Chasing Shadows: Reconstructing a Family through Letters

Weaving a tapestry of family narratives through the medium of letters, the authors have crafted a memoir that is both intimate and panoramic. Within its pages you will meet: A grandfather who began by sanding wooden carousel horses and went on to have his own traveling show—with elephants; a great-aunt who, after unimaginable personal losses and decades in a mental hospital, found meaning caring for other residents; a dad who loved outdoor adventure and became a newspaper publisher and symphonic cellist, before his life was cut short; a stepfather who went from plowing wheat fields in Washington state to sharing the Nobel Prize for inventing the transistor; a mother who was a globe-trotting Renaissance woman remembered as a giant in her community; a sister who devoted her life to public service and gained national recognition for her work in fighting homelessness. Their stories and those of other colorful family members, enlivened by humorous anecdotes, reveal one family’s spirit of endurance. The essence of place—Walla Walla and the heartland of southeastern Washington—anchors this familial chronicle. Using a thicket of letters, pictures, and documents spanning four generations as a point of departure, the authors have placed themselves into the larger context of family by including their own letters to departed family members, to each other, and to their younger selves. In so doing, they have come to see their place in the family both as recipients of a fascinating heritage and as granting to their own descendants a coherent family narrative, in which their forebears emerge from the shadows of history through stories of adversity and triumph. The authors hope this book will inspire readers to undertake a similar journey of discovery.