Celebrating the 10th Anniversary
After the tragic death of her husband and son on a remote island in
Washington’s San Juan Islands, Eliza Waite joins the throng of miners,
fortune hunters, business owners, con men, and prostitutes traveling north to
the Klondike in the spring of 1898. When Eliza arrives in Skagway, Alaska, she
has less than fifty dollars to her name and not a friend in the
world—but with some savvy, and with the help of some unsavory
characters, Eliza opens a successful bakery on Skagway’s main street and
befriends a madam at a neighboring bordello. Occupying this space—a
place somewhere between traditional and nontraditional feminine
roles—Eliza awakens emotionally and sexually. But when an unprincipled
man from her past turns up in Skagway, Eliza is fearful that she will be
unable to conceal her identity and move forward with her new life. Using Gold
Rush history, diary entries, and authentic pioneer recipes, Eliza Waite
transports readers to the sights sounds, smells, and tastes of a raucous and
fleeting era of American history.
Excerpt
September 1, 1896
Cloudy, first fall chill. Deer in garden again. Need to
mend fences.
“Good fences make good neighbors,”
her aunt used to say.
Eliza examines her muddied property and stifles a
snort. There are no neighbors, no cheery hellos or help at harvest time, no
shared secrets or meals offered at the door when grief steals joy clean away.
No, her neighbors are all gone from this windswept island plagued with
relentless autumn rains that close in on the coming darkness.
Eliza
removes her nightclothes and rushes into her undergarments, woolen skirt,
muslin blouse, and thick socks. She gathers up her skirt, and pushes out
through the cabin’s rickety door, inhaling wood smoke and counting her
memories, both blessings and curses.
I do not know if I can endure
another winter here, especially after what happened last year.
Before the
epidemic there had been a store, and a post office, and a cannery, and a
school. And—of course—a church. On those long ago Sundays, Eliza
had squirmed each time Jacob mounted the stairs to the simple wooden pulpit at
First Methodist on tiny Cypress Island, his pompousness preceding him. Eliza
sat stiffly in the front pew with Jonathan close beside her. Jonathan’s
delicate hands held hers and his small brown leather boots dangled over the
front lip of the wooden bench. If she tries hard enough, Eliza can still hear
Jonathan’s warbling voice stumbling over the words of the ancient
hymns.
After Sunday services, Eliza and Ida
Lawson had poured weak coffee into china cups at opposite ends of the
cloth-covered table in the basement of the church. They adjusted the china
cups, filling in spaces when others were served. They checked the sugar bowls.
They rearranged the teaspoons, and placed them symmetrically. They exchanged
glances and shared private conversations in between parishioners.
Did you
hear the foreman killed a Chinaman over at Atlas Cannery?
Another
parishioner would interrupt. Pleasantries. Then another interruption. More
pleasantries.
Did you see Sly Chapman walking Adelaide Winters home from
school on Wednesday?
There was always scuttlebutt about the townsfolk, or
the trappers, or the fishermen, or the loggers. And always about the Chinamen.
In the kitchen, Eliza and Ida would mimic the Chinamen, taking small steps and
bowing to each other. They stifled their laughter. Only once had they had an
awkward and guarded conversation about the intimacies of marriage.
IDA’S
COFFEE CAKE
This is one of the best of plain cakes, and is very easily
made.
Take one teacup of strong coffee infusion, one teacup molasses, one
teacup sugar, one-half teacup butter, one egg, and one teaspoonful saleratus.
Add pinch of salt.
Add spice and raisins to suit the taste, and enough
flour to make a reasonably thick batter.
Bake rather slowly in tin pans
lined with buttered paper. Tops with cinnamon sugar and serve warm.
But
those days are long past. Now all Eliza has is a heap of gravestones to
visit.
About the Author
Multi award-winning author Ashley E. Sweeney’s fourth novel, The Irish
Girl, released December 2024. Her previous novels, Eliza Waite, Answer Creek,
and Hardland, have won a total of 20 awards, including the Nancy Pearl Book
Award, Independent Press Award, WILLA Literary Award, and New Mexico-Arizona
Book Award. Sweeney, a native New Yorker and graduate of Wheaton College in
Norton, Massachusetts, spends winters in Tucson and summers in the Pacific
Northwest.
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