April 28, 2008
I just finished reading All Together in One Place by Jane Kirkpatrick. The book is a piece of historical fiction based on the following:
One of the incidents that made a profound impression upon the minds of all: the meeting of eleven wagons returning and not a man left in the entire train; all had died, and been buried on the way, and the women returning alone.
–from the journals of Ezra Meeker,
The book takes you through the journey of a group of women pioneers as they journey towards a new future together. It’s a great story of faith, hope, adventure, and community.
I came across the book in the library stacks, just wandering around and this book just seemed to jump off the shelf at me. I’m so glad it did! I’m hooked and look forward to picking up the second book in the series from the library this evening.
The book is a story of God and overcoming triumphs, but for most importantly for me, it was a story of the “essential” nature of community. No matter what happens in life, no matter how much paring down we might need to do to get over that mountain, community should never be tossed out.
April 28, 2008 at 2:05 pm
That sounds like a book I’d love…I’ll have to check it out. My Grandma and Grandpa used to have published diaries of many of the individuals during Western expansion, folks like Kit Carson, etc, and they were treasures to me growing up…I used to hide under the hawthorne bush on a blanket and read and read them…
April 28, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Okay - I’m not even going to say it this time…but I’ve read a couple of Jane Kirkpatrick’s books also. The first was ‘Homestead’, which is a memoir of her move to a homestead in Oregon. The second in from another of her series, ‘A Clearing in the Wild.’ I have the next one in that series but haven’t read it yet - don’t seem to be reading a lot of fiction these days, even historical fiction. I think you would really like Homestead, & if you can’t find it at you library, Carla’s Library would be more than happy to lend that or the other 2 to you…(smile) Since you’re so close & all…postage would probably be minimal…
April 28, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I hadn’t heard of this author or the books so I will look them up at my local library. Being an Oregon native and having been a little girl during the 1959 centennial of Oregon’s statehood, I have a deep and abiding love of stories of the early days in the Oregon Territory and travels on The Oregon Trail. My brother lives in Oregon City, the ‘end of the oregon trail’.