4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL April 8, 2015
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History
Legendary Oregon ‘authoress’ started with
poetry, dime novels
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
I
n January of 1865, a poised,
attractive 39-year-old woman
stood on the doorstep of Oregon
legal legend Matthew Deady.
She had come to ask his advice
about a new project, which she’d
decided to take on. She had, she
told him, just arrived in Portland
and already had agreed to write a
defi nitive history of the new state,
and she’d heard his personal li-
brary praised to the skies; would
he be willing to let her see it?
No, he would not.
“[Oregon has] suffered enough
at the hands of itinerant scrib-
blers,” he told her gruffl y.
The woman was shocked and
probably a bit incensed at this
reception. Defensively, she re-
torted that she “could not see how
knowledge of a country was to be
obtained without itinerancy.” She
was, she added, a correspondent
for the San Francisco Evening
Bulletin and had already fi led sev-
eral stories about her explorations
around Portland.
But Deady’s attitude had
changed the instant the woman
mentioned the Evening Bulletin.
She later learned that a few weeks
before, another woman had come
around Portland soliciting funds
for a similar project — the 1800s
equivalent of a Kickstarter cam-
paign — and subsequently disap-
peared with the proceeds. As soon
as Deady realized his new visi-
tor was a legitimate, credentialed
journalist, the walls came down.
“The interview ended by a cor-
dial permission to use his library
as if it were my own, and from that
day until his death Judge Deady
was the staunchest and most help-
ful of my Oregon friends,” she
later wrote.
The woman on Deady’s porch
that day was just setting out on a
project that would make her argu-
ably the most infl uential Oregon
writer of the 19th century. Her
name was Frances Fuller Victor.
Frances Fuller was born in 1826
in New York and raised in Ohio.
There, she and her sister Metta
started writing and publishing po-
etry — fi rst in local newspapers
and later in the New York Home
Journal. By age 24, she was in De-
troit as editor of her own magazine
— no mean feat for a member of
“the fair sex” in the Victorian age.
She married a man named Jack-
son Barritt when she was 27 and
quit the literary scene so that the
two of them could try to prove up a
land claim near Omaha. But three
years later, Barritt had abandoned
both his land claim and his new
wife. So Frances returned to live
with Metta in New York, ready to
get back into writing.
There, she started writing dime
novels — the mid-1850s equiva-
lent of pulp fi ction. These were
short 100-page novellas printed
on cheap pulpwood paper with
bright yellow or orange covers.
She wrote at least three of them:
“Anizetta, the Guajira; or, The
Creole of Cuba”; “East and West;
or, The Beauty of Willard’s Mill”
and “The Land Claim: A Tale of
the Upper Missouri.” She wrote
them under her married name:
Mrs. Frances Barritt.
The American Civil War broke
out while she was doing this. By
that time, she hadn’t seen Mr. Bar-
ritt in three years, and she’d fallen
in love with the brother of Metta’s
husband, a Naval engineer named
Orville Victor. So in April of 1862,
she took legal steps to end her mar-
riage (sources differ on whether it
was a divorce or an annulment, but
because she was not Catholic, an-
nulment seems improbable). The
very next month, she and Victor
were wed. The haste with which
they moved was most likely be-
cause of Henry’s responsibilities
to the Navy; he was about to be
transferred to San Francisco, and
she wanted to go with him.
And so she did. But naturally,
once there, Frances wasn’t about
to stop writing. Soon her witty
columns were regularly appear-
ing in the San Francisco Evening
Bulletin and her short stories were
gracing the city’s leading literary
magazine, the Golden Era. She
wrote under the pseudonym “Flor-
ence Fane.”
Frances loved San Francisco.
But when Henry retired from the
Navy due to a medical condition,
he decided Oregon was the place
for him; from afar, he had devel-
oped a sort of romantic obsession
for the Beaver State. And so, to the
great dismay of his oft-neglected
wife, he went there, dragging her
along.
“[Henry is] a sort of shooting-
star on his own account,” she once
wrote, in what one has to assume
was one of her more charitable (or
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
No on vehicle fee
You may remember the election of
May 15, 2007. There was a stupid mea-
sure 20-129 Lane County Income Tax
that was soundly defeated 71.10 to 28.90
percent. Clearly these Eugene folks have
not learned a basic lesson. Now they are
trying a different trick. NO!
NO - I will vote NO on 20-whatever-
it-is on this $35 surcharge for a motorcar
registration surcharge. Here is the reason
why:
Let us say that someone from Drain
or Curtin drives here to purchase gro-
ceries or whatever. They live in Douglas
County and would NOT have to pay this
proposed tax. Is this fair?
If these Lane County Commissioners
have any sense in their heads, then they
should use their cherished connections to
their friends in the Oregon State Legisla-
ture and pass a statewide bill, subject to
the approval of the voters.
Charles Ames
Cottage Grove
Three times sad
Why I am three times sad:
Death stole two of my best friends this
year, and I am two times sad.
A third friend was stolen this month by
mean persons while guarding my back
door. This makes me three times sad.
This stolen friend of 40 years was
carved from wood in the shape of a log-
ger and was a gift from my husband and
sons.
Whoever stole him, please honor him,
because he was faithful.
Sharon Bennett
Cottage Grove
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 5A
Do certain foods really cause acne?
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
in the Western world experience
acne during their teenage years,
but it can occur at any age. Acne
is more than just a few inconve-
nient or embarrassing pimples
– it can leave permanent scars,
and in many people, acne (even
if it is not severe) can seriously
affect quality of life, causing
low self-esteem, withdrawal
from social situations, anxiety
and depression.
A
cne
i s
the
most
common
skin condi-
tion in the
U.S. About
85 percent
of people
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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What causes acne?
There are four major com-
ponents of acne: excessive
production of oil by the skin,
skin cells dividing excessively
(hyperproliferation), bacteria
and infl ammation. A pimple or
lesion forms when a pore in the
skin begins to clog with old,
dead skin cells. Usually these
cells are simply shed from the
surface of the skin, but if too
much oil is being produced, the
dead cells can stick together and
become trapped inside the pore.
Bacteria also play a role – they
can grow and multiply inside
the pore, resulting in an infl am-
matory response.
How does what we eat affect
acne?
For years doctors have wrong-
ly proclaimed that diet has noth-
ing to do with acne. Scientifi c
studies have demonstrated that
diet is extremely important,
because what we eat can affect
the hormones that contribute to
the oil production, hyperprolif-
eration and infl ammation that
cause acne. The acne-promot-
ing dietary factors that have
been most extensively studied
are dairy products and high gly-
cemic load foods – these factors
infl uence hormonal and infl am-
matory factors increasing acne
prevalence and severity.
IGF-1: an important hor-
mone that infl uences acne
Insulin-like growth factor 1
(IGF-1) levels are a key con-
tributor to acne. Elevated IGF-1
levels lead to changes in gene
expression that cause infl am-
mation, additional hormonal
changes, increased oil produc-
tion and development of acne
lesions. Protein intake is the
major factor that determines cir-
culating IGF-1 levels, especially
protein from dairy products.
Dairy products
A three-year prospective
study of 9-15 year old girls
found a 20 percent increase in
acne prevalence in girls that had
two or more servings of milk per
day compared to less than one
per week. This association held
true for total, whole, low fat and
skim milk. The same research-
ers found a similar association
in boys who drank skim milk
(milk highest in protein). Fur-
thermore, in the Nurses’ Health
Study, dairy products eaten dur-
ing high school were associated
with acne during women’s teen-
age years.
High glycemic load foods
Glycemic load (GL) is a mea-
sure of the effect of a certain
food on blood glucose levels.
High-GL foods like refi ned car-
bohydrates produce dangerous
spikes in blood glucose, lead-
ing to excessive insulin levels
in the blood (hyperinsulinemia),
which contribute to diabetes,
heart disease and several can-
cers. Hyperinsulinemia not only
promotes infl ammation but also
raises IGF-1 levels, further con-
tributing to acne. A low glyce-
mic load diet has been shown
to improve acne symptoms and
decrease IGF-1 and skin oil pro-
duction in several studies.
Protective micronutrients
Blood levels of zinc, carot-
enoids and Vitamin E are known
to be lower in acne patients
compared to those without acne,
suggesting that maintaining mi-
cronutrient adequacy may help
to prevent acne. Carotenoids
are abundant in green and or-
ange vegetables, and vitamin E
is abundant in nuts and seeds.
Although pumpkin seeds and
hemp seeds are rich in zinc, zinc
absorption effi ciency may be
low on a plant-based diet, so I
recommend a multivitamin and
mineral supplement to assure
optimal levels of zinc, iodine,
Vitamin D and B12. I recom-
mend reading my book, Super
Immunity for those desiring
more specifi c guidelines, menus
and recipes to beat acne.
Dr. Fuhrman is the #1 New
York Times bestselling author
of Eat to Live and Super Im-
munity, and a board certifi ed
family physician specializing
in lifestyle and nutritional
medicine.Visit his informative
website at DrFuhrman.com.
Submit your questions and
comments about this column
directly to newsquestions@
drfuhrman.com.
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