Did you know that at one time one-third of Idaho’s population was Chinese? This was at a time when the railroad connecting the country had been completed and the population of Idaho swelled with mostly men seeking gold. They were desperate to make a fortune in hard times and then anxious to leave Idaho with their pockets and packs loaded with gold nuggets and dust. The Chinese, imported in huge numbers to work on the railroad, stayed in Melica to seek gold for themselves, although they often ended up as slave labor in mineral processing. Many of those men who became miners turned on the Chinese and forced them away from the riches perceived to be found. The white miners passed laws forbidding Chinese to lay claims, to pan for gold, to compete.

Massacres of Chinese bloodied the rivers and woods of Idaho in the 1880s and 1890s. Celestials, as they were sometimes labeled, opened restaurants and laundries, and for a while were tolerated. Then Anti-Chinese Immigration Laws passed in 1882, added to and then extended for decades, forbid Chinese to come to the United States and to own property. Groups of white men and women tried to force the restaurant owners and laundry workers out of the towns where they had settled. Many left Idaho and went to the West Coast where Chinese were accepted, although reluctantly. Others did not, saying they would not leave until they were paid.

MOON BONES tells the story of several people who were Chinese in origin and who lived in central Idaho. This story is entirely fiction but is based on stories told in books, in a local historian’s research, found in archives in the Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho, and in mining ghost towns remaining in central Idaho.

The usual cast of characters of this series of books set in the 1920s in Idaho includes photographer Nellie Burns, her black Lab dog Moonshine, Sheriff Charlie Azgo, retired miner Rosy Kipling, Sammy Ah Kee and his mother, Mrs. Ah Kee, and landlady Goldie Bock. The ritual of sending bones from the Chinese back to China for burial, practiced for many years in the U.S., underlies some of the currents in the “Chinatown”s of Central Idaho. Other Chinese come and go, as do several nefarious characters anxious to find gold themselves.

The death of a Chinese laundryman leads to Vienna, a ghost town in the Stanley Basin. Sammy, accused of the murder, and Nellie explore the mine entrance and unearth a secret cache. Mayhem and murder follow the individuals who become embroiled in the investigation. Sheepherder Alphonso, first met in an earlier book, tends sheep near Vienna and helps save one of the wounded. Greed and evil lurk once again in this Western landscape.

Book News:

MINERS’ MOON, a Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery, set in north Idaho, is a Finalist in the Will Rogers Medallion Award! Final results come out October 29, 2022.

MOON BONES, a Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery, set back in central Idaho in Ketchum and Stanley and the ghosttown of Vienna, will be published October 5, in hard cover, paperback and ebook! Check your local bookstore and/or order from Encircle Publications, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound! www.julieweston.com 

My first three books, MOONSHADOWS, BASQUE MOON, AND MOONSCAPE are now all available in paperback and ebooks from Encircle Publications and the usual bookstores and on-line locations!

Recommended Books:

American Baby by Gabrielle Glaser – An in-depth story of unwed mothers in the 1950s-1970s, forced adoptions, orphanages and agencies.

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez – a posthumous collection of essays

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett – a collection of essays

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark – a lifetime of friendship on the coast of Maine between two women

Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman – a Bernadette Manuelito and Jim Chee mystery

Ghost town photographs from Gerry Morrison. Chinese photographs are from the Ketchum Community Library.