A TALE OF A HIDDEN HEROINE: Just a few days from now would be Harriet Walley’s 210th birthday — April 19th to be precise. But unlike her famous husband, David Walley, Harriet’s name has been largely forgotten. Born Harriet Jane Talmadge, she entered the world in 1815 in the scenic Berkshire mountains […]
A Legacy From Empire, NV
A Legacy From Empire, NV. . . . The fledgling town of Empire, Nevada was less than five years old when Ab (Charles Albert) Ambrose was born there in 1866. Ab’s father, known to all as “Dutch Nick,” was the high-flying founder of not only the local hotel and saloon, but […]
Healing Old Memories
Healing Old Memories It’s inevitable, when you write memoir. . . Writing about the past is bound to dredge up a few old memories of the not-so-fun kind. How can you deal with those? Ah, that’s where the memoir process can truly be helpful. Don’t overlook therapy if a memory becomes overwhelming, or you find yourself deeply mired […]
New London: A Whale of an Excitement
A Whale of an “Excitement”: Today, New London, Connecticut, prides itself on its whaling legacy. But the town’s whaling “excitement” during the 1840s and ’50s wasn’t actually the first but the third episode in the town’s economic history. (For the story of New London’s founding and its early role in coastal shipping, […]
Grandparent Stories That Shaped Your Life
Grandparent Stories That Shaped Your Life: We lived nearly 1,500 miles from my only remaining grandmother while I was a child. So I only met her five, maybe six times. I remember her as a tiny, almost fragile woman, with a sweet, quiet disposition. But there was clearly another side! Photos […]
The Slough House Cemetery: From Walking the Plank to Finding Gold
It started with a near-murder. . . The Slough House Pioneer cemetery is a tiny gem in Cosumnes Valley, just over an acre and a half in size. Dating back to 1850, it’s one of the oldest pioneer cemeteries in Northern California. So how did this little cemetery come to be? […]
Gardening Memories
Gardening Memories Around here, brilliantly-colored seed catalogs begin filling our mailbox in early December. Their annual appearance is as much a familiar hallmark of this time of year as holiday cards and twinkling outdoor lights. Seed catalogs remind us that winter’s snow and cold is transitory – and soon we’ll have our fingers buried […]
Grit, Gumption, and a Darn Good Heart
Grit, Gumption & A Darn Good Heart: If you’ve never heard of Laura Naileigh Ellis Dettenrieder, you’re not alone. I confess I hadn’t, until a historian-friend kindly shared her story. As a young woman, Laura came west with the Gold Rush, then bravely left an abusive marriage – a step few women […]
Happy Food Memories – plus a few to forget
Some of our best memories revolve around holiday food. That special Thanksgiving cornbread stuffing? Fabulous. Christmas cookies drizzled with icing? Yum! Somehow or other, I wound up with Box #2 of our old family recipes – Box #1 resides with another sibling, I think. My own […]
Stampede to Bodie
STAMPEDE to BODIE It was 1876 when fabulous gold strikes were reported at Bodie. And as you can imagine, word of the bonanza spread fast in nearby mining circles. Alpine County’s Silver Mountain City had enjoyed its own mining boom a decade earlier, hard on the heels of […]
Monitor Canyon’s Early Mines: The Advance, the Tarshish, & the Zaca
Today, few people know about the Tarshish and the Advance, adjoining mining claims in Monitor Canyon. But once they were famous — two of the earliest and most productive mining claims in Alpine County. The Advance is the westermost of the pair, perched slightly lower in the canyon. Just to its east and uphill sits the Tarshish, likely […]
A World War I Diary – Part 3
The War Comes To An End Nate Arnot, a 26-year-old American stationed in France during World War I, describes his long wait to go home once the war was finally over. For Parts 1 and 2 of this never-before-published diary, click here and here. ____________ Nov 27, 1918 – Wed. Packing up preparatory to going […]