Durrone Schuler of Snowflake earned honorable mention in a national writing contest sponsored by the Society of Southwestern Authors for his entry A Rescue at San Lorenzo. He was honored at the society’s annual banquet Nov. 20.
That story will be part of The Feather Bed, Part 2, which details actual events experienced by Schuler’s ancestors in California in 1848.
Schuler’s book, The Feather Bed, Part 1, has just been released, and is the first novelization of events that took place aboard the ship Brooklyn, which brought his great-great-grandparents from England to New York.
In December 2010, Schuler’s cousin, Richard H. Bullock, gave him a copy of a detailed history book he had written that included information on Schuler’s great-great-grandparents. That aroused a great interest in the ship Brooklyn, which sailed in 1846 from New York, going around Cape Horn to San Francisco, Calif., with 238 passengers.
Those on the ship were responsible for settling San Francisco, although many of them continued on to Salt Lake City, Utah, and were very important in the building of Salt Lake City and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple, according to Schuler.
Later, his family moved to San Bernardino, Calif. And years later Schuler was born in San Bernardino. He used his family’s story as the foundation of his novel, which takes the reader on the voyage itself.
“Everything is factual, except the conversation and personal things that happened,” said Schuler, noting that the purpose of the voyage was for LDS church members to escape persecution of the church.
In 1846, church members were being driven out of Nauvoo, Ill., and Missouri, and Joseph Smith was talking about migrating west, explained Schuler. His book is not about the history of the LDS church, though, it’s about the people who made the voyage in that small ship.
The ship was 125’ long, 24’ wide and carried 238 passengers plus a crew of 14. The deck was divided into 34 cabins in the cargo area that were 7’x6’ and 5’ high, with what he estimated approximately six bunks, noting that in some cases there were families of eight living in one cabin.
The Brooklyn was at sea for six months, and left New York the same day that Brigham Young left Nauvoo. Schuler noted that his family left the church in 1852, and returned from Utah to San Bernardino.
The Feather Bed, Part 1 tells the history related by his aunt Jane E. “Janey” Tomkins Hunter and tales of her feather bed.
On Janey’s 75th birthday, Jan. 11, 1918, she wrote the history of the feather bed, which was made from feathers plucked from geese in Lancashire County, England, and brought by her Rollins grandparents in 1828, when they made the voyage to New York in a sailing vessel. Janey’s mother was 7 years old at the time.
When Janey’s mother married Thomas Tomkins in 1839, she was given the feather bed. In February 1846 the family, which included Janey, her parents and her sister Amanda, took passage on the Brooklyn. Amanda is Schuler’s great-grandmother.
In 1848, the family crossed the plains from California to Utah by wagon train.
In 1850, Janey’s second wagon train brought her back to California. Then they went to the Society Islands by ship and returned to California in 1851.
In 1852, they journeyed to San Bernardino, where they stayed until 1858. They crossed the plains by wagon to Utah and then returned to California that year.
In 1862 Janey married Mr. Hunter and the feather bed was passed to them. They were the third generation to own the bed.
In March 1864 the Hunters took a load of freight from Los Angeles to Helena, Mont., then went down the Missouri River for a load of freight. They took that back to Helena and then returned to California.
“And on all these journeying to and fro on land and sea, the feather bed was taken along,” according to Janey Hunter’s 1918 history of the feather bed. In 1918 she used some of the feathers and made two souvenir sofa pills. One was donated to the San Bernardino County Museum in 1964, where it remains today.
The Feather Bed, Part 1 includes endorsement written by Bullock and Jo Russell, speaker, blogger, award-winning Christian author and contributor to seven anthologies, including two Chicken Soup for the Soul volumes.
Schuler’s first book is dedicated to Bullock, because of his cousin’s book peaked Schuler’s interest in the Brooklyn.
The Feather Bed, Part 1 was recently printed, and is available through Ingram Books, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobel.
Schuler’s second book has been plotted out, but he said it will take some time to write it and get it printed.
