by jphilo | Feb 22, 2024 | Out and About
When it’s time to say goodbye to a place I love, my philosophy is….have a party!
Last week the difficult decision was made to close the school in Camp Crook where I taught from 1980-1985. The closure, the result of declining enrollment and increased costs, makes me and many people in the tiny community it served very sad.
That school was and is the prototype for the one where Jane teaches in the West River Mysteries. Ever since See Jane Run! was released in 2022, I’ve day dreamed about having a reunion for its former students. Not just those I taught, but for the decades of students who attended school there. A few weeks ago, when news came that a Harding County All School Reunion (Camp Crook was and is part of the Harding County School District) was in the works for July of 2024, the timing felt right to turn the day dream into a reality.
I floated the idea to former Camp Crook students and friends via Facebook. They were enthusiastic. Those planning the larger reunion gave their blessing. Within a few hours a caterer and a venue were secured. My husband is up for the trip, and the reunion is now a go.
Plenty of details have to be hammered out before publicizing the event, but I’m working on it. Former students, keep your eyes peeled for updates to come! And when you see the invitation, please, please, please pass it along to others who might want to attend.
After all, is there a better way to celebrate the goodness and the memories of a place that means so much to so many than by throwing a party?
The only thing I can think of that comes close is to write a bunch more West River Mysteries to share the magic and goodness of the place we love. You can bet that during the reunion I’ll be listening to the stories people share. Who knows which ones will find a place in Jane’s future adventures!
by jphilo | Apr 13, 2022 | Reflections on the Past
Spring blizzards on the South Dakota prairie are uncommon, but they do happen. This week’s weather reports and pictures posted by friends who live west of the Missouri River attest to that fact. Their pictures inspired me to locate snapshots my husband and I took when we lived in Camp Crook. In the top one, a much younger me is holding our son Allen. The one below shows my husband Hiram doing the same.
Now for a few fun facts to accompany the photos:
- Our son was born in 1982. Judging from his size, these photos are from 1984 or 1985. My gut says 1985, the last year we lived there.
- This snowstorm was in early May. That’s right. May. I believe a week after our school’s spring field trip, which took place on a beautiful day.
- Hiram’s mother was visiting at the time. She was tired of arriving or departing during raging snowstorms and expressly chose to come in May to avoid bad weather. Instead, she watched 18 inches of snow, fall, then melt and create 18 inches of mud.
- The top photo shows the Methodist Church furthest to the left and the Catholic Church to the right. We lived in the yellow gold house. It is still there, but the building behind us is gone.
- Hiram and Allen are standing to the south of our house. The log buildings are a hunting cabin and its outhouse. Hiram made good use of the outhouse when our electricity was out. We had the presence of mind to fill the bathtub with water when the storm began. Hiram’s mom and I used bathtub water to flush the toilet until we had power again.
- I am not making any of this up.
- The Methodist and Catholic churches in See Jane Run! are similar in appearance to the ones pictured above. Since art imitates life, it is safe to assume that spring blizzards on the South Dakota will appear in future books in the series.
- It is not safe to assume the same for the outhouse. Neither Jane nor Jolene consider outhouses artistic. Not at all.
by jphilo | Jul 1, 2020 | Recipes
The Camp Crook Centennial Cook Book holds a special place in my heart. This little town on the prairie, population 92, celebrated its centennial while we and our baby boy lived there. Cooks from all over Harding County submitted recipes, and I don’t think any were turned away. It was the first publication to accept and feature my work.
All in the form of recipes.
All for foods my mom taught me to cook.
Almost all of them being desserts.
Which just goes to show I’ve had my priorities straight since a young age.
I found this little cook book to be valuable primary source material while I wrote and rewrote at least 10 times–yes, that’s right, 10 times–See Jane Run! Paging through it and seeing familiar names beneath recipes brings back memories of life in a place where the “old timers” had lived in soddies and shacks built by their homesteader parents.
My favorite section is the one for candies and old time recipes. It contains recipes for homemade soap, grandma’s sweet pickles, hand lotion, corn cob syrup, homemade mustard, and something called “stir up in a bucket.”
I have no idea what “stir up in a bucket” is. The first sentence in the instructions which reads as follows–”Add enough bacon grease to keep it from sticking to pan”–doesn’t have me rushing to try it for supper any time soon.
Though I might give it a try to because it has the potential to be a great scene in the sequel to See Jane Run!, which is called Hear Jane Sing!
Before I mix up a batch of “stir up in a bucket,” I’ll post the recipe here in a month or so. Then all of you can give it a whirl with me, and we can talk about how to incorporate it into the story.
Until then, I suggest you try this recipe for fresh peach pie. It’s in the Camp Crook Centennial Cook Book, and I can vouch for its deliciousness. I’ll be making it as soon as the Colorado and Missouri peaches appear in the grocery store just like in 1983 when the little town where I once lived turned 100 years old.
by jphilo | Jun 26, 2020 | Mystery Update
Forty-two years ago this month, the roots that eventually grew into See Jane Run! were planted. My husband (we’d been married for 10 months) had started work at Sky Ranch in northwest South Dakota. I joined him a few weeks later. My mom, my Uncle Jim, and two of his three daughters (my cousins) helped with the move.
The morning we took off, Mom snapped this picture.
It was not an easy move. Everything Hiram and I owned was packed into our used Ford pick up. The pick up proved to be less than reliable. The trip took longer than expected. The house we had rented sight unseen in the little town of Camp Crook turned out to be smaller than anticipated. But the thing that really threw us for a loop was the herd of cattle on the state highway right outside of town.
I’m still kicking myself for not taking a picture.
The image is as fresh to me now as it was in June of 1978. Maybe that’s why Jane, the protagonist of the Tipperary County mystery series, along with her uncle and mother encounter a herd of cattle lounging on the the highway in the opening chapter of See Jane Run!
While writing the scene, I did my best to paint a word picture of what Jane saw and felt in that moment.
Not all of Jane’s emotions matched mine, but some of them did.
Not all of Jane’s adventures happened to me, but some of them did.
Not many of Jane’s fellow citizens were people I knew, but a few of them–all long dead– are.
However, Jane’s culture shock is the same as mine was. So is her growing appreciation for the unique place she moved to right out of college. Through Jane, I want to share with readers the culture and heart of the remote corner of the world where I once lived and still love.
With Jane’s help, I hope you’ll be able to picture it, too.
by jphilo | Jan 25, 2016 | Mystery Update
Lest the title of today’s post gives you the wrong idea, Jane’s not smiling because the mystery novel, See Jane Run! has found a publisher. She’s smiling because her creator and author (that would be me) has come up with a new name for the series.
Some of you may recall that copyright issues nixed the original moniker, which was The Fun With Dick and Jane Mystery Series. Thanks to brainstorming sessions with my big sister (who wanted the series title to reflect the remoteness of the setting) and my agent (who thought Tipperary, the name of the fictional county where the novel is set, should be used) and the history of the far away corner of South Dakota where we once lived, a new name for the series has been chosen. Are you ready?
The Tipperary County Mystery Series
Here’s why I–and the Man of Steel agreed with me once we reviewed the history behind it–think the new series title is superior to the previous one. Far, far away in Camp Crook, South Dakota in Harding County where the Man of Steel and I lived for 7 years, and long, long before we moved there a colt was born just across the border in Montana. Not an unusual occurrence in 1905 before the automobile age began. The owner hoped to break the colt to ride, but the 4-year-old horse was spooked during a thunderstorm and became unmanageable.
In 1915, the owner took the horse to Camp Crook and a highly regarded, local bronc rider saddled up the horse and gave him a whirl. As it turned out, the horse gave the cowboy a twirl, bucking him to the ground. The cowboy was carried to the hotel to recover. When he caught his breath, he quoted the lyrics of It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, a popular song of the era. The horse was immediately named Tipperary. Over the next ten years, only 1 cowboy completed a successful ride on Tipperary, an event that occurred at the very end of the horse’s fabled career. During our years in Camp Crook, Tipperary was still the talk of the town. We were friends with an old bachelor rancher whose father had owned the horse.
Back then, the name Tipperary intrigued me for two reasons. First, my uncle, who also my high school world cultures teacher, mentioned it became a sort of anthem for British World War 1 soldiers headed for the Western Front. Second, just a year before we moved to Camp Crook, the cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show sang it at the end of the season finale. So the tune ran through my head when my husband and I first drove the winding road to and through Harding County for job interviews.
30 years later, the name Tipperary intrigues me for two more reasons. First, the lyrics are more than 75 years old, so they are public domain. That means no pesky copyright issues. Second, the chorus to It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary still ring true. They come to mind whenever I think of the dear people we left behind in 1985 when we moved to Iowa.
It’s a long way to Tipperary,
It’s a long way to go.
It’s a long way to Tipperary
To the sweetest girl I know!
Goodbye Piccadilly,
Farewell Leicester Square!
It’s a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
In so many ways and on so many days, my heart wings its way back to the little town where cowboys still ride broncs and the descendants of Tipperary’s first owners still live. My dearest wish is that one day, if the first book in The Tipperary County Mystery Series is published, Tipperary will win the hearts of all who read it, too.
It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,
But my heart’s right there.
