Stories
10 stories
Arc
Coming to America, one week's wages at a time
A Bohemian family crossed the Atlantic on the wages of one daughter sent ahead alone, who kept a private vow for the rest of her life.
1877–1901
Arc
From an engine room to the first commercial reactors
Motor Machinist's Mate first class on a landing craft in the Mediterranean, then the GI Bill, then the control rooms of the world's first commercial boiling water reactors.
1923–2017
Arc
From Rowan County to the Palouse
An orphan who got one day of school walked his family three thousand miles across America — by wagon, by riverboat, and finally by freight team — and ended it at the head of a golden-wedding table on a Washington prairie.
1826–1899Vignettes
Vignette
A schoolteacher, a widower, and eighteen hundred jars a winter
He wanted to be a doctor. She was teaching at Clover Creek and boarding at his parents' place as part of her salary. Her father called him "that old man."
1925–1956
Vignette · in From Rowan County to the Palouse
Sent to school for one day, then sent to the fields
He was placed with a family on the understanding that they would send him to school. They sent him once.
1826–1863
Vignette · in From Rowan County to the Palouse
One log house, fifteen feet square, for a family of thirteen
They landed at Wallula in the last days of November 1873. Nine years later the homestead was engraved for a county history.
1873–1882
Vignette · in Coming to America, one week's wages at a time
The vow she kept for the rest of her life
She sailed alone, took a flat on Pitt Street, and sent most of what she earned back to Bohemia. It was enough to bring everyone.
1877–1882
Vignette · in From Rowan County to the Palouse
Everything taken except one horse they kept in the brush
Order No. 11 emptied five counties. Belinda traded somehow for oxen and took the children out — three weeks on the road, two hundred and fifty miles.
1863–1873
Vignette · in From Rowan County to the Palouse
Three households, one mill, one year
A ledger from the Pataha flour mill, 1889–90, holds accounts for a son and a son-in-law of Nicholas Williams. They paid in wheat.
1889–1890
Vignette · in From an engine room to the first commercial reactors
The night the engines failed
A piston head burned through at midnight and threw oil across the engine room. By 0100 the fuel pumps were going too.
Summer 1944