{No Turning Back-part XXVI & Epilogue}
October 8th, 1847 Oregon City
We've finally made it. All the trials of the trail are ended.
We did make it 'fore night fell to the city, if you can call it that. It's really just a town with a main street and dogs barking all the time.
But our journey isn't quite over yet. Pa met with a contractor today and bought 493 acres of land. He plans to sell 100 acres to Clint for cheap, so he can start a farm for the two of us. We leave in a few days to go to our land. It's about twenty miles south of Oregon City.
October 11th, 1847 on our land
Our land. How great that sounds. For months we've been on no man's land. The indian's land, maybe, and the animal's. I reckon of course it's all God's land.
But now with God's help we have our own land. It is fertile and fresh. It is new to farming, and to people taming it. It is rugged and beautiful.
Pa, Clint, and me went for a walk to pick out the land for Clint and me. We finally picked a place that sits near a clearing. Clint says he'll start building there come spring. I can see it all in my mind. A cabin with checked curtains in the window and a pump off the front porch. An orchard of apple trees. Fields of corn, or wheat, or barley, or whatever Clint chooses. A garden overflowing with vegetables. A creek out back to cool off in on summer days.
And I think to myself, What a journey. I don't just mean the miles we crossed to come here. I think there are many sorts of journeys in this life.
There is the journey of growing up. That journey was quick with me, having to be a mama to two younger brothers and a sister.
There's the journey of family. You either grow together or apart. You learn to help each other no matter what. You may not always be together in body, but they're always in your heart and mind, like Ma is for me.
There's the journey of a courtship. At first it's strange and then the more you learn about a person the more natural it seems. You realize God brought you together because there's a peace and there's answers to your own prayers and wishes.
And there's the journey of your walk with God. It begins when you accept Him as your Saviour. You can either move forward in it or make nothing happen. You learn to love Him the more you find out about Him. This is a journey that should never end, and I intend to keep it moving forward till the day I die, which could be anytime.
I reckon life is a journey itself. In life you are always going somewhere and doing something. You have to prepare for it, and you have to stop being afraid of trials. There's something the trail taught me. God is there to pick you up and help you on your journey. All you have to do is cry out to Him for help, and He'll put His arm under you and carry you through.
I feel many of these journeys have just started for me.
And I am ready to face any challenges they bring, with the Lord's help.
Epilogue
With the help of his family and Clint, Jim Lewis built a log cabin that first October, before heavy snows set in. Clint lived in a side lean-to during the winter, and they passed the months quietly in the cabin, every now and then visiting with the Brewers, who lived nearby.
In the spring Clint started work on a cabin for himself and Callie in the clearing they'd picked. Once it was done, Clint proposed to Callie, and they were married in the fall.
After Callie married Clint, Missy took over her father's household. She earned a teaching degree and taught for a few years until she married Hiram McCade, a blacksmith from Oregon City. Hiram died young, leaving Missy a widow with two small children. She remarried a few years later, to a widower with three of his own children.
Joel worked for his father until Andy was big enough to do the work. Then he followed the Lord's calling and became a preacher in 1852. He married Susannah Blake, and together they had nine children.
Andy kept farming his whole life. He worked his father's land and grew rather rich from it. He used the money to support his father and help Joel, as well as foreign missionaries. Andy never married.
Miriam was adopted by Jim Lewis and remained faithful to him until his death in 1873. Then she married a nearby farmer, but worked as a housekeeper for Andy until arthritis kept her from going far from her home.
Carl and Viola Brewer had five more children after Westly. They remained good friends to Clint and Callie all their lives, and always lived right down the road.
Clint and Callie had three children, Robert James, Virginia, and Louise, named for their parents. Folks continued to come west on the Oregon Trail, and it seemed to Callie that there were many children left orphaned by the journey. So she and Clint began to pray about starting a home for them. The Lord gave the right of way, and soon the Home for Orphans of the Oregon Trail was started.
The Home found lots of occupants, and the Naybors loved every child that entered the front doors. Callie led classes for the girls in home economics, to prepare them for marriage someday. Both Clint and Callie longed to see each child come to know the Lord as their Saviour, and most of them did. They wept for those who didn't, and prayed that they someday would.
The whole Naybors family worked hard in the Home to see that the children were brought up in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord." Clint and Callie presided over the home until Clint's death in 1918. Callie died a year later, at the age of ninety. She wore her hair in one long braid until the day she died.
We've finally made it. All the trials of the trail are ended.
We did make it 'fore night fell to the city, if you can call it that. It's really just a town with a main street and dogs barking all the time.
But our journey isn't quite over yet. Pa met with a contractor today and bought 493 acres of land. He plans to sell 100 acres to Clint for cheap, so he can start a farm for the two of us. We leave in a few days to go to our land. It's about twenty miles south of Oregon City.
October 11th, 1847 on our land
Our land. How great that sounds. For months we've been on no man's land. The indian's land, maybe, and the animal's. I reckon of course it's all God's land.
But now with God's help we have our own land. It is fertile and fresh. It is new to farming, and to people taming it. It is rugged and beautiful.
Pa, Clint, and me went for a walk to pick out the land for Clint and me. We finally picked a place that sits near a clearing. Clint says he'll start building there come spring. I can see it all in my mind. A cabin with checked curtains in the window and a pump off the front porch. An orchard of apple trees. Fields of corn, or wheat, or barley, or whatever Clint chooses. A garden overflowing with vegetables. A creek out back to cool off in on summer days.
And I think to myself, What a journey. I don't just mean the miles we crossed to come here. I think there are many sorts of journeys in this life.
There is the journey of growing up. That journey was quick with me, having to be a mama to two younger brothers and a sister.
There's the journey of family. You either grow together or apart. You learn to help each other no matter what. You may not always be together in body, but they're always in your heart and mind, like Ma is for me.
There's the journey of a courtship. At first it's strange and then the more you learn about a person the more natural it seems. You realize God brought you together because there's a peace and there's answers to your own prayers and wishes.
And there's the journey of your walk with God. It begins when you accept Him as your Saviour. You can either move forward in it or make nothing happen. You learn to love Him the more you find out about Him. This is a journey that should never end, and I intend to keep it moving forward till the day I die, which could be anytime.
I reckon life is a journey itself. In life you are always going somewhere and doing something. You have to prepare for it, and you have to stop being afraid of trials. There's something the trail taught me. God is there to pick you up and help you on your journey. All you have to do is cry out to Him for help, and He'll put His arm under you and carry you through.
I feel many of these journeys have just started for me.
And I am ready to face any challenges they bring, with the Lord's help.
Epilogue
With the help of his family and Clint, Jim Lewis built a log cabin that first October, before heavy snows set in. Clint lived in a side lean-to during the winter, and they passed the months quietly in the cabin, every now and then visiting with the Brewers, who lived nearby.
In the spring Clint started work on a cabin for himself and Callie in the clearing they'd picked. Once it was done, Clint proposed to Callie, and they were married in the fall.
After Callie married Clint, Missy took over her father's household. She earned a teaching degree and taught for a few years until she married Hiram McCade, a blacksmith from Oregon City. Hiram died young, leaving Missy a widow with two small children. She remarried a few years later, to a widower with three of his own children.
Joel worked for his father until Andy was big enough to do the work. Then he followed the Lord's calling and became a preacher in 1852. He married Susannah Blake, and together they had nine children.
Andy kept farming his whole life. He worked his father's land and grew rather rich from it. He used the money to support his father and help Joel, as well as foreign missionaries. Andy never married.
Miriam was adopted by Jim Lewis and remained faithful to him until his death in 1873. Then she married a nearby farmer, but worked as a housekeeper for Andy until arthritis kept her from going far from her home.
Carl and Viola Brewer had five more children after Westly. They remained good friends to Clint and Callie all their lives, and always lived right down the road.
Clint and Callie had three children, Robert James, Virginia, and Louise, named for their parents. Folks continued to come west on the Oregon Trail, and it seemed to Callie that there were many children left orphaned by the journey. So she and Clint began to pray about starting a home for them. The Lord gave the right of way, and soon the Home for Orphans of the Oregon Trail was started.
The Home found lots of occupants, and the Naybors loved every child that entered the front doors. Callie led classes for the girls in home economics, to prepare them for marriage someday. Both Clint and Callie longed to see each child come to know the Lord as their Saviour, and most of them did. They wept for those who didn't, and prayed that they someday would.
The whole Naybors family worked hard in the Home to see that the children were brought up in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord." Clint and Callie presided over the home until Clint's death in 1918. Callie died a year later, at the age of ninety. She wore her hair in one long braid until the day she died.
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{an original story by daughterofJehovah-Nissi}
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