Researching and Writing a Series: Dreamer On The Mountain, Pine Valley Series, Book Four by Corrine Ardoin
Dreamer On The Mountain continues the fictional story of a small, rural community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Set in the Gold Rush region where my husband and I had lived at one time, the story draws from a life-long fascination with California history and its natural environment.
In Book One, Fathers of Edenville, I sought to explore the theme of “the sins of the fathers.” My own father was nearing the end of his life and I wished to reconcile my conflicted feelings toward a man I called, “Dad.” I grew up in a rural, unincorporated town in Southern California and had appreciated the natural world, its spaciousness amid a way of life dominated by citrus groves, grape vineyards, horseback riding, and raising one’s own food. I loved the town, though I wondered about its secrets, which can fill a child’s mind with both a sense of mystery and bold adventurism. Sadly, my father died after I wrote the book. Each time I read it, I see into my own story juxtaposed alongside the courageous examination of four “fathers of Edenville” by their children, Tucker Stewart, Jim Hart, the beautiful and enigmatic Sylvia Cadwallader, and amateur detective, Fortuitous Sumner.
In Book Two, Mothers of Pine Way, I replicated the idea set forth in Book One, applying it to the theme of “the mistakes of the mothers.” My own mother far out-lived my father, but I, nevertheless, felt the need to likewise reconcile my conflicted feelings toward the woman I called, “Mom.” A storyteller in her own right, my mother often shared her memories of the Great Depression and the War Years of the 1930s and 40s. Her descriptions of the clothing and hairstyles, dances, riding the streetcar, and all the particulars of growing up in Los Angeles fueled my imagination. Her family had come to California from Mexico, so characters introduced in this book were Mexican-Americans who struggle with racism and financial hardship. Pine Way is an earlier settlement from which Edenville grew, where the original, founding women left a legacy of family violence, infidelity, and secrecy. One woman, Jim Hart’s mother, Candelaria, strives to rise above her limiting life as a farmworker to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. She joins in the 1960s march to the state capital alongside thousands of migrant farmworkers.
In Book Three, A Place Called The Way, I went further back in time to the days of the early pioneers, those who left the Midwest during the Civil War. Like many in our nation’s history, they joined a wagon train and followed the Emigrant Trail to their goal in my fictitious Pine Valley. They comprise the founders of Pine Way, the Hart’s, Henry’s, McGrew’s, Cadwallader’s, Walker’s, Jones’, and Chapman’s. They invite the Stewart’s to establish a newspaper in their frontier town. In this third installment, I weave amongst the pages the community’s centennial celebration, which is darkened by a long history regarding one woman’s curse placed upon another family. Despite controversy, her husband dubbed Pine Way, “The Way,” which led to his tragic murder. Ultimately, the Way provides spiritual healing for those who suffered the curse.
Book Four, Dreamer On The Mountain, expresses my wish to include the Native American history of California, its horrors and its beauty. Having known many California Indians and having read much about their history, such as Heizer and Whipple’s must-read sourcebook, The California Indians, I drew from these to inform my very active imagination, with which many writers of fiction can identify. In the first three books, I mention one family, the Shoseegan’s. I embellish further on their lives and a fictional “Massacre of 1855,” that exemplifies the cruel treatment California Indians received during and after the Gold Rush. My main characters, Tucker Stewart, and a newly-introduced character, Aurelia Mendoza, fall in love and encounter the ghosts of the massacre. They learn of their roles to play in healing the massacre’s impact on Pine Valley and its natives who yet live in exile far into the high mountains. At last facing the massacre and the curse, healing comes to Pine Valley.
Genealogical study of my mother’s and father’s family history has given me the factual information regarding what kind of people came to California and how they got here, their backgrounds, their occupations, and their struggles. Old family photographs, letters, greeting cards, interviews with many of my relatives has both enriched my life and nurtured my interest in writing a fictionalized history of Californians. It was inevitable that my knowledge of our nation’s history and where my ancestors fit in to that would come through in my stories. It provided the sense of realism I was seeking. In each book, my wish was to create a sense of place and its people that feels so real, you believe you could go there and meet them. To keep track of the story in its entirety, I kept a timeline and utilized genealogical tools, such as creating family trees of my characters. My Pine Valley series is not just about one person. It is the story of an entire town, its founding and settlement, its people and their relationships.
What helped in my research was a cross-country road trip from California to Washington D.C. Along the way, I studied our nation’s history, the wounding brought about by civil war, having ancestors on both sides of the conflict, as well as those who had left Kansas and Missouri for the West Coast to escape its horrors. My grandfather was born in Virginia and had an aunt who had lived during the Civil War. She told him the stories, while my visit to my roots in the Shenandoah Valley, provided an emotional and very meaningful connection to what I have come to love: small, rural communities, neighbors helping neighbors, everyone knowing everyone, their stories, and their family history. What they ate, what they wore, the churches they visited, and so much more, contributed to the richness of a body of knowledge regarding American life.
Writing a fictional story set in California between the Gold Rush era of the 1850s and the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and 1970s, quickly involved more than allowing my imagination free rein. I soon learned the need to do specific, targeted research into areas I have never experienced, such as blacksmithing and newspaper printing. Even though a blacksmithing shop once stood behind my childhood home, it was torn down before I ever saw it. Old-timers explained how people once visited it, which sparked an interest in me. I took several trips across California, first visiting La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, where I interviewed the blacksmiths working there as part of the mission’s living history. I watched as they made square-head nails and marveled at their description of the meditative experience that comes about through working at a blacksmith’s forge. The time period, however, was too early for my story.
I visited Columbia State Historic Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was built during the Gold Rush era and fit the setting for my story, especially the brick buildings, the old stores, the blacksmith shop and livery stable, and the old freight wagons on display. All were an invaluable source of California history. I interviewed a blacksmith, who showed me how they made other items from iron, such as chains, and how the bellows worked. Empire Mine State Historic Park also has a blacksmith shop on display and I watched the blacksmith there make items from scrap iron. The Maricopa Museum and Historical Park provided a wealth of information regarding California’s way of life from the Gold Rush into the 1900s when life changed drastically. Docents were kind enough to give me a personal tour of the old Maricopa Gazette newspaper office. They shared one story, which one of their docents had told. She remembered that, when she was a little girl, the paper was late getting out one night. She had a sandwich to eat and then fell asleep on the newspaper delivery bags. In my book, I shared how Tucker Stewart as a boy recalls a similar incident during which his father was late getting their paper out. Kindly neighbors brought him soup and bread to eat. They remained at his side where he sat in his father’s office chair with his father’s coat wrapped across his shoulders. The docent also showed me how the printers worked, how to make a newspaper using the old typesetting. The printers used a guide which showed where all the lettering was in the typesetter’s box. They had to be very precise. I also visited numerous stores from California’s early days that are still in operation, like the Onyx Store, which is the oldest, continuously operated store in California.
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California resident, Corrine Ardoin, loves storytelling. She has written hundreds of poems and songs, performed at festivals and honored as guest poet. She has written numerous stories and has authored several books. Her work has appeared in local newspapers and in poetry anthologies.
She has written several nature guides for visitors to her local area. Her first work of fiction, Fathers of Edenville, was published by Black Rose Writing in 2020, followed by a second novel, Mothers of Pine Way in 2021, then A Place Called The Way in 2022. This year, Dreamer On The Mountain joins her Pine Valley series depicting life in a small, rural town.
Corrine has lived in many rural areas throughout California before settling on the Central Coast where she attended Allan Hancock College. She and her husband raised two sons and now have three grandchildren. When she’s not at her desk working on her writing, she’s gardening, visiting the local coffee hangout, or hiking the trails near her home.
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