By Fred Delkin

     We were reminded that history outperforms fiction when we read "A Matter of Chastity" by Portland resident Douglas Yocom.  This is an absorbing account of dramatic events in19th century Kansas as skillfully recounted by a descendant of the family at the center of this saga.

The author reflects his academic degrees of journalism (University of Kansas) and history (University of Missouri Kansas City).  This tome is thoroughly researched from published accounts at the time and is embellished with archival photos of the story's principals and their surroundings.  A native Kansan, Yocom is the grandson of the woman who exacted revenge for an accused neighbor's theft of her virginity in July 1894.  Ellen Lunney was born on a farm homesteaded by her father John just outside Lenora, Kansas, near the Nebrqska border and  just east of Colorado.

This site amidst the rolling hills and flat prairie had just been freed from nomadic Nebraska Nebraska vast buffalo herds by the arrival of the transcontinental railroad.   Author Yocom also attributes the civilization of this frontier to an 1874 patent for barbed wire that "transformed the American western landscape in a few short years...as it changed into a fenced, cultivated land."  No longer would it return to "the wild days of gunfighters shooting it out in the streets while the good citizens hid in their homes."

Yet it was a gun grasped in the hand of a shy, studious and retiring Ellen that created the act of revenge around which Yocom has focused this historical account.   His grandmother shot and killed the accused at a hearing about her alleged rape.  The events before and after this shooting and descriptions of personalities involved are a literary treasure.

The author of this true tale is deft in bringing history to life.  His grandmother was brought to trial (and acquitted) for the assassination of her sexual assailant and Yocom has included testimonial transcripts of the trial participants, weaving an absorbing re-creation.

The author, true to his education, has crafted a clear 19th century picture of the people, their motivations and their environment as civilization was changing the American West.  He declares that "twenty-first-century Americans may not understand how marginal life could be along the frontier.  "People died daily of gunshot wounds, rattlesnake bites, arrows, starvation and vigilante hangings" as permanent settlers, as personified by Yocom's ancestors, deserved their title of "pioneers."

Reading "A Matter of Chastity" engenders respect for the folk who tamed the wilds of western Kansas and, indeed, those who brought stability to the further reaches of our land.  Yocom reminds us of why even the tritest Western movie scripts have a basis in fact.

Editor's Note:  Yocom, retired Northwest Natural Gas public relations executive, now owns Dusty Cover Books, a collector and purveyor of used books of historical merit and publisher, with The Arthur H. Clarke Co. of Spokane, of the profiled book.

© 2005 Oregon Magazine