Skookum: An Oregon Pioneer Family's History and Lore » (New Edition)

"In 1843, brothers Jesse, Lindsay, and Charley Applegate - accompanied by their wives and twenty-two children - led the first major wagon train from Missouri to Oregon. By the end of the decade, the restless clan had left the "crowded" Willamette Valley and pointed their wagons toward Yoncalla in southern Oregon's Umpqua Valley. There, Charley built an immense two-story frame home - with one side for men, the other for women." "The divided house in Yoncalla is at the heart of Shannon Applegate's Skookum, the award-winning chronicle of her pioneer family. With the skill of a historian and the craft of a novelist, Applegate recounts the story of her family over several generations - the dreams, hardships, mysteries, and joys. She looks beyond the well known lives of the Applegate men, in whose honor were named a trail, a town, a river, and a mountain peak, to offer a more intimate history." Skookum gives voice to the women of the family, who, writes Applegate, "as surely as certain stitches ... have held the generations together," Her female kin "kept the time" by cherishing and protecting the thousands of family letters, journals, recollections, manuscripts, sketchbooks, and photographs. Tied into bundles and stored for years in chests of aromatic cedar and Douglas fir, these family treasures infuse Skookum's narratives with the powerful presence of the past. Out of these richly detailed sources, Applegate has fashioned a compelling, imaginative saga that brings her extraordinary family and the emerging West dramatically to life.

Publishers Weekly

Three Applegate brothers - Charley, Lindsay, Jesse - and their families came to Oregon in 1843, ultimately settling in the Yoncalla Valley. They built an emigrant road, set up homesteads and became involved in territorial affairs. Some family members left temporarily to seek gold in California and Idaho. Wives and daughters wrote letters, kept journals, saved photographs and other memorabilia. They stored a treasure trove to be discovered by a fifth-generation descendant, the author, who has fashioned a splendidly detailed history of the family. The first section, 1843-1867, reads like a novel; the second part profiles two sons and three daughters of the settlers. Finally, Applegate describes her return to the old home place and the surviving members of the family's third generation (her great-aunt and great-uncle). The Applegates played a vital role in Oregon's history, and their story will have great local interest; it will also appeal to readers interested in the pioneer experience. Photos. (October)