The Huckleberry Letters

About the Book

The Huckleberry Letters is a story that is told in the letters that two people wrote to each other after they met while “huckleberrying” in eastern Oregon.  In the summer of 1880 a young man, Cash Mallory, traveled with a friend to Union, Oregon to visit his sister.  While there he joined a group of young people to go into the nearby hills to pick huckleberries and he met Mary Davis, a local school teacher.  After Cash returned to his home in Heppner, Oregon, where he ran a drug store, he wrote a letter to Mary.  She responded.

Over the next twelve months Cash and Mary corresponded by mail that was delivered by stagecoach, the only way they had to keep in touch.  From these words on paper there developed a friendship which grew into love and was culminated in their marriage in  September 1881.

There are more than eighty letters that comprise the book.  They tell of the people and activities that existed for this couple as well as of their interest in each other.  There are also descriptions of the country in which they lived during this time.

This unique collection allows the reader to see a view of the past  through the words of two individuals and to share the hopes, troubles and happiness that filled their lives long ago.

About the Author

Catheryn Park, the editor of the Huckleberry Letters is a retired school psychologist who lives in Walnut Creek, California. She grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in the small, rural town in which Mary and Cash Mallory, her great aunt and uncle, settled after their move from Oregon in 1891. The letters that Cash and Mary wrote to each other more than a hundred years ago were passed down to Ms. Park with other family memorabilia. The decision to compile these letters into a book was made when it was realized that they contained, not only a love story, but descriptions of the people and culture that filled the world of this couple for a year of their lives.