The Followers built their own separate, utterly isolated cultural and economic community within Oregon City and its environs. This was known around town but never became an issue because the Followers were totally apolitical and went about their work and religion in relative quiet. The men worked blue collar trades and the women stayed at home, raised the children, and expertly practiced the domestic arts. Almost none went to college. The Followers had their own Follower plumber, contractor, roofer, electrician, hardware store, grocery store, auto repair shop, etc. They even had their own cemetery, in Carus, ten or so miles outside of Oregon City. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course they had their own\nchurch. Everything came back to their church. You didn’t go against\nthe church. If you transgressed, you got shunned. I have no idea what\namounted to a transgression back then or today. There’s a whole book\non that subject alone but shunned people typically don’t write books.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course there were closeted rebels\nwithin the church, but they weren’t organized in cells or part of any\nmovement. My older sister befriended one in high school, in the drama\nprogram. He was a Kisser and who wanted to be an actor, an avocation\nor profession inconceivable in the church. You poured concrete and\nsewed clothes. You fathered children and bore children. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never met a single secret Kisser\nrebel in grade school or junior high, but I secretly longed to. In\nhigh school, one of the girls somehow ended up on our newspaper\nstaff, sold ads, and that was it. No writing at all. She was\ngorgeous, smart, sexy and mysterious and probably was being the\nperson she always wanted to be\u2014at least for 45 minutes a day, five\ndays a week, and eight months out of one year. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Followers spent their money within\nthemselves. They socialized only with each other. They exclusively\nmarried within their community, cousins and all that. A vast majority\nof their last names were Crone, Dotsun, Edwards, Hickman, Eels, Smith\nand White. They were all related to one another in some way. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I look back on it now, I find it\nincredible that the Followers didn’t create their own private school\nsystem right out of the church, particularly when so many other\nChristian sects did exactly that in the 80s and 90s. But they never\ndid. They sent their children to Oregon City public schools for the\nbarest minimum of legally mandated education and then the children\ngot the hell out. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the Followers didn’t believe in\ndoctors, I don’t know how their children attended school without\nimmunizations back then. Perhaps there were religious exemptions in\nthose days (are there now?). This is all very interesting to pursue,\nbut I don’t want to pursue it. It’s not the Story<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Note to reader:\nIt is my wish that the reader will support the idea that Pioneer\nPride<\/em> is a \u201cbook.\u201d It is also my wish that the reader\nconsider \u201cbuying\u201d the book as it rolls out in installments. A\npurchase supports an author and future literary endeavors by Nestucca\nSpit Press. To purchase, look to the right on the blog to use Paypal\nor contact me to make other arrangements.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Followers built their own separate, utterly isolated cultural and economic community within Oregon City and its environs. This was known around town but never became an issue because the Followers were totally apolitical and went about their work and religion in relative quiet. The men worked blue collar trades and the women stayed at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,942],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-city","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5940,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5938\/revisions\/5940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}