (my grandmother).
Men called “walking visitors” would come through the town looking for work, singly or in small groups of two or three, following the tracks and sometimes riding the rails. Most were good, honest men, but the idea for the hobos in the story came from the possibility of men of bad intent who could also hop a train. The experience Samantha had with the two men hunting for her was taken from an episode in Jami’s life (a friend from our church) when she was twelve, as two men hunted her in the woods and God spoke to her, showing her where to hide.
Sand Island, just to the west of the town, kept the steamboats from docking there, and also provided a source of ice for the townspeople in the summer. The schoolhouse in Bridal Veil was a two-story structure and boasted two teachers covering grades 1–12. There was a railroad depot building in Bridal Veil, the Company store, a church, a boardinghouse, and a community hall, along with a number of small homes scattered through the trees and on the hillside on the eighty acres between the mountainside to the south and the river and mill to the north.
The fog and wind in the Columbia River Gorge are accurately depicted and can roll or blow in and last for hours or days. In fact, the Gorge is considered to be the windsurfing capital of the world.
Today, Bridal Veil is nearly a ghost town, with the mill closed for over forty years and the workers moved away. The eighty-acre plot of land was recently sold to the U.S. Forest Service by a preservation group who tore down most of the historic buildings, including the mill, homes, store, and depot, during the 1990s and returned the land to its original state. There is currently a small church and a scattering of homes that lay outside of the parcel of land once owned by the lumbering company, as well as the nation’s second-smallest operating post office. Bridal Veil Post Office is manned by a postmistress who offers a unique service. She personally hand-stamps wedding invitations with a special Bridal Veil cancellation mark. Invitations are sent by the boxful from places all over the U.S. to be hand-cancelled and mailed.
I was raised in the beautiful Columbia Gorge, in the town of Lyle, Washington, where Rex and Maude Gibbs eventually settled. My parents were both teachers there, and I went on to marry and currently live in the heart of windsurfing country, a short distance from Bridal Veil. The entire Mid-Columbia area has a rich heritage of logging, with several sawmills still in existence along the corridor. My husband, Allen, and I owned and operated a small sawmill for over fourteen years a few miles nor
th of White Salmon, where I worked pulling edgings and boards from the head rig and planer and helped in other capacities. We moved the mill to Glenwood, where our partner still runs it today.
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Love Finds You in Bridal Veil, Oregon Page 29
