Journal Notes

Writers are not always the most social beings. We spend so much time alone working on our craft we tend to forget what it’s like to be out in public. I go for weeks without seeing anyone besides the guy in my house I married three decades ago who eats all my Rocky Road ice cream and spends an unsettling amount of time watching professional wrestling. When I finally do get a chance to be out among the crowd, I’m like a German shepherd whose hasn’t seen people in a long while. That’s why I’m a big believer in writing conferences. Being around other writers can improve your mental and emotional health.

A major activity in the life of a writer (or at least this writer for the twenty-five plus years I’ve been writing) is attending conferences or conventions. Surveys distributed at various writing conference around the country and reviewed by the Association of Writers and Writing programs indicate that among the many benefits of attending conferences are learning innovative writing techniques, improving writing skills, finding fresh ideas, and gaining new contacts. I had to sift through several writing conferences before I found the few that were of any real benefit.

I’ve taken part in my fair share of screenwriting conferences. They were more pitch sessions than anything else. Usually held in hotel ballrooms in lovely downtown Burbank, California, hopeful script writers had the opportunity to sign up to pitch their screenplays to people who said they were assistant development heads for various studios when in truth they were really pages for a late-night television show trying to break into the business just like me. I had just won the Nicholl Fellowship Award and was feeling invincible when I attended my first pitch session. The first so-called industry go-getter I met invited me to tell him about my work as he fed berries to the cockatoo on his shoulder.  When the bird began squawking, I found it difficult to focus. The session took an immediate nosedive when I suggested the man’s bird might prefer to be in its cage ringing its little bell and staring at its reflection in a mirror.

Then there was the Actor’s Conference, a symposium designed for aspiring actors to connect with professional actors. Before things went south between myself and the owner of the cockatoo, he suggested that attending the Actor’s Conference would help me be a better writer. The idea was that I could learn how to act like the characters I was creating, and that would translate to the page.

The first panel I took part in was an acting exercise with four other pretend thespians. We were to take our place around a poker table and imagine ourselves as dogs playing poker in a velvet painting. I tried, but I couldn’t get into it. First of all, dogs cannot play poker because they don’t have thumbs, and you need thumbs to shuffle and deal a deck of cards properly.  And there’s nothing remotely cute about animals with gambling problems. It’s incredibly sad. As a matter of fact, not one of those dogs is smiling in those pictures, because if you look closely at those paintings, you can tell that most of them are playing with money they can’t afford to lose. And sadder still, remember it takes seven of their dollars to make one of ours.

It’s going to be a long winter between writing conferences. In the meantime, I’ll sharpen my people skills at the grocery store where I plan to buy my weight in Rocky Road ice cream.

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Happy Trails:

A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Roy Rogers was born Leonard Franklin Slye on November 5, 1911, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents owned a farm near the small town of Duck Run, and it was there that he developed his love for music. By the age of ten he was playing the guitar and calling square dances.

In 1929 Leonard left the Midwest and headed for Hollywood. In between occasional singing engagements with the various bands, he helped form (including the Sons of the Pioneers), he worked as a truck driver and a fruit picker.

His big break came in 1937, when he snuck onto the lot of Republic Pictures and landed a contract paying seventy-five-dollars a week. Republic Studios’ president Herbert Yates was looking for a musical actor to go boot-to-boot with singing-cowboy sensation Gene Autry. Renamed Roy Rogers, Leonard had the integrity, the talent, and the look the studio was hoping to find.

Three short years after singing with Republic, Roy Rogers would be the number-one-box-office draw in the country and be crowned the King of the Cowboys.

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Happy Trails:  A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Dale Evans was one of Republic Pictures most popular western stars.  The unlikely celluloid cowgirl, western star starred in tandem with singing cowboy Roy Rogers in most of her thirty-eight films and two television series.  The undisputed Queen of the West was born Frances Octavia Smith on October 31, 1912, Uvalde, Texas.  In her words, her upbringing was “idyllic.”  As the only daughter of Walter and Betty Sue Smith, she was showered with attention and her musical talents were encouraged with piano and dance lessons.

While still in high school, she married Thomas Fox and had a son, Thomas Jr.  The marriage, however, was short-lived.  After securing a divorce, she attended a business school in Memphis and worked as a secretary before making her singing debut at a local radio station.  In 1931 she changed her name to Dale Evans.

By the mid-1930s, Dale was highly sought-after big-band singer performing with orchestras throughout the Midwest.  Her stage persona and singing voice earned her a screen test for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn.  She didn’t get the part, but she ended up singing with the nationally broadcast radio program the Chase and Sanborn Hour and soon after signed a contract with Republic Studios.  She hoped her work in motion pictures would lead to a run on Broadway doing musicals.

In August 1943, two weeks after signing a one-year contract with Republic Studios, Dale began rehearsals for the film Swing Your Partner.  Although her role in the picture was small, studio executives considered it a promising start.  Over the next year Dale filmed nine other movies for Republic, and in between she continued to record music.

When she wasn’t working, Dale spent time with her son, Tom, and her second husband, orchestra director Robert Butts.  Her marriage was struggling under the weight of their demanding work schedules, but neither spouse was willing to compromise.

“I was torn between my desire to be a good housekeeper, wife, and mother and my consuming ambition as an entertainer,” Dale told the Los Angeles Daily News in 1970.  “It was like trying to ride two horses at once, and I couldn’t seem to control either one of them.”

Dale’s marriage might have been suffering, but her career was taking off.  Republic Studio’s president Herbert Yates summoned Dale to a meeting to discuss the next musical the studio would be doing.  She took this as a hopeful sign.  It was common knowledge around the studio lot that Yates had recently seen a New York stage production of the music Oklahoma and had fallen in love with the story.  Dale imagined that the studio president wanted to talk with her about starring in a film version of the play.  It was the opportunity she had always envisioned for herself.  For a brief moment she was one step closer to Broadway.

Dale Evans dreamed of starring as the lead in the film version of Oklahoma, but Republic president Herbert Yates had other plans for the actress.  He wanted her to play opposite the studio’s star cowboy in the movie The Cowboy and the Senorita.

Dale’s only experience in westerns had been a small role as a saloon singer in a John Wayne picture, and she was not a skilled rider.  She committed herself to doing her very best, however, in the role of the “Senorita,” Ysobel Martinez.

The picture was released in 1944 and was a huge success.  Theatre managers and audiences alike encouraged studio executives at Republic to quickly re-team Dale and Roy in another western.

In between her film jobs, Dale toured military bases in the United States with the USO.  She sang to troops on bivouac, from Louisiana to Texas.  She was proud to think she was bringing a little sunshine into the hearts of the soldiers.

Dale also brought sunshine into the hearts of moviegoers, and ticket sales were evidence of that.  Republic had happened onto the perfect western team.  Dale was a sassy, sophisticated leading lady and the perfect foil for Roy, the patient, singing cowboy.

The Cowboy and the Senorita was a big hit for Republic.  The April 1944 edition of Movie Line Magazine heaped praise on the film and its’ stars.  “Intrigue and song fill the Old West when America’s favorite singing cowboy rides to the rescue of two unfortunate ladies about to be swindled out of their inheritance,” the magazine article read.

“In Republic Pictures’ latest film The Cowboy and the Senorita, Roy Rogers and his sidekick Guinn “Big Boy” Williams, amble into a busy frontier berg looking for work and are mistakenly identified as felons.  Roy and Williams’ character “Teddy Bear” are accused of kidnapping 17-year-old Chip Martinez, played by Republic Pictures singing sensation, Mary Lee.  In truth, Chip has run away from home and her cousin, Ysobel, played by talented newcomer Dale Evans, to hunt for a buried treasure.

“Roy convinces Ysobel that he had nothing to do with her cousin’s disappearance and offers to help find the teenager.  Rearing on his famous palomino Trigger, Roy and Teddy Bear comb the countryside until they find Chip.  The pair is then hired on to work on the Martinez ranch and to watch over the impetuous Chip.  Desperate to get away again, Chip tells the boys she wants to find the treasure buried in a supposedly worthless gold mine she inherited from her father.  They agree to lend the young girl a hand in spite of her cousin’s objections.

“Meanwhile, Ysobel has promised to sell the mine to her boyfriend Craig Allen, played by John Hubbard.  Allen is a charming gambler and town boss who has convinced the unsuspecting Ysobel the mine has no value.  Allen of course knows differently.

“Using a clue left by Chips father, Roy investigates the mine and discovers a hidden shaft that contains the gold.  The boys must outride Allen’s men who are determined to stop Rogers and his sidekick at any cost.  Our heroes are in a race against time and a posse.  They must get ore samples back to town before the ownership of the mine is transferred.

“The action in The Cowboy and the Senorita is heightened with several song and dance numbers performed by Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and Dale Evans.  Songs include the title tune, Round Her Neck She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Bunk House Bugle Boy, and Enchilada Man.  The chemistry between Roy Rogers and Dale Evans is enchanting and “Big Boy” Williams adds great comic relief as Roy’s riding partner.

“The King of the Cowboys and Trigger will ride the range again this fall in their next picture The Yellow Rose of Texas.  Roy will be paired with Dale Evans for a second time in this feature.  He’ll be playing an insurance investigator working undercover on Dale’s showboat.  No doubt Rogers’ 900,000 fans will flock to the theatre to watch him ride to the rescue.”

Herbert Yates was quick to capitalize on the success of The Cowboy and the Senorita and the chemistry between Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.  The motion picture executive decided to stay the pair in three more westerns, Yellow Rose of Texas, Lights of Old Santa Fe, and San Fernando Valley.

Audiences flocked to theatres to see Dale Evans opposite Roy and his horse Trigger.  She received sacks of mail from fans of all ages complimenting her on her acting and singing and expressing their desire to see her continue starring with Roy in more westerns.

With the exception of the motions picture The Big Show Off, Dale’s admirers would get their wish.

Republic Pictures The Big Show Off was released in January 1945 and in addition to Dale Evans it starred Arthur Lake and Lionel Stander.  Dale portrayed a night club singer being romantically pursued by the piano player at the club.  In order to get Dale’s attention, the musician disguises himself as a professional wrestler.  He is aware of Dale’s character’s fascination with professional wrestling and he hopes if he manages to make a name for himself in the ring, she will fall in love with him.

Movie critics and fans alike appreciated Dale’s work.  The actress had “many sides to her talent,” the February 15, 1945 edition of the Hollywood Reporter noted.  “Not only can she dance and sing as well as act, but she also writes her own songs.  There’s Only One You which she sings in The Big Show Off is one of her own compositions.”

Dale’s departure from westerns was short lived.  Utah, Bells of Rosarita, Man from Oklahoma, Along the Navajo Trail, Sunset in El Dorado, and Don’t Fence Me In were all released in 1945.  Each starred Roy and Dale along with Trigger and there were many more films to come.

Throughout the 1940s the careers of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans rode the crest of an incredible wave.  Their popularity spanned across the ocean into Europe, and fans who wanted their heroes with them at all times could purchase toothbrushes, hats, dishes, and bed sheets with the pair’s names and likenesses on every item.  By the late 1940s Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were second only to Walt Disney in commercial endorsements.  They played to record-breaking crowds at rodeos and state fairs.

Roy and Dale were together most of their waking hours.  They were good friends who confided in each other and discussed the difficulties of being single parents.  Roy’s wife had died after giving birth to their son and Dale had divorced her third husband.  They depended on one another and respected each other’s talents.  Roy was impressed with Dale’s on-screen take-charge personality.  Dale had a quick, smart-aleck delivery, and she wasn’t afraid to get into a fight or two.

In the fall of 1947 Roy proposed to Dale as he sat on Trigger.  The pair was performing at a rodeo in Chicago, and moments before their big entrance Roy suggested they get married.  The date set for the wedding was New Year’s Eve.  Gossip columnist predicted that Trigger would be the best man and that Dale would wear a red-sequined, cowgirl gown.  The predictions proved to be false.

Roy and Dale’s wedding was a simple affair held at a ranch in Oklahoma, which happened to be the location for the filming of their seventeenth movie, Home in Oklahoma.

Roy Rogers continued to reign as King of the Cowboys after he and Dale married, but his wife was temporarily dethroned from her honorary role as the Queen of the West.  Republic Studios believed the public would not be interested in seeing a married couple teamed together, and a series of new leading ladies took Dale’s place on screen.  Ticket buyers did not respond well to the new women.  It wasn’t long before Republic executives decided to reinstate Dale and begin production on another film that would re-team the popular pair.

In between filming their westerns, Roy and Dale kept busy recording some of Dale’s compositions for RCA Victor records.  Their song Aha, San Antone sold more than 200,000 copies.  Roy and Dale were also doing a radio show, performing at rodeos, and keeping up with personal-appearance tours that took them all over the United States.

When Roy Rogers parted company with Republic Pictures in 1951, Dale went with him.  The cowboy duo decided they would try their hand at television.  Both Roy and Dale were among the top-ten money-making western stars in the industry.  Network executives at the National Broadcasting Corporation believed their audience would follow them to the new medium.  The Roy Rogers Show ran from 1951 to 1957.  The song Dale Evans wrote for the T. V. show entitled Happy Trails, has endured through the decades.

Dale Evans died from congestive heart failure on February 7, 2001.  The movies she made with Republic Pictures continue to air on various western channels today and prove she still reigns as Queen of the Cowgirls.

To read more about Dale Evans and her life with Roy Rogers read Happy Trails

Criticism and rejection are a part of a writer’s life.  It’s certainly not the part most writers like, but as author Elbert Hubbard wrote “To escape criticism – do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

A few years ago, I wrote a book about the life of Elizabeth Bacon Custer, George Custer’s widow.  The book is entitled None Wounded, None Missing, All Dead:  The Story of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.  She was a fascinating woman, an amazing writer, a gifted artist, and I wanted to tell her story.  I was surprised by the critics who blasted me for not covering the Battle of Washita River or Custer’s Civil War career.  The title clearly indicates the work is about Elizabeth Bacon Custer’s life, so I was a bit confused by the remarks.

I was confused, but not surprised.  Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of poor reviews including one that read, “My family doesn’t care much for history.  We like magic.”

If you’re a working writer, you’re going to face criticism and rejection.  From the literary agent who isn’t interested in representing you, editors who don’t want your manuscript, publishers who give you an insulting advance, to the ultimate rejection and criticism – poor sales.  The world is filled with critics.  No one is immune, particularly those who are creative.

Authors, poets, songwriters, even inventors working on designing better faucets are subject to criticism.  Okay, THAT guy is a moron.  The faucets are fine, stop messing with the faucets, all right.  The ones in airports are like science projects with electronic eyes and motion sensors that never work no matter how many times you wave your hand under the device.  Hey faucet guy!  Stop it!

I’m not saying there isn’t a place for solid, intelligent, constructive criticism, but when was the last time you read a review of a western novel or nonfiction work, song, poem, or western film that gave you a real feel of what the author was trying to say?  Critics don’t always get it right either.  In 1884, Mark Twain’s book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn received the following review.  “A gross trifling with every fine feeling…Mr. Clemens has no reliable sense of propriety.”  A reviewer of Owen Wister’s work The Dragon of Wontley wasn’t shy with his criticism when he shared, “Wister’s story is a burlesque and grotesque piece of nonsense…it is mere fooling and does not have the bite and lasting quality of satire.”   An editor reviewing one of Tony Hillerman’s manuscripts in 1970 noted “If you insist on rewriting this, get rid of all that Indian stuff.”  After reading Zane Grey’s book The Last of the Plainsmen, an editor informed him, “I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.”   Another editor wrote the following about Grey’s book Riders of the Purple Sage, “It is offensive to broadminded people who do not believe that it is wise to criticize any one denomination or religious belief.”  Even John Steinbeck was subject to critics who didn’t get it right as evidence in a review for his book Of Mice and Men that appeared in the May 1937 edition of Time Magazine.  “An oxymoronic combination of the tough and tender, Of Mice and Men will appear to sentimental cynics, cynical sentimentalists…Readers less easily thrown off their trolley will still prefer Hans Anderson.”

What danger is to a cop, rejection is to a writer – always hanging in the air dripping with possibility.  And drip it does onto the talented and untalented in almost equal measure.  Some days it’s hard to find the drive to keep writing when you consider your work might be ridiculed and or tossed aside but you have to power on.  How you master this challenge will have a profound effect on your career.  I once received a rejection letter that read, “Something stinks, and I think it’s this manuscript.”  Did I let it stop me?  No, I continued churning out stinky material…wait, that came out wrong.

Louis L’Amour admitted “I do not believe writers should read reviews of their own books, and I do not.  If one is not careful one is soon writing to please reviewers and not their audience or themselves.”  One of the keys to becoming a contented writer is to not let people’s compliments go to your head and to not let their criticism get to your heart.  If you’re one of those writers who have mastered this idea, I’d love to hear from you.  In the meantime, I’ll be at my desk rereading an Amazon review of my work which simply stated, “Maybe you should think about becoming a mime.”

Enter now to win a copy of

Happy Trails: 

A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

A Christmas gift idea for the horse opera lover in your family!

Enter now to win a copy of Happy Trails

Enter now to win a copy of

Happy Trails:  A Pictorial Celebration of the Life and Times of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

Dale Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith on October 31, 1912, in Uvalde, Texas. In her words, her upbringing was “idyllic.” As the only daughter of Walter and Betty Sue Smith, she was showered with attention and her musical talents were encouraged with piano and dance lessons. While still in high school, she married Thomas Fox and had a son, Thomas Jr. The marriage, however, was short-lived. After securing a divorce, she attended a business school in Memphis and worked as a secretary before making her singing debut at a local radio station. In 1931 she changed her name to Dale Evans. By the mid-1930s, Dale was a highly sought-after big-band singer performing with orchestras throughout the Midwest. Her stage persona and singing voice earned her a screen test for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn. She didn’t get the part, but she ended up signing with the nationally broadcast radio program the Chase and Sanborn Hour and soon after signed a contract with Republic Studios. She hoped her work in motion pictures would lead to a run-on Broadway doing musicals

In August 1943, two weeks after signing a one-year contract with Republic Studios, Dale began rehearsals for the film Swing Your Partner. Although her role in the picture was small, studio executives considered it a promising start. Over the next year Dale filmed nine other movies for Republic, and in between she continued to record music. When she wasn’t working, Dale spent time with her son, Tom, and her second husband, orchestra director Robert Butts. Her marriage was struggling under the weight of their demanding work schedules, but neither spouse was willing to compromise. “I was torn between my desire to be a good housekeeper, wife, and mother and my consuming ambition as an entertainer,” Dale told the Los Angeles Daily News in 1970. “It was like trying to ride two horses at once, and I couldn’t seem to control either one of them.” Dale’s marriage might have been suffering, but her career was taking off. Republic Studios’ president Herbert Yates summoned Dale to a meeting to discuss the next musical the studio would be doing. She took this as a hopeful sign. It was common knowledge around the studio lot that Yates had recently seen a New York stage production of the musical Oklahoma and had fallen in love with the story. Dale imagined that the studio president wanted to talk with her about starring in a film version of the play. It was the opportunity she had always envisioned for herself. For a brief moment she was one step closer to Broadway.

To learn more about the Queen of the West and the King of the Cowboys read

Happy Trails

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Tales Behind the Tombstones and More Tales Behind the Tombstones:
More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws,
Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen

Gone With the Wind, the first and only novel written by Margaret Mitchell was a runaway success from the moment it was published in 1936. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and is still considered the most purchased book, other than the Bible, selling over two hundred thousand copies a year. Mitchell learned of the stories she used in her epic while sitting on the laps of Confederate veterans when she was a young girl growing up in Georgia. In fact, she wasn’t told the South lost the war until she was ten. She wrote her book while laid up with a broken ankle and told no one other than her husband of her literary aspirations. At the time she was employed by the Atlanta Journal and had an assignment to take publisher Howard Latham from Macmillan Publishing Company around town supposedly in search of the new southern writers. Margaret brought the partially completed and heaping Gone With the Wind manuscript to Latham’s hotel later that night after a friend of hers laughed at the possibility that she possessed any talent. She sent a telegram the next day, asking Latham to send the manuscript back. He refused, convinced her of its worth, and sent Margaret Mitchell an advance to finish the book. Supposedly, Margaret wrote another book, which was found in notebooks among her letters, but she never pursued publication of anything else.  In 1949 she was heading to see a movie and stepped into the street without looking and was hit by a taxi. She died five days later of internal injuries at age forty-eight. The twenty-five-year-old taxi driver Hugh D. Gravitt was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to one year to eighteen months in jail.

To learn about Tales Behind the Tombstones and More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen read
the books Tales Behind the Tombstones and More Tales Behind the Tombstones

No Place for a Woman:  The Struggle for Suffrage in the Wild West won the

Silver Medal at the

Will Rogers Medallion Awards last evening.  

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Tales Behind the Tombstones and More Tales Behind the Tombstones:
More Deaths and Burials of the Old West’s Most Nefarious Outlaws,
Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen

On December 27, 1902, the woman many historians referred to as the “Guardian of Yosemite National Park” passed away. Jessie Anne Benton Fremont was born on May 31, 1824, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her father, Thomas Hart Benton, was an ambitious man who went from farming into politics and eventually became a United States senator from Missouri (and great-uncle of twentieth-century muralist Thomas Hart Benton). Jessie visited Washington, D.C., often as a child and met with such luminaries as President Andrew Jackson and Congressman Davy Crockett.

Jesse and her sister, Elizabeth, attended the capital’s leading girl’s boarding school, alongside the daughters of other political leaders and wealthy business owners. It was for that very reason Jessie disliked school. “There was no end to the conceit, the assumption, the class distinction there,” she wrote in her memoirs. In addition to the lines drawn between the children of various social standings, Jessie felt the studies were not challenging to her. “I was miserable in the narrow, elitist atmosphere. I learned nothing there,” she recalled in her journal. The best thing about attending school was the opportunity it afforded her to meet John Fremont, the man who would become her husband.

Born on January 21, 1813, John was an intelligent, attractive man with gray-blue eyes who excelled in mathematics and craved adventure. While awaiting an assignment from the United States Corp of Topographical Engineers (a war department agency engaged in exploring and mapping unknown regions of the United States), John was introduced to Thomas Benton. Benton was a key proponent in Washington for western expeditions. He and John discussed the great need for the land west of the Missouri River to be explored. Benton invited the young surveyor and map maker to continue the conversation at his home over a meal with his family. It was there that Jessie and John first met, and they were instantly smitten with each other. Within a year, they were wed.
Jessie Benton was sixteen years old, and John Fremont was twenty-seven when they married on October 19, 1841. The newlyweds lived at the Gatsby Hotel on Capitol Hill until John was assigned to lead a four-month expedition to the Rocky Mountains. Jessie helped him prepare for the journey by reviewing information about the plant life, Indian encampments, and rock formations he would come in contact with during his trip. John headed west on May 2, 1842. Jessie, who was pregnant with their first child, moved into a small apartment near her parents’ home.
John returned to Washington, D. C., in November 1842, just two weeks before their daughter was born. He watched over baby Elizabeth Benton “Lily” Fremont while Jessie reviewed the slim notes John had taken during the expedition and fashioned a report for the government using his data and detailed recollections of life on the trail. Politicians such as Missouri Senator Lewis Linn praised the report for being not only practical and informative but entertaining as well. The material would be used by emigrants as a guidebook.

In early 1843, John moved his family to St. Louis, Missouri, where his next expedition would be originating. Jessie took on the role as John’s secretary, reviewing mail from suppliers and frontiersmen such as Kit Carson. She wrote the necessary correspondence to members of the Topographical Bureau, apprising them of the date the expedition would begin, how long it would take, and what the party planned to accomplish. Shortly before John departed to explore a route to the Pacific Coast, a letter came to the Fremont’s home instructing him to postpone the expedition until questions over a request to purchase weapons had been settled. Fearing the entire mission would be jeopardized if the journey were delayed, Jessie did not give the letter to her husband. John set out on the expedition on May 13, 1843. He returned home the following August, having successfully begun opening up the great territory between the Mississippi Valley and California.

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More Tales Behind the Tombstones