How I Came to Write Westward to Oregon

When Rigby asked me to write a story about the Westward Expansion, I had already done some research on the topic for a novel. But I needed a character and a story. Many woman who traveled by wagon train to Oregon kept journals about their experiences. In one journal written by a woman named Mary Todd, I read about how, when she was nine years old, Mary had learned to crack her father's big bull whip and drive the oxen that pulled the heavy wagon. Her father was surprised and pleased with her accomplishment, but her mother disapproved--it wasn't lady-like. This is the kind of incident that makes me perk up--I'm always writing about girls in history who wanted to do things that society didn't approve of. I started wondering why Mary (now Lizzie in my story) would need to know how to crack the bull whip and drive the wagon. What if something happened to her father? What if the mother couldn't drive the wagon? What if they were left all alone on the prairie? That's how a writer thinks up a story...by asking 'what if?' When I had answered those questions I knew the plot of Westward to Oregon.

Return to Westward to Oregon