The Douglas Town Chronicles

 

A ghost story, inspired by true events. What do you do when nobody believes you? How do you convince yourself what you saw wasn't a figment of your imagination? On her tenth birthday, Gwen sees what she believes is a lost boy in the forest below an old Victorian house - a child desperate for help. When the search comes up empty, and no child was ever reported missing, her parents and the authorities think it is just her imagination. Four years later, in the summer of 1982, she embarks upon a quest to find the answer to her only question: did she see a ghost? Gwen convinces five of her friends to join her for an adventurous day hiking up the forested hillside to explore the abandoned house. One day to try to solve the mystery, and prove to everyone that she'd told the truth. The day of youthful abandon tests the strength of their resolve, when what they encounter, within the crumbling walls, is more than they could have imagined. Their shocking discovery changes thei...

After a long trek across the plains, Eli Stewart and his wife, Ann, arrived in Oregon Territory in October of 1850. By April 1851, they had filed and settled a donation land claim for 632 acres. The Stewarts sold off parts of their claim over the years and, by 1868, Multnomah County acquired 160 acres of the original claim to establish the Hillside Farm, a “Poor Farm”. Located off Canyon Road in the Tualatin Hills, the Poor Farm and sanatorium housed indigent and sick residents of Portland and the surrounding areas. The inmates tended stock and took care of an extensive orchard. This 160 acre section is located in a portion of Washington Park currently occupied by the Oregon Zoo, Hoyt Arboretum and the World Forestry Center. The Hillside Farm closed after members of Portland charities inspected it in 1910. It revealed atrocious living conditions, and they dubbed the crumbling building deplorable.  Their report spurred county commissioners to speed up work on the Multnomah Coun...

In the 1850’s a minister named Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society of New York. In 1854 the first trainload of ‘wild Irish kids’ left New York for a small town in Michigan, on what would become known as “The Orphan Train”. It was assumed that the farms of the Midwest would reform them, by offering them fresh air and hard work, because most of the kids were too much to handle and had grown up without structure or moral values. This was especially true by the end of the Civil War, when lots of children found themselves abandoned, neglected, and begging in the slums of the New York City streets. In 1861 the Roman Catholic Church started the Society for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children of New York City, aka the Catholic Protectory. They were so overcrowded that they outgrew their lower east side location and moved up to the country and farmland of Van Nest, Westchester County – now known as ‘The Bronx’.  In April of 1863 they set up a school and d...

After high school I went to San Diego State and majored in Comparative Literature. It seemed like the right thing to do considering my love of prose and poetry. I liked to write, pure and simple. Once school started I had all the writing classes I could ever hope for, and I felt good about my choice. However, as time went along, I realized that although I loved the learning process, the writing challenges, and the creative outlets, my only employment option would be that of a teacher. My aspirations were more towards becoming an author of murder mysteries and ghost stories, or becoming a traveling photo journalist for National Geographic - perhaps both. I toyed with the idea of dropping out of college and becoming a travel agent, just so I could get the travel opportunities needed to start freelancing in travel journalism. I also explored the idea of broadcast journalism. All these ideas of what I could do for a career had nothing to do with what my degree could offer. I ha...