Something Worth Doing

Jane Kirkpatrick

Description

In 1853, Abigail Scott was a 19-year-old school teacher in Oregon Territory when she married Ben Duniway. Marriage meant giving up on teaching, but Abigail always believed she was meant to be more than a good wife and mother. When financial mistakes and an injury force Ben to stop working, Abigail becomes the primary breadwinner for her growing family. What she sees as a working woman appalls her, and she devotes her life to fighting for the rights of women, including their right to vote.Following Abigail as she bears six children, runs a millinery and a private school, helps on the farm, writes novels, gives speeches, and eventually runs a newspaper supporting women's suffrage, Something Worth Doing explores issues that will resonate strongly with modern women: the pull between career and family, finding one's place in the public sphere, and dealing with frustrations and prejudices women encounter when they compete in male-dominated spaces. Based on a true story of a pioneer for women's rights from award-winning author Jane Kirkpatrick will inspire you to believe that some things are worth doing--even when the cost is great.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493426645
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“I have long admired Jane Kirkpatrick’s rich historical fiction, and Something Worth Doing is well worth reading! Oregonian Abigail Duniway is a vibrant, fiercely passionate, and determined activist who fought for women’s suffrage. Women of today have cause to respect and admire her—as well as the loving, patient, and supportive husband who encouraged her to continue ‘the silent hunt.’”
Francine Rivers , author of Redeeming Love
“On the trail to Oregon, young Jenny Scott lost her beloved mother and little brother and learned that no matter what, she must persist until she reaches her goal. Remembering her mother’s words—‘a woman’s life is so hard’—the young woman who became Abigail Scott Duniway came to understand through observation and experience that law and custom favored men. The author brings alive Abigail’s struggles as frontier wife and mother turned newspaper publisher, prolific writer, and activist in her lifelong battle to win the vote and other rights for women in Oregon and beyond. Jane Kirkpatrick’s story of this persistent, passionate, and bold Oregon icon is indeed Something Worth Doing !”
Susan G. Butruille , author of Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail , now in the 25th anniversary edition
Praise for One More River to Cross
“Based on true events, Jane Kirkpatrick’s One More River to Cross (Revell, 2019) is the remarkable tale of a wagon train’s attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada during winter.”
World Magazine
“Jane Kirkpatrick has turned a scrap of history into a story of courageous women strong enough to meet the challenges of nature—and of men. Starting with a footnote about a group of 1844 pioneers caught in snows of the California Sierra, Kirkpatrick weaves a tale of extraordinary women (oh, and a few men too) who fight blizzards and starvation to save those they love.”
Sandra Dallas , New York Times bestselling author
“What an incredible journey this novel is! Without ever trivializing or sentimentalizing the harshness of the circumstances, Kirkpatrick centers her novel on the bonds of community, family, and friendship that sustained these strong, complicated women through a harrowing winter trapped in the Sierra Nevada. There’s not a false note in this book. It’s moving and beautifully told, and I absolutely loved it.”
Molly Gloss , award-winning author of The Jump-Off Creek and The Hearts of Horses
“I can wholeheartedly recommend the book. Jane gets the facts as right as they can be got out of the stories of the various participants in the experience of the winter of 1844–45 in the Sierra Nevada of California. Anyone can tell you what it was like—dirty and hungry and cold and lonely. Jane puts the heart-pounding, breath-taking, adrenaline-soaked feelings into the thoughts and the mouths of the people who lived the experience as real-time commentary on the events. The thoughts and words may not be exactly what those folks were thinking and feeling, but I believe in my heart they could be.”
Stafford Hazelett , editor of Wagons to the Willamette
“Award-winning western writer Jane Kirkpatrick tells the remarkable story of survival of the Murphy-Stephens-Townsend Overland Party of 1845, the first to bring wagons through the Sierra Nevada into California. Unlike the great loss of life suffered by the tragic Donner Party the following year, all fifty members of the party survived, despite harrowing ordeals in mountain snows, often with nothing to eat but tree bark. As with so many of Jane’s books, she tells the story of the women who are so often ignored in western histories—giving birth along the trail; enduring their own illnesses to comfort near-starving children; taking charge in emergencies, such as helping rescue a drowning man or a stranded horse; and resisting men who try to shout them down when they insist on being heard. And don’t overlook Jane’s acknowledgments at the end where she says she hopes this story ‘might celebrate the honor of self-sacrifice, the wisdom of working together, and the power of persevering through community and faith.’ This wonderful new book accomplishes this, and more.”
R. Gregory Nokes , author, former editor for the Oregonian
Half Title Page
Also by Jane Kirkpatrick
One More River to Cross
Everything She Didn’t Say
All She Left Behind
This Road We Traveled
The Memory Weaver
A Light in the Wilderness
One Glorious Ambition
The Daughter’s Walk
Where Lilacs Still Bloom
A Mending at the Edge
A Tendering in the Storm
A Clearing in the Wild
Barcelona Calling
An Absence So Great
A Flickering Light
A Land of Sheltered Promise
Hold Tight the Thread
Every Fixed Star
A Name of Her Own
What Once We Loved
No Eye Can See
All Together in One Place
Mystic Sweet Communion
A Gathering of Finches
Love to Water My Soul
A Sweetness to the Soul
N OVELLA C OLLECTIONS
Sincerely Yours
Log Cabin Christmas
The American Dream
N ONFICTION
Promises of Hope for Difficult Times
Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt, Community, and Craft
A Simple Gift of Comfort
A Burden Shared
Homestead: A Memoir
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2020 by Jane Kirkpatrick
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2664-5
Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of historical fiction based closely on real people and events. Details that cannot be historically verified are purely products of the author’s imagination.
Published in association with Joyce Hart of the Hartline Literary Agency, LLC.
Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title Page
Also by Jane Kirkpatrick
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Character List
Prologue
Part 1
1. Making Her Own Map
2. Courting or Confrontation
3. The Hesitating Heart
4. The Timing of Love
5. The Vagaries of Choice
6. Early Storms
7. A Clearing in the Fog
8. Brooms of the World
9. Ora et Labora
10. Life, Death, and What Is Sure
11. Surety
12. The Farmer
13. Going On
14. Refresher
15. Moving and Moving Forward
Part 2
16. The Direction of Light
17. Misfortune’s Middle Name
18. The Stars and Spoils
19. An Editorial Option
20. Tend and Befriend
21. Building the Ladder
22. The California Connection
Part 3
23. Getting Ducks in Order
24. Shaping
25. First Hurdle
26. The Moving World
27. Drawing Closer
28. Thirty Years and Counting
29. Victory or Defeat?
30. Postmortem
31. The Things That Sustain
32. No Worry in the World
33. Abigail Scott Duniway Day
Epilogue
Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
Dedication
Dedicated to the ever hopeful, especially Jerry
Epigraph
A storm was coming
But that’s not what she felt.
It was adventure on the wind
And it shivered down her spine.
A TTICUS , THE POET
Character List
Abigail Jane (Jenny) Scott Duniway —daughter, wife, mother, farmer, teacher, milliner, novelist, owner/editor of The New Northwest , nationally known suffragist
Benjamin Duniway —husband of Abigail, horse trainer, farmer
A BIGAIL ’ S SIBLINGS
Mary Francis —Fanny
Margaret —Maggie
Harvey
Catherine —Kate
Harriet
John Henry —Little Toot, Jerry
Sarah Maria —Maria
Mary Gibson —Ben’s sister
*Shirley Ellis —friend of Abigail, wife, mother, divorcee, suffragist
John Tucker Scott —Patriarch of the Scott family
Susan B. Anthony —friend of Abigail, president of National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
C HILDREN OF A BIGAIL AND B EN D UNIWAY
Clara Belle
Willis
Hubert
Wilkie
Clyde
Ralph
*Harold Bunter —suitor and nemesis of Abigail
* Eloi Vasquez —second husband of Shirley Ellis, California attorney
Sarah Wallace —member of Stephens-Murphy-Townsend wagon train and president of California suffragist association
*fully imagined characters
Prologue
J UNE 1852
_______
Her dreams of late had been of books with maps of unknown places. Jenny Scott wished she were dreaming now instead of sitting here beside the family wagon, a gushing stream to serenade them. They’d left Illinois two months previous—2 April 1852. She had written the date in the family journal she’d been assigned to keep as they crossed the continent. Since that first roll-out of wagons toward the west, Jenny traveled without maps. She needed them to help her reduce the fear and anxiety of the unknown; but she did not have them. Though only seventeen, she’d already learned that living required coming to terms with uncertainty—not that she did that well. She had lost another kind of map as well—the map of her mother.
A different kind of pain awaited this June afternoon.
“The agony will be worth it.” Jenny spoke with conviction as she eyed the fat needle her new friend blackened in the flame. Then, “Won’t it?”
“It does have a sting,” Shirley Ellis said. “Fair warning.”
Jenny lifted the dark curls to hold them behind her ears. She thought of her hair as unruly with its thickness and natural twists that made morning brushing a chore. She envied her brothers who kept their hair short, curls under control.
Kate, Jenny’s twelve-year-old sister, patted Jenny’s shoulder while Shirley continued. “Shakespeare had this done and even biblical Jacob gave a pair to Rachel way back when. The pain has to come before the glory.”
“Ha,” Jenny said.
“I’m here to comfort you,” Kate said, “but I don’t understa