WHERE LILACS STILL BLOOM

After 26 years living on Starvation Lane on a remote ranch in Oregon, Jane Kirkpatrick and her husband, Jerry, moved back to Bend, Oregon where they’d lived years before. Two dogs and a formerly outdoor cat made the transition well as they begin a new life next to a lily pond instead of the John Day River. Where Lilacs Still Bloom is Jane’s twenty-second book, her nineteenth novel. She has two lilacs from Hulda Klager’s garden.

Praise for Jane Kirkpatrick

“Jane Kirkpatrick is a wonderful writer who creates a story full of strong, admirable characters with human flaws. Clara and Helga come to life with dimension and depth, pulling us into their world. I walked across the country with them, experienced their triumph and disappointment, and faced the shattered, angry family when they returned. Jane has given readers a wonderful story of a family schism that comes full circle to love and grace, and of the importance of family, especially when one has been an outcast. I highly recommend The Daughter’s Walk!”—Francine Rivers, best-selling author

“Jane Kirkpatrick’s attention to detail and ability to craft living, breathing characters immerses the reader into her story world. I come away entranced, enlightened, and enriched after losing myself in one of her novels.”—Kim Vogel Sawyer, best-selling author of My Heart Remembers

” ‘Life is really made of the settings, props, and poses we encounter, then put aside so we can cherish family and faith,’ writes Jane Kirkpatrick in An Absence So Great. Jane embraces the finest qualities of the human spirit in all her writing, including this absorbing story of an early twentieth-century photographer, based on the life of her own grandmother. In An Absence So Great, Jane’s readers—and I am one of her most faithful—will be swept up in Jessie Gaebele’s struggle for independence against a backdrop of prejudice and forbidden love, beautifully written by one of America’s favorite storytellers.”—Sandra Dallas, author of Prayers for Sale

“Jane Kirkpatrick has written a gentle and captivating account of people caught between reality and desire, taken from her own ancestry. Her depiction of photography during the early 1900s is fascinating. It filled my senses like delicious aromas permeate a home during the holidays.”—Cindy Woodsmall, best-selling author of The Hope of Refuge and the Sisters of the Quilt series

What was Hulda Klager’s first love?  Family?  Flowers? Faith? The challenges of cross-breeding? Hulda’s father urges her to be faithful to her gift.  Did Hulda have a gift or a calling or were her interests and abilities merely passions that she pursued?  

What do you think about Hulda’s father’s comment: “Some would say — and Frank might be one — that meddling with nature isn’t wise especially from a mother who should be content with looking after her family.“  Was her father right? Was Hulda “meddling” with creation? Should a mother be content with raising her family?   

In the front matter, poet David Whyte is quoted: “I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness/and what we feel we are worthy of in this world.” Do you have a passion/gift/calling that you have yet to pursue?  What barriers stand in your way?  Do the voices suggesting that you are not worthy of that dream speak more loudly than you’d like? Was Hulda lonely in her pursuit? Did she feel she was worthy of the joy of accomplishment?

Hulda comments on the consequences of progress: The electric lighting at the exposition that faded the stars; her objection to indoor plumbing,; the impact of steamships docking and ruining the river banks.  Yet she sent her children away to pursue their education, celebrated the work of Luther Burbank making changes in food production, worked to have a crisper, bigger apple and 254 individual varieties of lilacs.  How do you account for these contradictions in Hulda’s character? Did they make her more human or more difficult to understand? 

Suffering and its consequences and causes was a theme in this book.  How did Hulda come to terms with the losses her family endured? Do you think that suffering can be a consequence of pursuing a dream?  What role did Hulda’s garden play in helping her deal with life’s trials?  

Barney Reed challenges Hulda’s work and points out the tragedies in her life.  She says “It did trouble me that so powerful a God would let bad things happen. And I often did learn something when a tragedy struck. But did I have to suffer to learn the lesson?”  How would you answer Hulda’s questioning? Does she eventually answer her own question?  What did you think of her resolution?

Do you agree with Hulda when she tells her sister: “Beauty matters…God gave us flowers for a reason  I think so we’d pay attention to the details of creation and remember to trust him in all things big or little no matter what the challenge. Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that and for a moment have a piece of paradise right here on earth.” 

What role did the characters of Jasmine, Nelia, Ruth, Shelly and Cornelia play in this story? Could Hulda’s story have been told without them? 

Where did Hulda draw her strength from to keep going after the deaths of so many in her life?  After the flood?  Where do you draw your strength from? Are there ways Hulda (and you) enhanced those tools do better face an uncertain future?

Dr. Karl Menninger once wrote that the single most important indicator of a person’s mental health was generosity. Who was generous in this story?  How did generosity bring healing to people of Hulda’s world?

Did Hulda pay a price for her passion?  Would she say that the price was worth it?  Do you think it was?  Why or why not.