Interview with Janine Turner

WOF:
Was writing a book something you’d always wanted to do, or was this more of a serendipitous opportunity?

JANINE:
I’ve always loved to write. Writing is one of my hobbies; I had a great appreciation for it in school. So when I got the opportunity to do this I was thrilled.

At first it was going to be a book about being a single mother. I always thought it was a modern-day phenomenon because so much of it goes on today. Then I was doing research, found these women, and said, “Wait a minute, look at these” as I was doing my pitch, and my publisher said, “Write that book.” They let me write it myself; there’s no ghost-writer.

I rented a little office by my daughter’s school (I was driving her to Dallas for school at the time); it was a storage room with no windows or anything. A hundred bucks a month to rent this little space. I got a card table and a La-Z-Boy and I researched these women. God and these women really inspired me to write their stories. It was fun.

WOF:
Why a book about single mothers?

JANINE:
Because the statistics are so high. 43% of mothers in America were single mothers back in 2004. I think it’s closer to 48% now; nearly half of the mothers in America today are single mothers. Understanding what “single mother” means helps to explain that statistic. A lot of people think these women are single mothers by choice; that’s just not the case. You’ve got divorced mothers—some get along with the father, some don’t. You’ve got abandoned mothers—the guy just goes, “I’m outta here” (which happens a lot). Then you have widows, and I actually had Abigail Adams in the book because she was alone a LOT. During the Revolutionary War, for eight years she was raising her kids alone, so I put her in there for all the women in America who may be holding down the fort while their husbands are off serving our country. Of course a lot of women who are married feel like single mothers even when they’re married because their husbands work so much.

WOF:
How did you find the women you wrote about? Some of them were pretty obscure.

JANINE:
They were and that was just kind of cool. A lot of women have said, “Wow, how come we haven’t heard about these women? Why aren’t they in history books?” The two slave women in the book, especially, were phenomenal. Belva Lockwood, the first woman to run for president—wasn’t she something? I just researched.

I didn’t set out with a purpose for them all to have synchronicity, but when it was finished I realized they did. They all had a struggle they had to endure, a devastating time. The times that define our character. They had to choose—am I going to bow to defeat or am I going to rise above it? They all lifted their hand up to God to lift them out of the despair that they were in. They all went through desperate times and they all reached out to God to get them through it. Ironically, in their own individual way—sometimes it was on a small scale, sometimes on a very big scale—they were stewards of their wounds. Whatever wound inflicted them, they went out to help others. They weren’t even trying to be great, but they all became great in a way. Whether it was reaching out to a person one at a time like Isabella Graham or on a grander scale like the first woman printer, the first [female] professional writer of the Middle Ages. At the end they were all great volunteers. They didn’t just raise their children, they raised their nation.

WOF:
Do you have a favorite?

JANINE:
That’s so hard to pick; it’s like picking your favorite child, you know. I think the mother of Constantine, for all of us who go to church and recite the Nicene Creed every Sunday. To think that she was a pagan; she could have given up on life. Her chapter is “Listen for God’s Higher Calling.” She could have just done herself in and given up. How could she have known at that time when her husband left her and she was still a pagan, that she was going to become a Christian and her son would become the first Christian emperor? She was the first person ever to take a pilgrimage, period—the first person, period, to take a pilgrimage and walk through Jerusalem. I think all of us, when we think life is over and there’s nothing left, should start listening to what God’s trying to tell us. I think Harriet Jacobs being locked in that attic for seven years (Don’t Give Up Before the Miracle). I really love that message about miracles are sometimes small and we miss them; sometimes miracles are grand. But there are always miracles along the way if we just stay true to God’s path and don’t give up before the miracle. That and Christine De Pizan from the Middle Ages.

WOF:
Loved the description of her as “the Dear Abby of the Middle Ages.”

JANINE:
And she was! She was so much fun and her writings, when they were translated, were so modern. I think that’s what amazes me about all these women; they’re just so modern to relate to.

WOF:
Your description of Helena (mother of Emperor Constantine) as a hotel waitress who falls in love with a handsome soldier, only to later be dumped for a younger woman sounds so . . . normal. Did it surprise you to find that the stories of historical women mirrored so many women’s stories today?

JANINE:
I was like probably every other woman today thinking that raising a child alone was more of a modern-day phenomenon. It did surprise me that we can relate to them in such a modern way. Look what they did when there were no antibiotics, no grocery store, no right to vote, no right to an education, and no right to your children if you were married. All the things they struggled through to survive gave me such hope; I felt if they could do, we could do it.

I think a lot of working mothers today, whether they’re single or not, feel very, very guilty about not being around their children enough. Society lends itself to that. The woman’s expected to go to work, hold down the fort, cook the meal, clean the house, do the laundry, and go back to work. The woman bears a lot of responsibility and there’s this guilt about not being with our children every single second. I certainly have it. What I realized was that these women would think we were crazy if they came back today. They had to work. They had to go out and pluck the chickens and shoot the deer and plow the field and get the water and wash their clothes with a stone. Whether they were writing or printing the newspaper, whatever they were doing, they didn’t think twice about it—and their kids turned out to be just fine. It helped alleviate a lot of my guilt.

When I finished I was so inspired by these women I said, “Let’s move to New York City!” I realized that no matter where we have to go as women, God’s given us mothers a divine purpose, too. Wherever He takes us, wherever our journey is to fulfill that purpose, He’s carved a place for our children, too.

WOF:
Are you and Juliette still living in New York?

JANINE:
No, we moved back. We were there for a year and after a year I was like “OK we did this. Now let’s go back to our ranch.” Now we’re living on our ranch full-time. I guess in New York we felt like Bella Lockwood and now we feel like Elinore Pruitt Stewart, holding down the fort. We’re our own ranch hands; we get up and clean the stalls and feed the horses and cows before I take my daughter to school in the morning. We’re living the ranch life.

WOF:
Speaking of Elinore Pruitt Stewart, you quote from some letters about her life in Wyoming—and they’re hilarious!

JANINE:
Wasn’t she something? I met her family! I just met her grandson. I just gave the first Holding Your Head High Award to him. He came with his wife and all their children—Elinore Pruitt Stewart’s great-grandchildren. She was just a breath of fresh air.

WOF:
How important do you think it is to look at life through the lens of humor as she did?

JANINE:
Oh, it’s vital. I think laughter truly is the best medicine. She reminded me a little bit of Will Rogers. You know, “never met a man I didn’t like.” She could turn every situation into a positive with her charm, humor, and loving, giving spirit. She described things I thought were so joyous and free. She documented the pioneer experience really well. She’d hop on that horse and take her two-year-old and go horseback riding, only to wake up in the middle of a blizzard to think, “Well, we’ve got to get out of this one.”

WOF:
Something a lot of people probably don’t know about you is that you raise longhorns on your ranch. That’s different . . . why longhorns?

JANINE:
To me longhorns just epitomize Texas. With my love for history I’ve read all those books about the Chisholm Trail and how the longhorns were taken through small towns—I’m a Fort Worth girl, you know. I think there’s a romanticism about them. Longhorns are so beautiful. Once “Northern Exposure” was picked up for 50 episodes back in, like, 1991, the first thing I wanted to do was move back to Texas. So I got a pickup truck and a horse and started looking for a ranch. I’ve been breeding them; I’ve had them for 13 years now. Each one of them is unique and charming. They’re gentle and they’re just a beautiful breed. You never get the same color twice so it’s exciting. They’re very friendly; they’ll let you pet them and will eat out of your hand (with those long ol’ horns). They scare my mother to death but Juliette and I love them. They just kind of epitomize the old Wild West.

WOF:
What are you planning to do next? Write, act, direct—or embark on a completely new adventure?

JANINE:
All of the above, probably! I just finished 12 out of 13 episodes on the TV series “Friday Night Lights.” It was a movie and then they made a TV show out of it; it’s actually highly acclaimed. They film in Austin. You arrive on set and there’s no rehearsal, no blocking—they just follow you around with cameras. And they allow you to improvise and take your character and fly with it. I just finished that yesterday at 9 o’clock. If you have Direct TV it’s airing now, if not it’s going to air on NBC starting in January. I think I’m going to work on my second book, which is going to be about modern-day single mothers. It’ll kind of be phase two. I’d like to write a really funny novel at some point, too, but I don’t know, I’m not to that one yet. My daughter’s birthday is Saturday so we’re going to celebrate that and continue ranching and writing another book and see what comes along with Hollywood. You know how that is, you’re employed one day and not the next!