How does she build community with other women travelers? 

 And when she can no longer travel, what happens then? 

 And always, always, the nagging fear: 

 ‘Will anyone care about these stories?’ 

 Will you?     

About the Author:  

Marion Orem lives in the southwest and has been hearing others’ voices for as long as she can remember. She’d like to hear yours. She’s learned that technical perfection is an endless quest – a quest that honors the voices of those who can no longer speak for themselves. 

 People communicate through digital technology today. I mean “… to give voice” and we mean to be heard.

free of a traditional mother’s expectations. Having few

demands made upon her as a daughter, she reciprocated with

no guilty feelings toward her mother. She also felt few qualms

about leaving a Christmas note in 1951: “By the time you read

this I will be married ….��?

Her mother’s reticence and need to keep close counsel shadows

Lovern to this day. “She was a strong woman, prone to speak

her mind …��? describes fairly both mother and daughter.

Lovern produces a wonderful photograph of a mother and

toddler striding down a Seattle street in 1937. The mother’s

progress is slowed by the toddler’s distraction at something

just beyond the camera’s range. Her mother’s ramrod straight

posture signals an early beacon for the daughter at her side.

“My strengths came from how I was raised …��? reinforces the

photograph’s cherished place on a bedroom wall. Still, whose

voice is it when Lovern speaks and whose eyes scrutinize what

she sees?

Asked what she admired most about her mother, Lovern

replies that it was her sense of humor. Once informed of a

neighbor’s dog, Betty Grable, Lovern’s quick inquiry echoes a

question her mother might have asked: “Does she have great

looking legs …?��?

No one is free of a mother’s influence. What role would that

influence play? Legacies beg to be explored because they are

who we are. Other voices need to be heard. Other daughters

need to be interviewed. Other legacies need to be shared.

Every mother’s influence shadows her daughter to this day.

Nancy Barnhart’s legacy is Lovern Root King. While Lovern

gratefully acknowledges her mother’s role, she resolutely cedes

little ground in her own contributions. Who among us can’t

respect that struggle?

I have always been fascinated by who people are, where

they come from and why they live on one side of the street

instead of the other.

That fascination led me to Lovern Root King. The photograph

led me to her mother, Nancy Barnhart. A passion for

communicating has guided me through a writing program

and has now propelled me into digital storytelling.

That passion comes from the authentic me. I want to meet other

daughters and ponder other photographs and record other

legacies.

Legacies provide opportunities for learning and while I am

an adequate whistler, Lovern has promised to teach me how

to spit.

Marion: In Women Who RV, Volume II, I plan to explore more deeply

an idea that surfaced in 1996 during my first interview with

Lovern King for my final writing assignment with the Long

Ridge Writers Group: to inspire others to speak for those

who canno longer speak for themselves.

Will that idea identify a source of strength for these women who RV?

Lovern: “I feel sorry for most women of my generation who never

learned to whistle or spit,��? resort park co-founder Lovern Root

King says firmly as one who did. Professor Emeritus of the

Evergreen State College Olympia, Washington, she was the one

daughter in a family with three sons.

Stylish silver hair graced by distinctive earrings, she speaks

in a voice made patient by life’s adversities. “I was the only girl

in our neighborhood and I learned my physical limitations at

a young age.��?

Her hazel eyes having pierced six decades, she remembers

a tomboy challenged by boyish play. She was left daily to her

own devices by a mother with other priorities. She now sees

her legacy of independence was nurtured by periods of being

alone. What impact would that legacy have for Lovern and

others who know her?

Every mother’s influence shadows her daughter to this day.

Early photos capture a shy child at the frame’s edge, a

stranger in a divorced father’s new family. Lovern spent her

youth being shuffled between family members who were preoccupied

with their own concerns.

“I learned to rely on myself and not depend on anyone else,

although I always wanted a big sister.��?

Settled comfortably on her patio, she shares her mother

Nancy Barnhart’s memory. “She was a strong woman, prone to

speak her mind. She discouraged friendly relations with neighbors

and divorced in an era when other women did not.��?

Lost in thought, eyes blinking at a distant vision, moments

pass before Lovern returns with a reluctant start.

Shifting slightly, she speaks in a quiet voice. “I lived a life

that, by today’s standards, would be considered deprived. But

my strengths came from how I was raised.��?

Those strengths were developed in a relationship outside

the cultural norm. She laughs, with a quick catch in her throat,

about the annual chore of choosing a Mother’s Day card.

The cultural ideal of a nurturing, caring mother—a daughter’s

inspiration—was not quite the sentiment required.

I made a commitment to pursue my “…to give voice” passion

on Memorial Day 1994. I enrolled in a writing program with this

final 1996 interview assignment with Lovern King done the old

fashioned way…pen and paper.

Association thanks to Laurie Fagen. No one there thinks I’m

crazy. They all just want to help.

My respect for the wisdom of “Ships are safe in the harbor,

but that’s not what ships are for …��? deepened as a result of my

ABPA membership.

The association’s members have taught me that I can live

safely along the shore. I just need to be in the right harbor.

Laurie has known about my “… to give voice��? commitment

Lyle Fagen.

Laurie: I’m Laurie Fagen and I’ve come to realize that mostly I’m

an entrepreneur.

I’m a writer, a fiber artist, an art gallery owner, a singer, and

a mother of a sixteen-year-old boy. I’m also a wife and have

been married for more than twenty years.

The stories that resonated most with me were Marion’s stories.

I’ve known her personally and professionally for thirteen

years. Over that time, I’ve watched her find her voice and her

place in this world.

She’s talked about wanting to make movies. I’m hopeful that

she’ll complete her goal of giving voice through storytelling by

including those important visuals to go along with the stories

only moving pictures can tell so well.

But you learn your storytelling skills first. She’s doing that

now. Once she’s accomplished that, I think those pictures will

certainly follow.

I would like to share a specific voice who can no longer speak

for herself. My paternal grandmother lived a full and happy

life until she was about 97. I hope I take after her.

She spoke volumes through her diaries. She kept them for

84 years. She was a farmer’s wife who raised two children. She

ran the farm for twenty years after my grandfather was killed

in a farming accident.

She lived on her own until she was 95 years old. I now have

most of her diaries. In fact, one of my long-term goals is to turn

them into a creative non-fiction book. I want to give voice to

her life story.

My grandmother’s name was Blanche Lyle Fagen. She was

just a dear person. She played piano. She sang.

One of her favorite quotes was by George Bernard Shaw. I

had the quote framed for her and I asked to have it back after

“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch

which I have got hold of for the moment. And I want to make

it shine as brightly as possible before handing it on to future

generations.��?

Just in closing, I think that life could be more fulfilling if

people could just do what they love to do. Be passionate about

what you love to do. Don’t take “No��? for an answer. Go around

that. There are a lot of crazy-makers in this world who are going

to tell you “No.��?

They are going to tell you, “No, that’s impossible. You can’t

do that.��? There’s that little editor sitting on your shoulder who

says, “What on earth are you thinking?��? You need to get past

that. Stick with the positive people in your life. Try everything

you can at least once.

Laurie recommended I join the Arizona Book Publishing

Association. Little did I know how critical that “community”

connection would become for my Women Who RV and a new 

audio CD and book I’m now  planning (working title):

“The Noble Art of the Printed Book through Social Media Publishing.”

Media Mike, as I call him, proved to be invaluable to this project

with a steady flow of technical advice and periodic “Here’s

how you do that!��? solutions.

Mike drew on his outdoor and RVing passion and on his

commitment to share that passion with his family, with his

friends, and with these Women Who RV voices.

represents the core of Mike’s passion.

Media Mike: My name is Michael Rosenberger and I am the Video

Production Coordinator here at Phoenix College in Phoenix,

Arizona.

Marion came to our office with questions about a technology

project she was developing. She wanted to capture audio

and video digital stories about women who RV. I immediately

saw her as a kindred spirit.

I have a big passion for technology, video production specifically.

I was an outdoor journalist at one time. I knew that

My interest in video and the outdoors came at a very early

age. There was a TV show called On the Open Road that was

interview people about the history of those places. It really had

a personal touch.

I saw a parallel between the two when I listened to what

Marion had captured about the Women Who RV.

invitations to other family and friends to get them out into the

RV community so they can enjoy the experience.

That was a very important part of what Marion was trying to

do. I hope other people will hear the stories, read the book, and

see that there is a community for people who have that same

type of adventurous spirit. For people who want to be out there

on the open road, this project provides a way to understand

that they could be part of that community as well.

“Media” Mike recorded his interview in video while I

decided to use the audio portion for the CD. Digital

storytelling is not for the faint of heart. Resources

like Mike make the journey professionally feasible.

Women Who RV journey. She and her staff offered a safe haven

Diana drew a telling link between the Women Who RV and

a note of joy and a hint of sadness.

Julia Cameron’s the Artist’s Way was a book Diana used to

that book to found Authentic Voices Productions.

Diana’s right. Life is about choices. the Artist’s Way offers

make the choices those dreams will require.

Diana: I’m Diana Hoyt and I’m president and founder of Heritage

Designs. I design fundraising software for non-profit organizations.

I’m a proponent of fundraising and the use of technology

for non-profits to help them to do a better job of raising money.

I’m a firm believer that non-profits weave the fibers that make

our communities stronger communities.

I had an opportunity to listen to the Women Who RV voices.

advice, independence and spunk. I truly hope that when I grow

up I am just like them.

I was also a little saddened. I wish my mom had done what

these ladies did. She would have been in her element. She was

so intelligent and such a forceful person. She raised five kids.

I would have loved for her to have met these women and to

have been a part of their lives. It would have been great for

them and for her.

Marion and I met a number of years ago. She was building

Authentic Voices Productions. I was developing Heritage

Designs. One of the things we discovered was that we had both

read the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. We don’t know of many

It was recommended to me by a professional coach. I did

what it said to do. I started journaling in the morning. I tried to

do some of the play activities. I wasn’t very successful at that.

I don’t play a lot.

The book really helped me and set me on a course of personal

growth. The book and its influence was something Marion

and I shared.

I hear people grumbling that life is so difficult, that life is so

hard. No, life is about choices. You may be going through

I’m going through an extremely challenging time with my

business growth right now. I can sit back and do nothing. Or,

I can get off my duff, as one of the Women Who RV voices said.

One of the things we learn as we grow older is that it really

is about choices. You can take action. You can do something.

Or, you can just let life roll over you—and it will—but I like

the challenge and I like the choice.

A sense of community can lead to shared dreams

and mutual support when you take the opportunity

to move beyond professional connections only.

there’s no community. Community is the thing that makes you

alive. Community is what enriches you. Your connection to the

outside world is where you become who you are.��?

Marion: The following five Kindred Spirits’ voices are my connection

Their interviews honor these Women Who RV voices. They

to inspire others to speak for those who can no longer speak

for themselves.

Marge Graver shared her experience and her support of this

project. To the casual observer, she was the last person likely

to drive away in an RV.

Chicago born, a south side Irish Catholic, and the oldest of

eight, she enjoyed a successful banking career before walking

who fit that profile, or one very much like it, who would ask:

“How did Marge do it?��?

She drew on the independence gifted to her by her mother,

Betty Connor Graver.

Marge: My name is Marge Graver. I was born and raised

development mainframe computers.

I was laid off in 1985 and decided I might as well

make a big change and move to Phoenix. Marion and

I were partners in a printing business. We sold the

business in 1993, bought a 34-foot Bounder motorhome,

and started a wholesale video business. We

traveled around the state of Arizona.

Marion: As you know, I always wanted to interview Betty Connor 

In fact, this project idea started with her. Do you think she

one of the reasons I was able to easily move from

Chicago to Phoenix.

Marge: She graduated from high school in 1935 and went

school. She shared a car with her two brothers in the

late 1930s. I think that’s probably very unusual for

the Depression. She apparently made good enough

money to do that.

Washington, D.C. but her father said “No.��? Now my

father didn’t tell me that when I came to Phoenix.

Marion: Your mother struck me as very independent. I always sensed 

was Betty Connor. How did her gift of independence get

I wanted to get away from Chicago and everybody

who always saw me as one thing or another.

This move was more of a freedom to be whatever I

wanted to be.

Marion: Do you think she saw a bit of Betty Connor in you when 

Marge: We never talked about that. I’m not sure she would

get up and go.

Marion: Did any of the voices you heard on Volume I resonate 

Marge: I have known each of them personally for fifteen

most. Her thoughts came from the heart. She was

very open and that’s the Ruth I know.

Marion: What is the one thing you wished you’d known before 

have stopped you?

makes a big difference. The other thing is to appreciate

the commitment to leveling in a parking space, to

hooking up to the gray and black water dumps and

then unhooking the RV. It wouldn’t have stopped

me however.

Marge: I’ve gone back and forth on that. I’m still working full

about being able to travel someplace for a month or

three months and just park and be there.

Marion: I want to thank you for your time and for allowing me to 

 Ruth’s thoughts on community linked these Kindred Spirit

between you and that move and the RV people you’re

we still don’t, but we keep going. The business was

in printing. It was a distributorship and it was part

of a franchise.

One of my printers had a sign in his office window.

It was one of those laser wood things, a 19th century

ship, in full sail, and underneath it said,

“Ships are safe in the harbor, but that’s not what

ships are for.��?

If there’s one point that helped me understand

why I finally had to get out of corporate America,

it’s that I was safe in corporate Chicago, but that’s

not my remaining life’s work.

I had it all and it came to mean absolutely nothing.

I wanted to move; I wanted to live out West. I’d

always wanted to live out West and now I do. I had

to leave corporate America in order to survive.

Sally: It’s a nice cap on this interview: the piece about a ship in 

That analogy to your own life’s work: If you just follow the

‘What the heck are you doing?’ The only thing

that keeps me going is: ‘You could stop. And then

what? That’s not what you’re meant to do.’

Many people live their lives safe along the shore.

There’s nothing wrong with that way of living. I just

can’t do that.

Other people think, ‘Well, you’re just wild-eyed

radicals, you entrepreneurs.’ No, we’re not. We’ll do

our homework, we’ll do our research, and there’s a

point where we’ll accept the fact that you really can’t

see the future. The only way to get there is to go.

Otherwise, you live today and you don’t leave the

shore when you’re capable of leaving it. You either

don’t leave the shore, or you live out on the ship. It

would be nice to come into shore once in a while.

It’s not about Marion; it’s not about Authentic

Voices Productions. It’s about getting the stories. If we

don’t get our own stories, no one else is going to.

Sally does a professional interview wrap-up here

by linking her closing questions back to the opening

“…fear” that I face every day. A fear my Mother would

have respected.  

them—a strength they may not see themselves.

Sally: They are unique. 

brings us back to your mom, of course. And in one of your

she was strong. She was a military wife.

It was my mother who put us on a train and took

us out from Tennessee to New York City to get on

a ship. We went down the East Coast through the

Panama Canal up to San Francisco, where we picked

up the rest of the military families and sailed to

days. She loved it. She was a very strong woman.

Marion: Yes. She was a role model and she loved me unconditionally.

But it’s the feeling and the empathy about me that

people react to that I think comes from my mother.

If you view that as a strength—and I guess you

would—yes, then definitely.

Sally: Talk about how all that personal history had an impact on 

Marion: The community of RVing women taught me what

you have absolutely no sense of ethnic groups. I say

this to people all the time and they laugh at me, but

it’s true. I have to be told, “That person‘s Jewish, that

person’s Polish, that person’s Italian.��?

Marion: As if it should matter, but to some people it does.

richness—I don’t have that in my background.

So when I got into the RV world, I realized there’s

a community there. Ruth Silver talks about that in her

interview and she has a lot more experience. I began

to realize, ‘You know, I’m missing something. I’m not

part of something.’ Out here in Phoenix that’s one

of the major negatives; everybody lives behind their

walls and they’re all from some other place.

So the sense of community became critical to me.

But ironically enough, the community for me came

back to the RV world. I couldn’t let those stories go.

There was a need for the audio and book to include a

Narrator’s role that connected these Women Who RV

voices. Sally’s interview with me was one of the last things

she had to finish before she and Jan hit the rving road.

life with a lot of community around you to then being

alone was a difficult one for me. We come into this

earth alone and we go out alone.

I was now by myself and became Ruth Silver.

That’s when I realized that I do function and that

there are people aware of who I am and what my

contribution to the community has been.

That was my rebirth and it freed me to become a

different person somehow, and that’s a very difficult

thing for me to explain.

To be not a different person, but to be the same

person and have all that wonderment of what has

happened in the past. I’m still in the transition and I’m

still in the process. There is something that lies ahead

for me. I have no idea what it is, but I am free.

There was a kind of freedom that was different

from graduating, different from being divorced, different

from leaving a mate. It was a very different

sense of identity. One that was quite different from

being alone in the world and being fearful: “Oh my,

I’m by myself.��?

That was not my sense of being alone and being

free. My sense of being alone and being free was like

taking a deep breath for the first time.

It’s hard to pick up when that feeling was almost

a spiritual experience. I realized I was not religious.

I was a very spiritual human being. I knew that

there was great depth to my being. I was aware that

it didn’t matter what ritual I preferred. You come

alive regardless and you awaken some inner being

that we all have but are not able to touch.

I felt very aware and very awake. I didn’t feel like

I was a different person. I felt like I was a rekindled

person. I became more aware of who I really was.

I seem to be going off on all kinds of tracks here.

you got me thinking. I feel that I’m very much

awake and alive at this point in my life.

It’s because I’m aware and awake and rekindled

and concerned. I know it’s not forever. I also know

there will be an end. I don’t know how the end will

be, but it’s going to be a good time.

We cannot be alone. You have to relate to

something, someone, some place, somehow. And if

you have no sense of relatedness, there’s no community.

Community is the thing that makes you

alive. Community is what enriches you. Your connection

to the outside world is where you become who you are.

Ruth’s voice and comments were THE key catalysts

to produce both an audio and book version of these

Women Who RV interviews. “We cannot be alone…”

gracefully guided this effort to a far more universal

voice for all listeners and readers.