As you read through this article I'd like you to stop and think about an episode of Dr. Quinn that could have been. One character is fictional; one character was very real. Both very independent, stubborn and determined individuals who set out to make their own way in life at a time when women were unacknowledged for their many talents outside the home. Both women came from Massachusetts and both women traveled to Colorado Springs and championed the cause of the American Indian. Both women lost a loved one early in their life. Both women had a second love --

As we all know, every life that comes into being, lives a while on this planet called earth and then fades away into memory. Every life touches the lives of others, sometimes for better or sometimes for worse. All of us who became fans of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman know about lives that touch other lives. We have shared so much more than our views on a television show. We have communicated our hopes and dreams, our sadness and joys. We have shared our emails and our websites so we could get to know each other better. In doing all this, we too have touched other lives and made an impact whether small or large. Most of the time the memories that are left behind from these encounters belong to only a few but every so often the memories of someone special lingers on. Such a life was that of Helen Hunt Jackson.

Helen Maria Hunt was born on 14 October 1830 to Nathan Whiley and Deborah Vinal Fishe. She had a brother, Herman Humphrey who died in infancy and a sister Ann. Her father, Nathan was not only a Congregational Clergyman but also a professor of philosophy and language at Amherst College. Helen, even in her early life, did not conform to society's view of a young girl growing up in that time period and in a Calvinist environment. She was a very determined individual; born a radical who was impulsive and eager for experience. Because of these traits, she was always at odds with her family. In 1844 at age 14, Helen's life changed drastically when her mother died of TB. Her sister Ann was sent to live with relatives and Helen was sent to a series of seminaries. A few short years later, in 1847, her father journeyed to the Holy Land where he died and was buried on Mt. Zion.

The wanderings that would represent her life began as she moved from school to school and spent vacations with relatives. While attending the Abbott Institute Helen began to thrive. Here rules were at a minimum and students self-disciplined. But in 1851, Helen's life took an unexpected turn when she spent her summer with the Reverend Ray Palmer, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Albany and his family. What Helen found on that journey was love.

At a ball given by the Governor of New York, Helen met and fell in love with the Governor's brother - Lt. Edward Bissell Hunt. Here this headstrong, brilliant and vivacious woman lost her heart. As the fall of 1851 came and went, an eager Helen enjoyed Edward's visits and eagerly awaited a proposal. At the age of 22, this happy wanderer became Mrs. Edward Hunt. They were married at Mt. Vernon Church in Boston on October 28, 1852. After a disappointing honeymoon and the loss of their first child, the couple settled in Washington, D. C. She had now become an Officer's Wife and as such she was expected to be in attendance at a constant round of social activities.

While Helen enjoyed controversy and staunchly defended Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Edward was very conservative. With Edward away on travel much of the time, Helen faced the birth of Murray Hunt alone in September of 1853. But happiness was not in the stars for Helen. In a short period of time in 1854, Helen lost the grandfather she loved and her son Murray who was less than a year old. A year after that her second son, Warren Horsford Hunt (nicknamed Rennie by Helen) was born. She found her life was brightened by Rennie's companionship. Then, Edward suffered a concussion in 1863 while working on a submersible vessel and died a few weeks later. In April 1865, Rennie became ill and she lost this bright spot in her life as well. He was buried at West Point beside his father and brother.

At 35, when Helen emerged into society, she redefined her life as a writer of poetry. From the depths of her grief came "The Key to the Casket" written under the name of Marah and published in the New York Evening Post. She wrote other poems, the best know of which was called "Lifted Over". She soon changed her pseudonym to the initials HH because women writers of the time were not taken seriously. Ready to launch her writing career she moved to Newport, Rhode Island where writing was a way of life and Thomas Wentworth Higginson ruled the city as its King.

As an advocate of controversy, Helen was drawn to Higginson because of his outspoken support of women. It was through Higginson that she met such people as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Julia Ward Howe. Her relationship with Higginson was one of a passionate friendship kept from fulfillment by his wife Mary who was ill much of the time. On many occasions, Helen acted as his hostess as someone else would do for her in the future. The two spent a great deal of time together over the next 5 years.

It was during this period that Helen wrote the first of a number of popular novels under the name of Saxe Holm. Helen wanted more than anything else to publish her work, but she was also a very astute businesswoman as well as a writer. After trying for quite some time to have her articles printed in the Atlantic Monthly she finally succeeded. Not only did she get her articles published, but also she demanded and received a very high price for those articles. Helen's hard bargaining soon legendary.

Helen's lifetime journey, which was to take her further than even she could anticipate, began in the company of Sarah Woolsey as they set off on their trek to California on May 8, 1872. Helen's first encounter with an Indian was not a forerunner for the proponent of Indians rights that was to come. While her traveling companions jeered at the woman and made fun of her, she found the Indian woman both contemptible and loathsome. But a second glance showed Helen a baby beaming out of a ragged basket and she noticed that the woman's eyes flashed with scorn. Elegant and fastidious herself, Helen had little sympathy or understanding for filth, whatever the reason. It was the baby who opened her purse and awakened her concern.

Her arrival in Sacramento, Oakland and San Francisco left her uninspired. However, as they journeyed onward, it was the natural beauty of California that won her heart. Each view was more breath taking than the last. They traveled through the Napa Valley and then on to San Joaquin. From there they reached Santa Cruz through the Santa Clara Valley and on to San Jose, another of the sacred mission towns. She came face to face with the grandeur of Lake Tahoe and the magnificent giant trees of California. Beyond words she gazed at Ah-Wah-Ne (Yosemite) and it became her favorite of all places. She was scornful of the settlers who not only chased off the Indian inhabitants but also attempted to eradicate their very existence from mother earth. This primitive land had all the adventure and pioneering spirit they searched for. They roamed the precipitous trails and would never forget the thundering spirit of the Ah-Wah-Ne Falls. She vowed she would return the following summer to this awe inspiring place never dreaming it would be ten years before that return would be possible ... and then for a very different reason.

Helen's return home to Massachusetts during the winter of 1872 brought with it an illness that plagued her constantly. It left her weak and unable to travel come spring. Plans to return to California with May Alcott (sister to Louisa May) fell through when none of the publishers would provide free passes for their travel. With a move back to Amherst and her encounter with homeopathic medicine, she was urged to make a trek to Colorado in the hopes that its climate would be of benefit to her. Once again her spirits rose and in November of that year she headed off on another adventure.

Her maid and Dr. Hamilton J. Cate accompanied her on this trip. Without the consistent optimism of Dr. Cate, Helen would have quickly returned home and abandoned this gray and bleak land. Undaunted, Dr. Cate's suggested Helen try the new town of Colorado Springs. Once she arrived there however, Helen felt even more despondent than ever before. The coming of winter saved both her life and her soul. With the advent of that first snow fall, Helen flung open the doors and windows to the clear air and viewed that towering mountain range that included Pike's Peak at 15,000 ft. Almost immediately she was cured and Dr. Cates returned to Amherst.

Even though the doctor left Helen on a restricted diet, that did not prevent her from joining others in the dining room for meals. Seated at the dinner table with the other guests at the Colorado Springs Hotel (little more than a boarding house) Helen found the conversationalists she enjoyed so much on the East Coast. One of the diners was William Sharpless Jackson, a silent guest with little to say. During lulls in the conversation, Helen found herself studying him and wondering what his story was.

Whatever the reason for this unusual pairing, William soon invited Helen to ride with him through the countryside. It was an experience Helen would always remember. As they toured this vast white expanse, she learned William's story and understood the wanderlust that drove him to Colorado. He was Vice President of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and founder and President of the Bank of Colorado Springs. There followed many such outings and in the spring Helen sent for her trunks describing Colorado Springs as "the fairest spot on earth". Despite William's desire to marry as soon as possible, Helen had grave misgivings due to their age and background differences. Still it was another year before she agreed to marry William. Once again she chose the fall for her marriage - October 22, 1875 at her sister Ann's home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

Once settled in Colorado, Helen longed for her eastern confederates and the stimulation their conversations provided her. Unfortunately, her eastern companions did not often take the long journey to Colorado. The society of Colorado Springs thought her something of a snob and their lack of success in getting her to attend a regular church went unrewarded. Helen much preferred to worship on the mountaintops and in the valleys on the Sabbath day. She found her Great Spirit in the Cheyenne Canyon where she rode her mule.

She was not enamored of the intimacies of small town life even though she could be charming and witty when she chose to be. But it was the "characters" of Colorado Springs that made life tolerable for her. The differences between Helen and William however continued to grow and came to a head when William decided to run for Senator from Colorado. Helen was horrified. While William's motives were impeccable, he anticipated that he would have a stylish, socially adept bride at this side. Helen's reluctance to act in this role surprised him. As the days progressed their differences became more and more pronounced. William ultimately lost his election, but this did not bring the two closer together. Both were independent people with opinions and thoughts of their own before their marriage and they found it difficult to give up their independence to share in each other's lives.

During her time in Colorado, Helen continued to write. The novel that evolved during that difficult winter of William's campaign was "Mercy Philbrick's Choice" It was the story of a woman much like Helen herself: energetic, resilient, an individualist who did things with an intensity that she sometimes later regretted. So much of that book seemed to be patterned after her relationship with Thomas Higginson and his wife Mary. At this same time, Roberts Brothers of Boston approached her to launch their "No Name" series. It proved to be the most financially rewarding publishing scheme of the decade and once again Helen had a success on her hands. The enjoyment in the countryside that Helen shared with William was especially important to her at this time, as their differences became more apparent. Despite the lost election, they spent less time together as William took on added responsibilities and was always on travel. Two years after Helen's marriage to William, Mary Higginson died suddenly and within a year, Higginson announced his engagement to another Mary and ultimately this Mary produced the child he had always wanted.

By autumn 1879, Helen was unwilling to conceal her general dissatisfaction with the direction her life was taking for she spent much of her time living alone. Another of her "No Name" novels "Hetty's Strange History" seemed to reflect Helen's current disappointment with life and her dark secret to escape the confines of an unhappy marriage. The book was provocative and controversial and Hetty's actions were debated in countless drawing rooms.

It was an invitation to honor Oliver Wendall Holmes on his 70th birthday that would bring about a dramatic change in Helen's life. Upon her arrival on the East Coast, Helen attended a reception honoring some crusading Indians. The Indians who addressed the assembled group on October 29, 1879 were certainly not an object of pity. Standing Bear and his niece Bright Eyes, who acted as his translator, were on a tour to acquaint the public with the Government's systematic extermination of the Ponca Indians of Nebraska. Helen listened intently as Bright Eyes translated the tale of the Poncas who were deprived of their rightful lands and possessions. She heard of the consequences the Ponca Indian Nation suffered during the enforced relocation. Helen was determined to help them. For the first time, Helen Hunt Jackson was a woman with a cause.

Helen's appealed to Higginson for aide in her cause. He invited her to Newport to discuss the situation with him but she found that sentiment for a new child had taken the place of his political activism. This determined woman then became a rein of terror, inundating her editors with letters and articles and circulating petitions. She became involved in raising funds for the Ponca's forthcoming lawsuit against the government. She finally declared open warfare on the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz. It was Schurz who tried to point out to her that the fund was a waste of money, time and effort since Indians had no legal right to sue either the state or federal government.

When she determined that the formation of the Boston Indian Citizenship Association wasn't enough, she decided that a broader audience was needed. Helen then gathered her resources and created a legacy. The book would be a record of broken treaties and called "A Century of Dishonor". There was no way to compile a complete history of all the tribes for her book. The number of tribes and the number of injustices were too great. Consequently, she set out to amass the raw facts and figures of the transgressions. Her first chapter became her lawyer's brief. Helen then proceeded to detail the events of seven tribes followed by exhibits, excerpts from reports, testimonials of Indian character, accounts of crimes committed against Indians by whites, digests of treaties broken and more. In her conclusion, Helen wrote "It makes little difference where one opens this record of the history of the Indians. Every page and every year has a dark stain. The story of one tribe is the story of abuse, varied only by differences of time and place; but neither time nor place makes any major differences in the main factors. Colorado is as greedy and unjust in 1880 as was George in 1830 and Ohio in 1795; and the United States government breaks promises now as deftly as then, and with an added ingenuity from long practice."

The more Helen learned about the injustices done to the American Indian, the more her determination grew. At the time of its publication, in January 1881, "A Century of Honor", was a 342 page document. She felt so strongly about what she had to say that a copy was sent, at her expense, to every Member of Congress. The immediate outcry of righteous indignation that she expected was not forth coming but the negative response was. She felt Higginson's responses disappointing, but Will's were devastating. After months of separation he arrived in New York with the intention of persuading her to give up this obsession and come back to Colorado Springs.

If Helen had returned home, her welcome in Colorado would not have been a warm one. It was a very violent time there between the Indians and the settlers. The residents were angry with the Indians and furious with Helen for focussing national attention on the embarrassing situation of the Sand Hill Massacre by Colonel J. M. Chivington. Helen was bitterly attacked for her stand on behalf of the Indians by William N. Byers, the former editor of the Rocky Mountain News. Helen, however, continued to use the newspapers as her forum. One can only speculate on the effect her words and actions had on Will, whose railroad interests sometimes conflicted with those of the Indians. She fiercely rebutted Byer's charges against her by quoting chapter and verse from sworn and signed statements from the Indian Bureau and the United States Army officers serving in Colorado during the time of the massacre.

Her compensation came from other sources. On March 3, 1881, Congress passed a bill enabling each individual Ponca to choose the land he preferred, either in the territory tract or on the Niobara, reimbursing each one for his losses and providing funds for houses, schools, and teachers' pay. It was a beginning, but Helen wanted far more. She demanded fair treatment for all the Indians.

A friend, Joseph Gilder voiced the thought that had been nagging at her conscience, "You're the one who should tell the story of the Indians, Helen." However, Helen felt she did not have the time or the background to write such a novel. But the idea was a spark that would continued to smolder in the years to come. She'd wanted to return to California for nearly ten years. There was so much to see there, the missions to study and write about - surely at fifty it was time she acted on that dream. On an impulse she wrote to Will, urging him to make the trip with her. She hoped it would be an opportunity to get to know one another again after so many separations.

Helen planned to write four articles for Harpers Magazine. These articles that would pay for the amenities of the trip! It seemed that everything that mattered in Helen's life was coming together. The contentment she'd longed for suddenly seemed within her grasp. However, business complications forced Will to remain in Colorado and she was expected join him there as soon as possible. Her frustrations mounted and in the end Harpers Monthly assigned the series to someone else.

In September, when Richard Watson Gilder asked her to do a series on the California missions for Century Magazine, she was more than ready. With Will, or without him, she was going to California.

Helen saw the twenty-one missions of California from her perspective only. What she didn't see (or refused to see) was that under the original mission system the statewide Indian population fell from 135,000 in 1770 to 100,000 in 1823 to 73,000 in 1851. Many contemporaries of Serra had been critical of his dictatorship. The founding father was described as "kind hearted and charitable to all, but most strict in his religious duties. It never occurred to him to doubt his absolute right to flog his neophytes in matters of faith." Helen chose to look beyond all this, focusing instead on intent. What impressed her was the difference in attitude between the Spanish authorities and the American ones. Fresh from her labors which revealed the prevalent American view that the only good Indian was a dead one, she could appreciate the fact that, after all, Serra and the other missionaries hadn't set out deliberately to annihilate Indians. Far from being the non-persons viewed by Schurz and the others in the United States Interior Department, the conquistadors and padres had perceived them as valuable commodities with souls to save and bodies to work. If the grand plan sometimes resulted in death, it was still for the Indians' own good.

She carefully researched the California Mission Indians prior to her departure and also armed herself for the trip with letters of introduction. This time the transcontinental rendezvous with Will took place as planned. They spent all of two days together in Santa Fe, New Mexico, before he went south to El Paso on railroad business and she continued west. Helen arrived in Los Angeles, California in late December.

She immediately put her letters of introduction to good use. One introduction was to the Right Reverend Francis Mora, bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles, who in turn provided her entrée to Don Antonio Coronel and his pretty young wife, Mariana. Anticipating resentment, Helen called on the Coronels with some trepidation. She intended to stay for twenty minutes. She remained three hours. She spent many hours in their stately home despite the fact that Don Antonio spoke little English. However, he sang and strummed his guitar for her in the Old Spanish manner. At the end of each visit, Helen left with her arms filled with clusters of fruit and flowers and a head full of stories from the old days, which Dona Mariana had translated. Don Antonio shared Helen's deep concern for the Indians who'd saved his life more than once during the early violence of the American takeover. Now he outlined a travel plan for that would enable her to visit the last of the old land-grant ranchos as well as see what had become of the former Mission Indians.

The land monopoly of the mission system had been broken by the Secularization Act, which was instigated by the Mexican government in 1833. By the end of the decade, the Indians had been freed; some continued to live unmolested on the land they'd once been forced to till. Others, as the mission property was sold, were dispersed but given substitute land by the new private owners. Most of these original Mexican land grants included clauses protecting the Indians on the farms they occupied.

Then in 1846 the Americans arrived and immediately challenged the Californios to produce proof of ownership. It did little good to point out that an old forgotten piece of paper was unnecessary to prove title to land that everyone knew had been in the family for decades - sometimes since the days of the Spanish kings. Ancient families were ruined in a day, empires lost overnight; but the most seriously jeopardized were invariably the Indians. The conquering Americans had a history of ignoring the treaties with the Indians. Once again the Indian was an ostracized non-person. Since Indians weren't citizens, it seemed perfectly fair and reasonable to the new white settlers, who wanted their lands, to certify to the land agent that those lands were "unoccupied." It was one more injustice tailor-made for Helen's pencil.

The Santa Fe Railroad hadn't yet linked San Diego to the rest of the state when Helen arrived in there on March 4,1882. Helen took up residence at the Horton House, the pride of this burgeoning. More important to Helen than anything else, it offered free transportation to anywhere in the county. She was going to need that. Helen quickly found interests in common with another resident in the hotel, Mariette Gregory, a renowned clairvoyant. She proved invaluable as an interpreter in Helen's quest for information on the Mission Indians. The seer shared Helen's deep concern for the Indians. She traveled freely about the backcountry, talking with them and gaining their confidence.

There were other new friends as well. The Ephraim Mooreses, Massachusetts transplants like Helen, took her riding in their carriage out to the tip of Point Loma, a drive she would recall as "the most beautiful in America." Helen developed many significant connections in San Diego. The most valuable of the all was Father Anthony Ubach. He was delighted to find a potential ally in this outspoken eastern woman and was more than happy to drive her about the countryside. She attended trials involving Indian offenders, and visited pitiful hovels on hills and in canyons where the dispossessed just barely managed to survive. Helen was shocked by the depravity and reluctantly admitted in an article, "Most of these Indians are miserable, worthless beggars, drunkards, of course, and worse."

One of Ubach's stories of San Diego made a significant impression on her and it was one she would remember for the rest of her life. A young couple appeared at his door late one night begging him to marry them. The woman was the daughter of a prominent Californio family, the man an Indian sheepherder. He wedded them in the small adobe Chapel of the Immaculate Conception. Soon after, the bride's angry family apprehended the couple and the marriage was annulled. The young woman subsequently was forced into marriage with another and the Indian flogged nearly to death.

Father Ubach took Helen to visit the enchanting valley of San Pasqual, northeast of San Diego. When Ubach first visited the area fifteen years earlier, he'd found a thriving community of some three hundred Indians. In 1870, the United States government gave assurances that the San Pasqual Indians would be allowed to remain on the lands of their fathers. This commitment was disregarded. The white settlers fought the ruling, insidiously encroaching on the San Pasqual Reservation. In time, the Indians were forced to abandon their well-cultivated farms and to leave behind their family homes. Helen found that Temecula was even worse. A graveyard was all that remained of these Indians of the San Luis Rey Mission. Their claim had been a clear one based on a protective clause in an early Mexican land grant deeding the area back to them. The treaty and the peace it guaranteed lasted until 1869 when five white settlers from San Francisco saw the land and instigated legal action to gain it for themselves. In 1842, the Mexican government granted most of the San Jacinto Valley to Jose Antonio Estudillo with the stipulation that he safeguard the security of the Indians living there. The Indians' position was strengthened further just two years before Helen's visit when the United States government confirmed the original Mexican patent. With the death of the elder however, the patent no longer held and once again the Indians were forced to move.

Helen listened eagerly as Father Ubach talked to the Indians in their dialects and acted as her translator. She learned of an Indian school in Saboba, the first in the state. She was excited by the possibilities of such a facility and prevailed on Ubach to make the seventy-five-mile trip with her. They found a village of one hundred and fifty Indians from the Serrano tribe living in a fertile section of the San Jacinto Valley watered by a natural spring. Mary Sheriff, the schoolteacher, had volunteered for her job, and she loved it. She described the aptitude and charm of her charges in glowing terms. Helen, as always touched by anything having to do with children, was impatient to meet them. To her surprise, the reaction of the children was hostile. She wore a gray bonnet, which was decorated with the head of a gray owl. The Indians considered the owl a bird of ill omen. If it hovers over your head it brings a message of your death, but if it flies toward you it tells of the death of one that is dear to you. Learning the reason for the children's' distrust, she immediately removed the hat and never wore it again.

From Los Angeles, they set out northward. Without too much effort, Helen persuaded Abbot Kinney to accompany them. He not only liked the Indians, he was beginning to speak their language. The trio sailed on May 21 for Santa Barbara and then continued northward to San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Mission San Antonio de Padua and Colon. It was a scorching trip by carriage and wagon over rough, bumpy roads.

A reunion with Will in San Francisco, which took them to Oregon, Puget Sound and Vancouver, was heaven-sent. The holiday was a happy one - a physical and emotional renewal. As always, it provided a subject for Helen's busy pencil. Will urged her to return with him by rail to Colorado Springs and write her stories at home. Helen agreed. There really wasn't a reason to remain in Los Angeles just as long as Will realized that she had no intention of giving up her crusade.

With A Century of Dishonor, Helen had forsaken her poetry along with her precious anonymity. M. R. Byrnes had originally purchased his land from the Estudillo heirs with the stipulation that he use it only for sheep grazing - leaving the area occupied by the Saboba Indians intact. By the time Helen returned to Colorado, he had announced his intention to evict the Indians unless the government agreed to buy the entire tract from him for thirty thousand dollars. This decision strengthened Helen's resolve to return to California with the authority to effect changes.

She appealed to Secretary of the Interior, Henry Teller because they'd met once in Denver when the politician had been briefly associated with Will. In writing to Mr. Teller, she warned of the danger of the continued Indian Massacres. She advised him that she felt that this chapter of the Mission Indians would be the blackest one in the history of the Government's dealings with the American Indians. Helen wrote back to Mary Sherriff and offered her what little encouragement she could. She explained to Mary about her letter to Mr. Teller on the position of the Indians in Southern California. When nothing came of her first letter to Teller, she wrote him again on June 11, 1882. She enclosed a pleading note from Jesus, the Saboba captain. This time Teller promised to take the matter under advisement. She then applied to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hiram Price. Helen sought an appointment to serve as a one-woman fact finding committee on behalf of the Government.

Helen's proposal was clear. She would report directly to the Interior Department concerning: (1) the present number of Indians living in Southern California and their living conditions, (2) the amount of government land available to them, (3) the possibility of other areas that might be purchased for the Indians in the absence of government land, and (4) the Indians' own feelings about being moved to reservations.

Teller and Price were so impressed by the plan that they recommend that she be designated Special Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Southern California - the first woman to hold that position. President Chester Arthur approved the measure on July 7, 1882. Helen was jubilant about her appointment. She was certain that she could do a better job at championing the Indians. She would write an account that would change minds by "reaching hearts." It would also, she decided, reach the pages of the New York Independent.

When the elation of winning her first round with the government diminished, she realized that the task was far too extensive to be accomplished by one person. What she wanted was Abbot Kinney as her partner to interact with the Indians. He had a working knowledge of their language, and understood and sympathized with their culture. Equally important, he was conversant with California land laws. Helen's appeal to Price and Teller requesting the services of Kinney was not well received. As in her dealings with editors, Helen recognized when to stand her ground. In the meantime there was plenty to keep her busy. The most important effort of the summer was the writing of her California series for Century. Richard Gilder wanted a "popular treatment" of the Indians. Helen had a message to impart. It was a challenge to reconcile the two. Surprised and disappointed by the government's continued silence and hoping to make the wait pass faster, she decided to go to New York. Because the articles were so important, she wanted to get Higginson's reaction first.

As always, Higginson welcomed Helen to his cottage. As she had in the past, Helen anxiously awaited his opinions and hoped for his input. He returned the articles to her expressing moderate satisfaction. Helen settled down in Boston to work on her rewrites, which incorporated a few significant changes from Higginson. She wanted desperately to sway public opinion with her words and hoped to appeal to those who were uninformed on the subject. Satisfied at last, Helen submitted her series to Gilder in person. She was relieved by his ardent support. She would have been flabbergasted could she have known the ultimate success of the articles. She had no inkling that they would be assembled in book form twenty years later as Glimpses of California and the Missions, the definitive early-twentieth-century travel guide to Southern California.

Finally, in January 1883, Abbot Kinney's confirmation as her co-agent was received from the Interior Department. Without even pausing in Colorado Springs, Helen was off to California. Kinney found her enthusiasm contagious. Jokingly, he referred to Helen as "the general," for she was definitely in charge. She called him Comrade, which was quickly shortened to Co. The talented illustrator, Henry Sandham, who reluctantly joined them grumbling all the way, was always Henry.

Following old stagecoach routes, they visited reservation after reservation. Kinney handled the details, Sandham did the sketching, and Helen continued recording her passionate indictment. On two occasions they arrived just in time to intercede on behalf of the San Ysidro Indians at the very moment when white squatters were attempting to seize their land. Helen was especially grateful to Abbot then. His authoritative charisma, tall, imposing presence, and unfailing sense of humor had become indispensable. How right she'd been to stand firm against the government regarding his appointment.

As they ascended the mountainous approach to Julian, located in the San Ysidro Valley, they were suddenly caught in a freak snowstorm. It was an another experience that would stay with Helen forever. The storm became so severe that they found themselves off the road and forced to take shelter in an abandoned shack. After 3 days, they headed out into the blizzard and eventually made it through the whirling snowdrifts to safety. Often Henry remonstrated with Helen that her journeys were too difficult and too dangerous for a woman, particularly at her age.

What had begun earlier as a warm friendship with Dona Ysidora and her son, Cave, Jr., began to cool. Helen learned that the Couts family was even now taking legal steps to remove the La Jolla Indians from their reservation. There had also been complaints from the Pala Indians, who claimed that Cave Couts had confiscated some of their sheep. Helen was shocked by the stories and planned to investigate them. In the meantime it was impossible for her to remain silent when she observed how little the Indian employees were fed and how much was expected of them.

Concurrent with Helen's field trips was the running battle over the rights of the Saboba Indians. Upon her initial return to California, she and Co had gone directly to Saboba where they had found the situation every bit as grim as Mary Sheriff had indicated in her letter. The Indians were threatened by eviction at any moment. When Helen attempted to pursue the matter with S. S. Lawson, the local Indian agent, she got nowhere. Lawson made it clear that he had no intention of locking horns with local dignitaries and resented her interference. It seemed the only avenue remaining to them was one suggested by Co. Helen made an arrangement with the law firm, Brunson & Wells to defend the Saboba Indians even if the government did not authorize them to do it. Helen herself guaranteed the lawyers a certain sum for which they would undertake the case if a suit of eviction was brought against the village.

Toward the end of the month, Co joined her in Colorado Springs. He went over the completed manuscript and offered only minor suggestions. The report was fifty-six pages long, and would later appear as an appendix to A Century of Dishonor. It dealt primarily with the mission Indians in the three southernmost California counties and included some mention of the fugitive tribes on the outskirts of Riverside County, San Bernardino, and the San Gabriel Valley.

Following a short history of each band, Helen made her recommendations: 1. Re-surveying them, rounding them out, and distinctly marking them should determine the Indians' reservations. 2. All white settlers now on reservations should be removed. 3. The Government should both remove and make other provision for Indian villages currently located within confined grants, or uphold and defend their right to remain there. [In support of the second course, the written opinion of Brunson and Wells was appended.] 4. All Indian reservations should be patented to the several bands occupying them. The United States should hold the patent in trust for twenty-five years and then convey it to the Indians, as was done with the Omahas in Nebraska. 5. The number of schools should be increased and women teachers employed. 6. Indian agents and physicians should be required to visit each village twice a year. 7. The law firm of Brunson and Wells in Los Angeles should be appointed to act as special United States attorneys in all cases affecting the Indians. 8. Agricultural implements and farm equipment should be distributed among the Indians. 9. A small fund should be provided for the purchase of food and clothing for the very old and the sick in times of special destitution. 10. Should the Government decide to remove Indian villages on land already patented and to provide new quarters for their establishment, two purchases of land, one positively, the other contingently, were recommended. 11. Several small bands of Mission Indians north of the boundaries of the so-called Mission Indians' Agency should be included in the rehabilitation. These were specifically the San Carlos near the ranch, San Francisquita of Monterey, and those in the neighborhood of the Missions San Antonio de Padua, San Miguel, and Santa Inez.

Helen gave Commissioner Price a long list of influential persons, which included every member of Congress, and asked him to send them copies. Then, once again, she sat back and waited. The response took a curious and disappointing form. Shortly after publication, Helen received a letter from Mary Sheriff. The schoolteacher's salary was being cut to a pittance. Both women believed it was an act of open retaliation. Determined that the Indian children not be deserted, Helen made up the difference herself. Despondent, Helen cast about for something to do. The summer was dragging on and there had been no congressional response. Perhaps it was naive to imagine that she could influence the American people and their appointees with cold hard facts. Was it indeed necessary to persuade them with a novel -the kind of work that J. B. Gilder had suggested two years earlier? Could she, Helen Hunt Jackson, move a nation and right a wrong with just a story?

Although she finally had the material for a novel, its form eluded her. Then in late October inspiration struck. Colorado Springs had proven just too 'social" for her, with far too many distractions. Perhaps she regarded Will as one of them. At any rate she informed him that she would have to go to New York to write her projected California novel. If for whatever obscure reason she thought it better not to do her writing in California, she at least contrived to bring California with her to New York. In trunks and boxes all around the room were her baskets, weavings, embroideries, in the rich warm colors of the golden state.

Helen quickly began appeals to her California friends for the details needed to bring her story to life. To the Coronels she requested information on Mr. Coronel's trip to Temecula to mark off the boundaries of the Indians' land there. How many Indians were living there then? What crops had they? Had they a chapel? Etc. Of her friend in San Diego, Ephraim Morse, Helen also inquired about the Temecula incident and asked about "the taking of a lot of sheep from some of the Pala or San Luis Rey Indians by Major Couts." Helen hoped to keep her project a secret for the time being from all but close friends. Too much early talk might dull its impact.

Helen directed an inquiry to Mary Sheriff regarding Sam Temple, the man who'd gunned down the Indian Juan Diego. Helen wanted to know exactly how-if at all-justice worked in San Diego County. How did they impanel a jury, and how many jurors were there? Where did they meet? What did the judge say? What did Sam Temple say? Was he sworn in? Was he ever detained at all? "

Helen wrote every day and usually long into the night, turning out one and sometimes two thousand words in a single session. It was a dreadful winter for Helen. Working as fast and frantically as she did, she had rarely felt worse. Alternating between marathon writing stints and periods of total exhaustion, she scarcely knew whether to blame the frantic pace or the awful weather for her recurrent illnesses. She was certain only of the urgent need to complete her work. She plunged on, plagued by a sense that time was running out.

Helen began her work on December 1st. A month later she wrote her friend William Hayes Ward at the Independent, confiding her dream: "if I can do a one-hundredth part for the Indians what Mrs. Stowe did for the Negro, I will be thankful". Referring again to her new work, Helen confided her strategy. She hoped to sugar her pill, masking her message in the romantic aura of old California.

Transcending time and space, Helen recalled the clear, hot noondays and quickly falling nights, the golden fields of ripening grain, and the dull, autumn tints of the California landscape before the winter rains. It was essential to capture the mystique of bygone days, to beguile her readers with images of a past reached only through imagination. In this way, Helen then began to weave a tale that many would consider a love story long before it would be accepted as an injustice against the Indian Nation

From these stories she had been told during her travels, she wrote that tale of the injustice and love between the sheepherder and his bride. It was a story that has endured for over a hundred years. Because of Father Urbach portrayal of Father Gaspara many people would one-day visit the Casa de Estudillo in San Diego hoping to view the location of Ramona's marriage. Woven too into this tale was the pretty Indian woman with the sick child and the doctor that would not make a house call, as well as the slaying of Ramona's husband, the Indian Juan Diego, by Sam Temple. Also included in the narrative was the snowstorm that Helen and her companions experienced during their approach to Julian.

The stern, implacable Senora Moreno and her son Felipe were taken from Helen's distasteful experiences with the Couts Family over their attitude towards the Indians. Helen, as most novelists are able to do, did manage to have the last word, and it has lasted for more than one hundred years. It is imagined that neither Mother nor Son were pleased with this thinly disguised portrait in words. Her description of the Moreno home came from the Rancho Guajome, which she had visited en route to Santa Barbara. This splendid hacienda was surrounded by orange groves, silver-leafed olive trees, and sunburned hills.

By April she'd finished the last chapter. Against the rich backdrop of Southern California, she'd created the touching story of Ramona, the ward of an aristocratic California family, and her Indian lover, Alessandro. The drama begins when Ramona falls in love with Alessandro and they are forced to flee from her cruel and despotic stepmother. A sympathetic frontier priest marries them and she quickly adapts to Indian ways. Ramona is happy with Alessandro until the Anglos move in and take over the tribe's land. They make a new start in a remote valley near Saboba, but once again are driven out by white settlers. This time they take refuge on an isolated mountain where their baby dies from lack of medical attention. Alessandro suffers a nervous breakdown and, in a state of confusion, inadvertently substitutes a white settler's horse for his own. The angry American tracks Alessandro to his mountain cabin and kills him before Ramona's eyes.

Helen completed her work on March 8, 1884. On May 1st, the Christian Union announced that it would soon be serializing a new novel in weekly installments. That departure from its usual once-a-month format was Helen's idea. She wanted to get her message across in a hurry. On Monday, the 15th of March, the first installment of the story that she had finally decided to call Ramona appeared beneath the byline Helen Hunt Jackson. The editors had added in parentheses H. H., to at last identify the author to her vast reading public.

Unfortunately, Helen was too ill to enjoy the fanfare. With warnings to refrain from work and stay out of Colorado falling on deaf ears, Helen returned to Colorado Springs after an absence of more than six months. She was surprised to hear that her niece, Helen, now departed, had stayed nearly that long. Will had been a most conscientious host, taking her on picnics and horseback rides into the mountains. Effie, the maid, saw to it that Helen heard all about how her niece had assumed the role of mistress of the house and had served as Will's hostess. During that same period, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad had filed for bankruptcy, and Will had been appointed receiver. His responsibilities for reorganizing the company apparently hadn't interfered with his social life.

With the publication of Ramona, Helen felt that a great burden had been lifted. She believed that she had done her best, given the fullest measure of her talent and energy. Now she could begin to relax and enjoy life, as she never had before. After a disastrous headlong flight down a stairway, Helen had a compound fracture that would cripple her for life. By August Helen was on the mend and soon up and about. The idea of being "cooped up in Colorado" for the winter depressed her. As always, Helen was certain that a change in her surroundings would make her better. Two or three months of "sunshine and outdoors in Southern California" would soon have her well again.

Her letter to Co in California crisscrossed with Kinney's, which contained an exciting surprise. He'd fallen in love at last and wanted to bring his bride to Colorado Springs for their honeymoon. He described his fiancée as a 'young H. H.," Helen was delighted by the news. She'd been urging Co to find a wife. Naturally she was full of questions and certainly must have felt a little uneasy at the possibility of losing her favorite completely.

One month later, accompanied by Effie, Helen departed once more for California. She had no qualms about starting out a cripple on such a far journey. As always, looking ahead to new possibilities, she felt a fresh wave of optimism. Helen left 228 East Kiowa Street as she had always left it -without a backward glance.

Helen compromised with the Coronels, who wanted her to stay with them at El Recreo. She made long, almost daily visits, but spent nights at the boardinghouse. Once again the hospitality was lavish. Don Antonio sang for her and told his old-California stories. They were the best kind of friends, understanding and accepting as well as affectionate. Recognizing that what Helen needed most during her long and difficult convalescence was the sense of continuity and independence that only writing could give her, they provided not only comfort and solace but time and space as well. Since Helen could write only in a reclining position, Don Antonio designed a special table for her. It was small and light, with two lower shelves for notes. Using this and lying on a couch, Helen wrote a number of poems and at least one article, 'From Icicles to Oranges," -another paean to Southern California.

Whenever Helen had a manuscript ready to mail east, she and Dona Mariana made an outing of driving to the post office. One afternoon late in November they found a package there addressed to Helen. When she read Roberts Brothers above the return address, the author guessed the contents immediately - an advance copy of Ramona. After serialization in the Christian Union, the manuscript had been rushed into print with Christmas sales in mind. Helen had seen it listed in the November 8 issue of Publishers Weekly, but this was her first glimpse of the book itself. She eagerly tore open the package. The cover was a pleasant surprise, golden artichokes against a green background. The same "great soft-round disks of fine straight threads like silk with a kind of saint's halo around them of sharp, stiff points" that she'd described in Ramona.

Helen had dreamed of writing another Uncle Tom's Cabin, but in 1884, a social-protest novel championing the cause of the American Indian was unwanted. The Native American was viewed with indifference, if not hostility. As a result, critics reviewed the romance and ignored the Indians. Ramona was described as "a sweet and mournful poetic story" and as "a prose Evangeline.' It was faint praise for one whose whole purpose had been to incite righteous anger. Worse yet, when angry protests did occur, they generally came from San Diego and were leveled at her. It was the settlers, not the Indians, who were championed by a society that bitterly resented her portrayal of Alessandro as saintly. It was a dark night for Helen, who couldn't know that Ramona would eventually become a classic, with a part yet to play in social history.

As if Helen's troubles were not plentiful enough, Effie slipped and injured-her knee. When the doctor came to examine her, he also took a look at Helen's good leg, which had lately been troubling her. But it was now more than Helen's foot that troubled her. She was seriously ill with a persistent fever and nausea so violent that she couldn't eat. The weight that Helen wanted to lose earlier just poured off - forty pounds in a little over a month. It left her wan, yellow, and badly frightened. Hoping a sea change would help, she moved briefly to Long Beach, but returned sicker than before. She did not complain to Will but instead turned to Co. for understanding.

Once again Helen felt a new locale held the answer. Helen was referred to a marvelous homeopathic physician in San Francisco. She was sure that this physician would have a cure for her. Helen's new San Francisco doctor had advised her to abandon all reading and writing if she was to prolong her life, but it was an impossible pronouncement. She would temporarily forsake reading, but writing never.

With her thoughts turning to Yosemite, Helen remembered the rugged grandeur of the Valley and the High Sierras. She desperately wanted to return to those rugged mountains and sleep under the stars. She contacted John Muir for advice on travel to Yosemite. Despite his reservations, he responded warmly, outlining several possible routes. Helen was so moved by his words that she insisted upon getting out of bed and sitting in her wheelchair. That small exertion proved too much. Helen was forced to return to bed and this time there was no reprieve. The cancer was destroying her. It was time to set her affairs in order.

If Helen had any professional regrets it was that she had found her mission so late. It seemed to her now that only A Century of Dishonor and Ramona were of any consequence. The public had been indifferent to the former, the critics to the latter. Now, ironically enough, she learned from Roberts Brothers that Ramona gave every indication of being a runaway best seller. Despite the lackluster reviews, the public liked her sugar pill. It remained to be seen how the medicine would go down.

The Jacksons were reunited later that year in Colorado Springs, but Helen Hunt Jackson died of stomach cancer. William Jackson's second wife, Helen Banfield, who was Helen Hunt Jackson's niece, died from a self-inflicted gun shot wound She was first buried in San Francisco, and then later relocated to a private grave near the summit of Cheyenne Peak. At an even later time, to avoid possible vandalism, she was relocated to her current spot in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

More than a century after it was first published, the story of Ramona continues to haunt Southern California. The Ramona Pageant is just one part of that fascinating story. (See their web site at http://www.ramonapageant.com/)

The achievements of this dynamic and outspoken woman would be honored in today's cultural environment, but to have accomplished what she did over 100 years ago speaks volumes for the type of woman she really was. She was driven to write but wanted more in her life than that. While her personal life left much to be desired, her professional life revealed a storyteller with a gift and ultimately with a mission.

If, in some ways, you agree that she reminds you of our Michaela, then that is not surprising as both our favorite fictional character and this real life crusader had causes they believed in and fought for. If there were any real conclusion to be drawn from the life of Helen Hunt Jackson, then it would have to be to follow your dream. Nothing in this life is accomplished without effort and commitment. So take a few moments and think about what your dreams are … and go for it!