Mack Writers

Nellie the Writer

Nellie Forrest was born in 1911 in Washington State. When she was five, she and her family traveled to California in a covered wagon. They found a home on Strawberry Creek in an abandoned logging camp. The trains still rumbled by, heading for new log landings in the virgin redwood forest.

Nellie attended Dow's Prairie School, and her academic career ended before she mastered the written language. Her spelling was atrocious. If she had lived in the computer age, her spell-checker would have smoked! In later years, when modern life had an abundance of food and a freezer to put it in, her family often opened the freezer to see packages labeled STAKE, CARATS, or STOO.

Nellie's letters to her nieces were treasured. Punctuation marks were a real problem (for the nieces). Nellie sometimes signed her name, then scattered an assortment of punctuation marks at the bottom of the page for their convenience.

My backyard is a refuge, a sanctuary for me, my family, my friends, and especially for birds. The yard is spacious yet not too large, with a sequoia, several coast redwoods, a rose garden, many rhododendrons, a camellia, lilacs, hedges, borders, azaleas - and birds: wrens, chickadees, juncos, varieties of finches, jays, an occasional hawk, ravens, blackbirds, sparrows, hummingbirds - all with their own season. You get the picture: a place to relax and enjoy nature.