Research Patchwork for Gift of Restitution by Zina Abbott

 

Often, a lot of time goes into research both before an author begins writing and during the process. Here are some snippets I ended up "checking out" before and during writing Gift of Restitution: a Story for Christmas.

Fortunately, most of my research regarding Cantonese migration to California, and the state of the tongs in Chinatown in the mid-1880s I did for my previous book, Escape from Gold Mountain. I also did a small amount of research on the Ojibwe tribe for the earlier book. The main reason I chose that tribe for the one to whom my hero, Luke McDaniels' grandmother, belonged was because, in 1884, Minnesota was one of the few states in which Chinese persons could marry a Caucasian/white person, or one perceived to have no Native ancestry.

However, before I started Gift of Restitution, set in Minnesota on one of the Ojibwe reservations, I had more research to do. Where were the reservation/s and which should I choose? I wanted one near a larger city. I discovered that, in Minnesota, the Ojibwe bands were in the north of the state, and Sioux bands were in the south. I decided on the Fond du Lac band, because their reservation is close to Duluth which is on Lake Superior. It fit my scenario of how Luke left his home years earlier, and Duluth was a fairly large city.

One issue of frustration for me was the accepted spelling of Ojibwe. This tribe was also known among the whites as Chippewa. The spelling can also be Ojibwa--the version my Word and Blogger spell-checkers insist is correct, Ojibwe, which is the version I see most often on websites by or about this tribe, or Ojibway. I bowed to technological pressure with my first book and spelled it Ojibwa. For consistency's sake, I did so in my current book, also. I prefer Ojibwe.

 The location of Minnesota, the proximity to a large body of water, and climate information available online confirmed my assumption it is a cold country compared to much of the United States. So, how did the Ojibwe dress? I did a little research on that. The woman, particularly, is dressed for winter.

My Cantonese character, Ling Loi, who, in this book, uses the name Joy, now lives with her husband in her mother-in-law's wickiup. She helps decorate leather goods to be sold in the surrounding cities. I knew Chinese women who were not forced to work in the fields spent much of their time doing embroidery. 

So, how did Chinese embroidery compare to the bead work and stitchery of the Ojibwe? I decided it was close enough, Joy could be a big help to the family this way.

Also, note the style of the moccasins. Most samples online show low-cut moccasins, but these show the "puckered toe" style for which this tribe is known. My guess is, it was developed to keep the water from the wet ground from seeping inside easily. Here is another sample of Ojibwe artwork.

Traditionally, the Ojibwe lived in wickiups. They are round structures made of wood, bark and woven mats. Originally, they had a smoke hole in the top, center of the roof. With progress, many installed wood-burning stoves, as evidenced by this image with the pipe sticking up over the roof of the wickiup.

So, did the Ojibwe invest in those fancy, cast-iron stoves for their small homes? Possibly. I also saw this image which struck me as something a resourceful person without a lot of money would use. I wrote my story with Odette, Joy's "honorable mother-in-law," using a metal drum stove for heating and cooking.

 

In this story, Luke returns by train to the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountain region of eastern California and western Nevada. He had his reasons why he did not wish to go back to California. Initially, I planned to write the story so that he traveled by the transcontinental railroad which had a depot in Reno, Nevada, and that was the end of his journey. He would request to be met there. It was about 120 miles north of the person Luke wished to contact. This 1885 Sanborn map changed my mind.

This snippet shows the Southern Pacific (the Central Pacific RR sold out to them by this time.) Railroad depot. Their tracks are the ones north of the depot. The single track to the south next to the white arrow is the track for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. That line runs from Reno south a little over thirty miles to Carson City, the capital of the state of Nevada, before it turns east and then north to the big mining communities in Nevada. Luke took this railroad to get as close to California as he could by rail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this patchwork of research vignettes, many of them discovered "on the fly" while I wrote Gift of Restitution, a Story for Christmas. This book is on preorder and is scheduled for release on Monday, November 16th. Please CLICK HERE. Here is the book description:

     A year after Luke McDaniels broke away from the control of two eastern Sierra Nevada Mountain outlaws and freed Ling Loi from the Chinese brothel in Lundy, one aspect of their escape still plagues his conscience.

     Even though he made a point to take only what was owed him, and he left sufficient funds to cover the cost of anything he took from others without the owners’ knowledge or consent, there had been one exception. He hated short-changing someone, but Loi, who took on the name of Joy when they married, had been his first priority.

     Joy, grateful she has been restored to the way of decency, senses that Luke needs his own restoration. Can she convince him to do what he must to enjoy peace at Christmas?

                                                        ~o0o~

I wrote Gift of Restitution as a stand-alone book. However, if you have not yet read the first part of Luke's and Joy's story, you might enjoy reading Escape from Gold Mountain. CLICK HERE.