The Oregon Historical Society recently ran a piece about a very rare tricycle in their collection: https://www.ohs.org/blog/the-trike-that-almost-joined-the-circus.cfm?fbclid=IwAR3Qiy5URFjmW4IgqtAdt6c5BKJqPPSWdCnt48tf60bnKyELVd0gx66_04M

Wooden tricycles like this one predate the "steeds of steel" ridden by the club ladies in my Tales of Chetzemoka series.  See how many differences you can spot between the wooden tricycle and Addie's Cheylesmore tricycle, shown on the cover of Love Will Find A Wheel.

Scanned from a magazine in our private archive.  Please see terms of use below.

Get this image on a canvas bag
Get it on a mug

​Terms of use for images:
Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

Commercial use or publication of images: Please contact us about fees for commercial use and high-resolution images

​Love's Eloquence
In dreams of thee I feel the eloquence
That floods the souls of poets half divine;
Earth blooms anew, and music makes a sense
Of glorious pain, and thought gives warmth like wine.
Oh, to give this to language! to distil
With wizardry the heavenly vapor fleet
And in a word, a gem, a flower, at will,
Cast it in trembling passion at thy feet.
—Thomas Walsh, 1900

Get this on a card

​Get a book of beautiful Victorian love poetry, transcribed from 19th-century books and magazines in our private archive

From Appendix VI of A Trip and A Tumble, Book V in the Tales of Chetzemoka

Buy the Book on Amazon

" The Oldest Families
            Theresa's tongue-in-cheek comment about the Delarouxs being from one of the oldest families in Canada was inspired by a piece which appeared in the Victoria, B.C. newspaper The Daily British Colonist on December 17, 1884:
"From an Aboriginal Point of View
            Indian [woman] visiting her daughters at the Indian school— Who are those two girls you were playing with?
            Indian pupils— Their names are Edith and Ellie.  They are good little girls.
            "But they are white?"
            "Yes, ma."
            "Where do they come from?"
       "Edith is from Boston and Ellie is from Philadelphia."
            "Just as I supposed.  How often must I tell you never to associate with such folks?"
            "Why, ma, what is the matter with them?"
            "The idea of my children —my children— stooping to recognize such creatures!  Be more exclusive.  Remember that you belong to one of the old families."
            "But don't they, ma?"
            "Of course not.  They are mere foreigners, whose ancestors came over with Miles Standish and William Penn.""

A Trip and a Tumble:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
Buy the Book on Amazon

Two of the themes behind the story of A Trip and A Tumble, book V in The Tales of Chetzemoka, are the immense complexity between Puget Sound tribes, and the marriages that occurred between aboriginal women and early settlers.  The following excerpt is from A Trip And A Tumble's Appendix VI, which relates some of the historical background behind the story:

Buy the book on Amazon

"…One high-ranking woman born in 1846 who later married a white settler had a collection of titles which would put European royalty to shame: Tacee ("Little Bird"), Raven Phratry, frog emblem, Kiks-uddy clan, Tee-Hit-Ton family, Wrangell Tribe of the Tlingit Nation.  She was a niece of the powerful Tlingit chief Shakes, yet her high birth did not protect her from being captured into slavery by the Haida when she was a young girl.  Tacee was lucky to have family wealthy and powerful enough to pay her ransom and return her to her own people before she permanently lost her status.  However, for the rest of her life she remained terrified of the Haidas.  Traveling with her brother to Victoria by canoe, whenever she thought Haidas might be near she was so frightened she hid under blankets.  Sometime in the mid 1860's Tacee met a settler from Pennsylvania named John Reed and they were married by native custom (their official church marriage was in 1872.)  She lived with Reed in a comfortable home, but whenever her husband had to go away she would take their children and hide in a cave in a nearby rock cliff because she remained so afraid of Haida raiders.[1]

[1] Jones-Lamb, , Karen. Native American Wives of San Juan Settlers. Bryn Tirion Publishing, 1994, pp. 7—8.

A Trip and a Tumble:
A Victorian Cycling Club Story
On Amazon

Praise for A Trip And A Tumble:
"I love following these characters on adventures in the 1880s. Also love the historical footnotes at the end each book. Can't wait to read the next one!"
—Catherine Lash

Late 19th-century die-cut, scanned from an original in our private archive.

Get this on a card

Terms of use for images:
Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

Commercial use or publication of images: Please contact us about fees for commercial use and high-resolution images

Lilian and I
In a snowy cottage,
With no neighbors nigh,
Live in sweet seclusion
Lilian and I
With us dwells a beauteous
Spirit from above;
In our hearts he nestles,
And his name is—Love.
—Sanda Enos, 1877.
This poem appears in my anthology, Love's Messenger: A Choice Collection of Victorian Love Poetry 

An excerpt from Delivery Delayed​, Book IV in the Tales of Chetzemoka.

Buy the book on Amazon

"…It had taken years of awkward misunderstandings before he felt like he was even beginning to understand the complex diversity of all the different kinds of Indians who lived here —why some tribes were nervous around others, and why still other Indians looked virtually indistinguishable from whites.  When he'd first sailed to the islands on the northern sound he'd assumed the settlers' wives were immigrants like himself, but from the warmer countries of Europe —mail-order brides from Italy or Spain, perhaps, or even Greece or Hungary.  He'd praised their English fluency (so much better than his own), but they'd only seemed irritated by his compliments.  They'd been sincerely amused when he'd asked about their homelands.
            "I'm from here," they would always tell him.
            "But where were you born?" Isaac would persist.
            "Just a little north (or a little south) of here."
           Assuming his own poor English was failing him, he would try again.  "But —your people?  Where are your people from?"
            And the answer would always remain the same, although it lost a trifle of its patience after a while…"

Praise for Delivery Delayed:

"Reading this 4th book in Sarah Chrisman's Victorian Cycling Series is like welcoming old friends in for a visit. The research and attention to details Ms. Chrisman puts into each book makes reading them a delight and gives us a chance to glance into our Victorian ancestor's lives. Getting to know my dear friends better with each book as their personalities are revealed and new friends are introduced make this a sweet book to read, as unique as the era it is set in. I look forward to the next book!! Please keep writing your books, Ms. Chrisman, you have such a special talent!"
—USCG Mom

Buy the book on Amazon!

Love's Messenger
A Choice Collection of 
Victorian Love Poetry

Buy Love's Messenger
on Amazon

Get this on a bag

Image scanned from a magazine in our private archive.  

Terms of use for images:
Private individuals, personal use: Include a link to this website <www.ThisVictorianLife.com> when you re-post or share any pictures from our website, and you may do so free of charge.

Commercial use or publication of images: Please contact us about fees for commercial use and high-resolution images