--Brandi Carlile, musician ~ "The Story"

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"How someone with synesthesia might perceive (not "see") certain letters and numbers. Synesthetes see characters just as others do (in whichever color it's actually displayed), yet simultaneously perceive colors as associated to each one.

"The automaticity of synesthetic experience. A synesthete might perceive the left panel like the panel on the right." --en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

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author Jane Kirkpatrick

Emma Wagner Giesy was the only woman sent west from Missouri with nine male scouts to find a new home for their 1850s German-American religious community. What they eventually establish is the only successful utopian colony to survive for more than twenty years west of the Mississippi. A Clearing in the Wild (Book I ) was a finalist for the WILLA Literary Award for Historical Fiction; A Tendering in the Storm won the WILLA Literary Award. A companion book, Aurora: An American Experience in Quilt, Community and Craft, provides a history told through quilts and crafts of the actual colony in Oregon.
Now available: The omnibus edition: Emma of Aurora.

Aurora Colony (1856-1883), a National Historic Site

The Giesy House, later the Kraus House, is now part of the Old Aurora Colony Museum.











Notice the two front doors. Here is the current day photo of the museum with the house on the left.

***Thank you to WaterBrook Multnomah blogging for Books for sending me a copy of Emma of Aurora. This review was written in my own words. No other compensation was received.***

The Change and Cherish trilogy ~ A Clearing in the Wild, A Tendering in the Storm, A Mending at the Edge ~ based on the true story of Emma Wagner Giesy, now available in one volume. See more at: waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?work=226774#sthash.qfM6pU3G.dpuf

  
Emma Wagner Giesy
Birth: Mar. 26, 1833
Pennsylvania, USA
Death: May 17, 1916
Aurora Marion County Oregon, USA

Emma Wagner Giesy was the only woman along with nine male scouts who selected Willapa Bay in Washington Territory, in 1853, as the new "Second Eden" in the West, for Dr. Wilhelm Keil's Christian Communal Society. After Keil rejected Willapa in 1855, as too wet and remote, he selected Aurora Mills in the Willamette Valley.

Emma continued to make a life for her husband, Christian, and their children at Willapa, on their own donated land claim. When Christian Geisy drowned in 1857, Emma was left alone with their three children. In 1860, she married her cousin-in-law, Jacob Geisy. After the birth of her fourth child, she claimed that Jacob abused her and (she) brought her children to Aurora.

Emma Giesy was one of Oregon's strong pioneer women, ahead of her time in independence and productivity. She owned property, had a business as a dressmaker and made several exquisite quilts, one of which will be displayed in the winter exhibition at the Willamette Heritage Center.

In 1892, 30 years after leaving Jacob Giesy, she finally filed for divorce. She died in 1916 and is buried in the Aurora Community Cemetery.

Statesman Journal - Sunday, January 15, 2012.

Emma was listed in the 1860 census for Pacific County, in the Territory of Washington. She was 24 at the time and listed as head of household, with children, Andrew 6, Catherina 4 and Christian, Jr. 2, all born in Washington Territory. Her real estate value is listed as 1200 and personal at 600.

Among those listed on the same page of the census and the previous page were eight other Giesy adult males and some with their families. The oldest was Andrew Giesy, age 69, born in Switzerland, the others, possibly his sons or other relations, Rudolph 40 PA, John 39 PA, Henry 38 PA, Sabastian 37, Swit, Jacob 26 Swit, Frederick 25 PA, Martin 23 PA and Nicholas 21 PA.

The Jacob Giesy, listed above is most likely the cousin who later married Emma and was the father of Emma's daughter, Ida.

There were also some Beck's and Stauffer's listed on these pages, some of whom are now buried in the Aurora Community Cemetery.

Burial: Aurora Community Cemetery
Aurora Marion County Oregon, USA

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Giesy&GSfn=Emma&GSiman=1&GScid=38555&GRid=58187917&

May 1, 1815
Beaworthy, Devonshire, England

We observed the first of May as we always did. We dressed somberly and rode in the black barouche from Buckleigh Manor into Beaworthy. It was tradition, my mother said.
   But I knew she had another reason for visiting the village on that particular day. Lady Amelia Midwinter wanted to make her presence known—make sure no one dared forget.
   We drove first to the flower shop and bought two bouquets—lily of the valley and forget-me-nots.
   From there our coachman, Isaacs, halted on the corner of High Street and Green, as he knew to do without being told.
   The young groom helped my mother alight. She turned to look back at me, but I ignored her, sullenly remaining in the carriage. This was her tradition, not mine.
   She crossed the street and laid one bouquet before the market hall— that center of trade on an island of green amid the cobbled High Street. The place where he died.
   Forget-me-nots. Never forget.
   She returned to the carriage, though we did not immediately depart. We sat for a few minutes in silence, waiting for the church bells to ring at midday.
   Clang, clang, clang . . .
   As the last peal faded away, she used one dainty finger to move aside the velvet curtain and survey the street. For a moment her face remained impassive, but then her mouth parted in surprise before stiffening into a grim line.
   “What is it?” I asked, rebellious hope rising in my contrary heart. I slid over to that side of the carriage and looked out the window.
   There, before the village green, an elderly woman as thin as a sparrow stood. She held her skirt aloft with one hand and raised her other hand high. She looked this way and that, as though waiting for someone, and for a moment I feared she would be left standing alone in the middle of the street.
   Then, from behind the market hall, an old man hobbled into view. He tossed aside his apron and bowed before the woman. And she in turn curtsied. She gave him a girlish smile, and decades flew from her face.
   He offered his hand, and she placed hers in his. Together, side by side, they slowly walked up the High Street in a curious rhythm—step, shuffle-step. Step, shuffle-step. Then they faced each other, joined both hands, and turned in a circle.
   “What are they doing?” I breathed in wonder.
   My mother snapped, “What does it look like?”
   “Who are they? Do you know?”
   She made no answer.
   I glanced over and saw an array of emotions cross her face. Irritation. Pain. Longing.
   “Who are they?” I whispered again.
   She kept her gaze trained out the window. On the couple’s retreating figures as they continued their odd shuffle-step up the street.
   My mother inhaled deeply, clamping an iron fist over her emotions, whatever they were. “A Mr. and Mrs. Desmond, I believe.”
   “I don’t think I know them.”
   “No, Julia. You wouldn’t. They . . . live outside of town.”
   I felt my face pucker. “Then, don’t they know about . . . the rule?”
   “They know.”
   I glanced at her, but she averted her eyes, using her father’s walking stick to knock against the roof.
   At the familiar signal, the coachman called “Walk on” to the horses and we moved away.
   We returned to Buckleigh and paused at the estate’s churchyard. My mother alighted first, waving away the hovering groom and his offered umbrella. I exited after her, and when the young groom offered his hand to help me down, I smiled flirtatiously and enjoyed watching his face redden.
   The day had turned pewter grey. A cold drizzle pricked through my thin cape, sending a shiver up my neck.
   I followed my mother past lichen-encrusted graves and listing markers. We stopped before the family plot, outlined in brick and set with impressive headstones like dull gems in a macabre bracelet. There I read her brother’s epitaph.


   “One and twenty years old,” I murmured. “So young.”
   “Yes,” she whispered.
   “How did he die?” I asked as I did every year, hoping she would one day tell me the whole story.
   “He was killed in a duel.”
   “Who killed him?”
   “I prefer not to speak his name.”
   My gaze wandered from the headstone of the uncle I had never met, to settle on that of the aunt I had never met either. She died in childbirth before I was born.


   I nodded toward her sister’s headstone. “She died less than a year later.”
   “Yes.”
   My mother bent and laid the bouquet of lily of the valley on her brother’s grave.
   Lily of the valley. Tears and humility.
   She straightened. “We ought not tarry, Julia. Your father is not at all well.”
   “Yes, I am surprised you wanted to come today.”
   “It is tradition.”
   I sent her a sidelong glance. “You believe in carrying on only your own private traditions, I see.”
   I referred, of course, to May Day, which had not been celebrated in Beaworthy for twenty years—though I had heard whispers about the old tradition and its demise.
   Mother turned toward the carriage without reply, and I tried to ignore the sting of rejection as easily as she ignored my sharp tongue.
   “What was the duel fought over?” I asked, following her.
   She did not answer. Ahead of us, the waiting groom opened the carriage door.
   “Why do you not put flowers on your sister’s grave?” I asked. “Why only your brother’s?”
   With a glance at the groom, my mother said quietly, “We shall discuss the matter another time. Not now. We have left your father alone too long as it is.”
   I doubted he would mind my absence. But then, I doubted he cared for me at all.
   My father left us the next day. And in the aftermath of death, of mourners and bombazine, of funerals and the selection of headstones, we buried my questions along with my father, knowing they would someday be resurrected.

So grab your copy of The Dancing Master and join Julie and friends on the evening of January 23rd for a chance to connect and make some new friends. (If you haven't read the book, don't let that stop you from coming!)

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Win a hand-painted table from Suzanne Field in “The Painted Table” giveaway!