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Wednesday, December 10, 2020
GO! magazine — A&E in Northeast Oregon
Adventures of ‘A Wallowa Gal’
■ Katherine Stickroth has turned her newspaper columns into a book
By Lisa Britton
EO Media Group
JOSEPH — Katherine Stickroth calls
herself “A Wallowa Gal,” and her book
of the same name is dedicated to all the
Wallowa gals who inspired her.
“I wanted to give Wallowa County a
gift,” she said of her book. “Something
they can hold in their hands.”
Stickroth compiled columns that were
originally printed in The Observer and
Wallowa County Chieftain from 2015 to
2019.
“A Wallowa Gal” is available at local
bookstores and at Amazon. It is $15.
Stickroth was born in Washington,
D.C., and moved to Mississippi when she
was 11.
She was a city girl.
“We’re talking urban, urban, urban,”
she said.
It was her second husband, Richard,
who got her thinking about moving to
Oregon.
Well, kind of.
Richard, a Vietnam veteran, was from
Oregon.
“Throughout our marriage, he wanted
to move back to Oregon,” Stickroth said.
She did not.
But she agreed to a vacation in October
2007. She planned it, and their destina-
tion was Joseph.
After that visit, she changed her mind
about Oregon and told Richard “we can
move to Oregon if we come here.”
But tragedy struck before they could
fulfi ll that plan. Richard was diagnosed
with cancer in 2008 and died in 2009.
“I really fl oundered after losing him,”
she said.
Several years later, Stickroth reas-
sessed her life. Her children were busy
with their own lives, and she didn’t want
to be, in her words, a “Mom on the Shelf.”
And she considers herself “an old Girl
Scout.”
“I said, ‘I think I have another adven-
ture in me,’ ” she said.
In October 2013 she visited Joseph, and
moved there in January 2014.
Katherine Stickroth
most response, though, were ones about
Vietnam veterans, like her husband.
She said these adventures and subse-
quent writing helped her grieve the loss
of Richard.
“I really had not grieved,” she said. “I’d
gotten through, but I hadn’t grieved.”
There is a reason she chose the cover
art of a solitary woman at Wallowa Lake.
— a place she found herself quite often.
“The landscape played a huge part in
settling me down, like a friend to me,” she
said. “It changed me life, quite frankly, to
be there.”
Stickroth is a former board member of
Fishtrap, a literary organization based
in Enterprise. She also served as public
relations director of the Wallowa County
Fly-In and as editor of “Wallowa County
History: A Continuation.”
It was a change from Mississippi, for
sure.
“That’s really what prompted me to
write the column,” she said. “I felt like I’d
landed on another planet.”
As she began exploring her new home,
Stickroth began writing col-
umns that were published in
fi rst The Observer, then the
Wallowa County Chieftain.
We are open by appointment only. Please call
“I would get into the fun-
our office at 541.963.7226 in order to set
niest situations and thought,
‘I’ve got to share these
up a time to meet with an advocate.
stories,’ ” she said.
Our hours are Mon-Thur 8-4 pm
She quickly learned to ask
Fri 9-2:30 pm
for help.
“I am not embarrassed to
say I don’t know something.
I wasn’t always like that,”
she said.
She moved to Joseph in
winter, when life is a bit
slower. Once May came, she
said everyone disappeared
into their work.
She fi nally understood the
meaning of the adage “make
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long days.
As she explored the
Access with
area, she started writing.
your Baker County Library Card
Her topics are varied, from
from www.bakerlib.org/kids-teens
humorous stories to tales of
her dog.
Explore the ONLINE LIBRARY at www.bakerlib.org
541.523.6419
info@bakerlib.org
Columns that elicited the
Shelter from the Storm