Sean C. Morgan
Gayle Griffith’s great great grandmother was married at the age of 12 to an older man.
That was what she discovered when she first started researching the life of Amanda L. Smith Donaldson, a pioneer woman who eventually settled in the Tillamook area and reared a family of 15 children.
She didn’t quite believe that nugget of information and it prompted her to investigate her great great grandmother’s life further. As it turned out, it was true, like other marriages at the time.
She self-published “Beyond the Golden Gate,” which tells that story. The local author moved to Sweet Home in June, settling on Upper Calapooia Drive.
“It documents her life from the time that she left Iowa to California and what happened to her in the California mining camps,” Griffith said. Crossing the nation as a child, Donaldson traveled the Oregon Trail in 1853 to the California cutoff, which terminated at Nevada City, Calif. Eventually, Donaldson and her husband established a dairy, which remains in the family, in Tillamook.
About 10 or 15 years ago, Griffith’s grandmother gave her a biography of several pages about Donaldson.
“I got it out one day, and I was looking at it, reading it, and discovered that she must have gotten married at 12 years old,” Griffith said. “I thought it must be a misprint.”
That spurred Griffith into finding out if it were true. Soon she had found a life worth writing about. She put it down in the form of a novel.
Griffith always wanted to write, she said. In high school, she took journalism classes and was a page editor on her high school newspaper. She won a journalism contest for a scholarship to Pacific University, but she never took it, instead attending Western Oregon State College, now Western Oregon University, in Monmouth.
She ended up marrying Jim Tow, Sweet Home High School math teacher and baseball coach Dan Tow’s uncle. They moved to Roseburg.
Griffith worked for Umpqua National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management writing press releases and handling public affairs.
Later they moved to Redmond, and Griffith wrote articles for the Sagebrush News.
She spent two to three years researching Donaldson’s life, much of it at the library in Tillamook.
After her husband died, she decided to publish the book. She has marketed the book through book signings, museums and by mail order.
The book attracts the attention of those interested in Oregon history or Oregon Trail history, Griffith said. At the state fair Oregon authors’ table, people would look through the book then tell her stories from Oregon history.
“Imagine how tough they must have been,” Griffith said. Donaldson had 16 children. Fifteen lived. In those days, people had no shots or hospitals.
“What I found out when I started, it was like putting a puzzle together,” Griffith said. “When I finished, I felt like I lived it with her. She became real whereas before, you just had a name on a piece of paper.”
During her quest to complete the book, she met many relatives she never knew. A little girl at the state fair was thumbing through the book when she came across a photo. She knew she had seen it before. When she got her mother, her mother was able to name the person in the photo, a relative of Griffith’s.
The book is written in the first person, Griffith said. “I chose to do it in first person because that way I could kind of feel things…. I think the book is written at a level where a young person could enjoy it as much as an adult.”
Donaldson never really had a chance for schooling, Griffith said. At five, she was moved to California where her mother soon died from smallpox. Her father was so busy gold mining and traveling town to town that Donaldson had to get her education from whatever family was taking care of her.
Griffith was impressed by Donaldson’s skill with the language without a formal education and what she had to say.
Griffith’s prologue includes a sample of Donaldson’s writing: Since settling here on this God-favored country, my life has been a very busy, and I trust not an unprofitable one. As to worldly possessions, it has been as profitable as could have been expected. But that is not all that is to be desired. I have worked to provide comforts and pleasures for my children. But I feel a greater interest in their future than in their present welfare. I feel that their souls’ salvation is of more value than all the wealth of this world would be without it. So in providing comforts and pleasures for them, I am to choose those of a harmless nature, and they are not always satisfactory to those for whom they are provided. I want to say to one and all, that is, I hope for a home in Heaven. I hope just as much for a home in Heaven for each one of my dear children and shall continue to hope and pray as long as my time is extended on this wonderful little globe where all are placed as probationers to prepare for a higher, happier and eternal life if we are not eternally lost as I hope none of us or our loved ones will be. I cannot begin to say enough on this greatest of all subjects.
“Just reading that told me that she was a woman who is very devout, a real strong wife and mother, pioneer woman, who loved her family and loved the Lord,” Griffith said.
Griffith hopes to do some more writing, she said. She has many options and may publish some children’s books she has written.
She enjoys reading all kinds of books, but she most enjoys reading about people.
Griffith is married to Marty Griffith, a widower living just a couple of miles from Mrs. Griffith in Redmond. After the two met and married, the decided to move and “start new memories.”
Mr. Griffith is originally from the Albany area, and the couple began looking for places in Albany, Crabtree, Lebanon and all the little communities. They found a property on the Calapooia River and decided to make it their home.
“We’re really happy to be in new residents of the Sweet Home area,” Mrs. Griffith said. She is looking forward to spending time in the area and working around their new place.
“Beyond the Golden Gate” can be found in several museums around the state. Locally, it can be found at Periwinkle Provisions, Friends of the Library Bookstore and East Linn Museum. The cost is $13.
Persons can visit http://www.crystalfountainbooks.com on the Internet for more information.