About Who is Oregon’s Mother?
Presented by Jane Kirkpatrick, Author
How did a 66 -year-old widow living in St. Charles, MO in 1844
become one of only six women memorialized in Oregon’s state Capital and be
named by the 1987 Oregon legislature as the “Mother of Oregon?” Tabitha Moffat
Brown was lame, and considered by her oldest son as too old to traverse the
1844 wagon train. He’d made the trek previously and knew of its hardships. But
you can’t keep a good woman down! Tabitha hired her own wagon, talked her 78
year-old brother-in-law into going with her (a single woman had to have a man
in addition to a driver traveling with her) and set out. What happened and how
Tabitha dealt with the challenges of some poor decisions marks the life of a
true pioneer.
Join bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick for a presentation about
Tabitha, the five qualities of an iconic Oregon pioneer, and her award-winning
book This Road We Traveled.
About the Speaker:
Jane Kirkpatrick is the NY Times bestselling author of 32 books,
most of which are novels based on the lives of historical women. With nearly 2
million copies sold, her works have been named to Oregon’s 100: the best
books published between 1800-2000, by the Oregon State Library. Her books
have also been short-listed for the Oregon Book Award, the Spur and Christy,
and won the Western Heritage and National Cowboy Museum’s Wrangler Award, the
WILLA Literary Award, the Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award and the Carol
Award. This Road We Traveled, Tabitha Moffat Brown’s story,
received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist.
She speaks around the world about the power of stories in our lives. She and
her husband Jerry sold their homestead in north central Oregon and now live
near Bend with their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel where her next novel, One
More River to Cross, will be released in September.
***Photo credit: Oreg. Hist. Soc. Research Lib., OrHi 53563
