Washington frontier life subject of museum lecture

MOSES LAKE — The author of a new book about his family’s ups and downs on the Pacific Northwest frontier will talk about tracking down their story in a lecture at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.

John W. Lawton will discuss his new book “North Western Journeys.” Admission is free.

Lawton exhibited some of his photographs at the museum in 2015, said museum director Freya Liggett.

In his book Lawton uses letters, diaries, oral histories and photographs to help his ancestors tell their story. He followed his family back to its roots in the American colonies – the first family member arrived in Massachusetts in 1635. “I went coast to coast doing research,” Lawton wrote.

Over the centuries the family went west – sticking to the northern part of the country, hence the title. “Succeeding generations followed the forest cutting,” according to a press release from the museum. Near the end of the 19th century Will and Irene Lawson were living in Wisconsin, where the timber industry was starting to encounter turbulence.

In 1890 Will and Irene headed west to Spokane, which had been incorporated as a town less than a decade earlier. As Lawton researched his family “I learned the story of my grandfather, who died 28 years before I was born and who I knew very little about,” he wrote. “I also learned the story of how Spokane was settled after the (Northern Pacific) Railroad was completed.”

Will and Irene Lawton bought a home in Spokane, started a business. But Will Lawton wanted his own place.

“They homesteaded 25 miles west of Spokane at Fishtrap,” John Lawton wrote, starting a farm and their own business. But it didn’t last – it was tough to make a living out there in the sagebrush. “The story illustrates the failure of homesteading in the drylands and Scablands from North Dakota to eastern Washington, when tens of thousands moved in and then out in just a few decades.”

It was a big family, “multi-generational and closely knit,” the press release said. “But by 1920 the family had scattered due to untimely deaths and the failure of homesteading,”

Lawton said his father Walter had to drop out of school and spent three years herding sheep in the Idaho mountains. Walter “went back to high school at age 18 and graduated at age 20. He was a respected football player (they didn’t have the same eligibility rules then) and participated in school activities.”

He learned a lot of history, he said. “As for myself I came to a much greater understanding of my father and the influences that shaped his life.”

Lawton is a native of Yakima; he was a city manager in Great Falls, Mont., and assistant administrator in Billings. He will be signing copies of his book after the lecture.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.