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Adding character to our history By JOHN DARLING CENTRAL POINT - At 85, historian Bernice Curler has found a way to stay young: She became an author. After years of research and reading history just for the pleasure of it, Curler now devotes every afternoon to writing books. Last year, Curler published her first novel, a tale of the Oregon Trail called "The Visionaries" (AmErica House, Baltimore). She just signed a contract with the same publisher for her second book, "Glory Road," a nonfiction story portraying the difficulties of pioneer women's lives in the days when men ran families and governments. Now, Curler is tackling her third book, an overview of the "immense changes" of the 20th century as seen by an average housewife - herself. "The most important dividend I'm getting from the writing life is that it's keeping me vital," Curler says. "It gives me purpose and keeps me going. I may be slow at this age, but writing does me a great service: It leaves me with no time to sit around and think of my ailments." Curler spent years researching the history of the Oregon Trail and Sacramento Valley. She taught writing in community college, published articles in history magazines and wrote a historically based romantic comedy, "Mazzie's Red Garter," which was produced by Rogue Valley Stage Productions in 1977. When her husband, Al, died in 1993, she moved to the Rogue Valley to be near her daughter, Dawna Curler, who works at the Southern Oregon Historical Society. "The more I researched and read old journals, the more I found these historical characters coming alive in my mind and demanding to be woven into a story," Bernice Curler says. "Finally, I just said I've got to write this novel." Curler "plunged into the electronic age," learned computers and put herself on a rigid schedule, clocking in and deducting breaks so that she wrote four hours each afternoon and produced at least 1,000 words a day. "It was irritating to learn all this new technology and jargon and I'd have my senior moments (forgetfulness), but I'd just laugh and keep going," said Curler. "It was the only way I could get it done. I've never found writing lonely. It's absolutely my own time. And the reward was a big one when I finally held my own book in my hands." It wasn't easy to go through the rejections that await most novelists, especially when it's fiction and "you put all that conflict and emotion out there." But she persevered, landing a print-on-demand contract that required her to do promotion, including mailing out review copies herself. As she creates the demand, she explained, the publisher prints more copies. Curler stressed that she doesn't write romance novels. Her situations, places and events are all documented in history and her characters behave as would real people of the time, right down to the use of profanity and fairly explicit sex scenes. "I surprised a lot of people. It shocks men to read it. It's not real graphic, but there are two or three sex scenes in which I try to explore the emotional reactions as more important than the sexual, but men can't figure out how an 85-year-old woman can write this stuff." Curler's narrative book on the 20th century will explore five wars, the Depression and the huge cultural changes of the '60s, much of which she experienced through her two children who were then in college, she said. Curler often volunteers for the historical society, leading discussions of the Oregon Trail at the Children's Heritage Fair in Jacksonville and scooping ice cream at historic Hanley Farm. In August, she'll be on a panel of three women historian-authors at Hanley Farm. Curler stays active doing water aerobics, walking Tasha, her Pomeranian dog, a mile a day and volunteering to read to children in schools. She's descended from pioneer Mormon and German stock and her love of history has served as a lifelong influence. One thing she's learned about history is that it doesn't always blindly repeat itself. "Despite many awful things, we've come a long way, especially in America, and we're actually learning to be better people." John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.