Rediscovered a Gem

Honore' Willsie Morrow (On to Oregon)

As a child, I had an appreciation for the Little House books. The stories of independence and living in the areas of the country that were undeveloped were inspiring.  My father has a love of western novels, which he calls "cowboy books", and I was exposed to many western movies growing up.  In 1974, I saw a movie that cemented my love of the west, "Seven Alone".  It was the "disneyized" adaption of the book "On to Oregon" by Honore' Willsie Morrow. The book is the true story of the real-life adventures of the Sager family. The parents die along the way and the seven children, led by the eldest child John, make their way along the Oregon Trail to their final destination in Oregon.

For years, I have been trying to remember the title of the movie "Seven Alone". I asked others if they remembered it and while it sounded familiar to some, none could remember the title either. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a segment on Studio 5 that had to do with your teen crush. One of the people interviewed said "Stewart Petersen" and his photo flashed onscreen.  She described him as the kid from "Where the Red Fern Grows" but I knew he was from the movie I was trying to identify. I used IMDB to find him which linked me to the movie.

Now that I had the name of the movie, I was able to find the book and the author's name.  I am a Kindle owner so I searched Amazon's Kindle database.  "On to Oregon" is not available in a Kindle version.  This was surprising to me as Google searches yielded many websites that indicated to me the book is popular in some of the Christian homeschooling curriculum programs. I was, however, able to find another book by the author, "The Forbidden Trail", which I downloaded. On the next trip to the library, I am definitely going to see if there is a copy of "On to Oregon" available for borrowing.