Lonerock is the story of a young Scottish couple, David and Sophia Spalding. David left the fishing village of Banff, Aberdennshire, Scotland in 1898 at the tender age of 17 to establish a ranch home for his intended bride, Sophia Essom. He chose a site near Trailfork in a barren area of sagebrush and juniper trees. The nearest settlement was Lonerock, about five miles distant. After five years of improving the ranch, David returned to Scotland to claim his bride. During this period, Sophia had busied herself with nurses training that was to play a major role in the future of Lonerock. Sophia and David worked their ranch for a number of years and then moved to Lonerock. Both were talented young people, David with the accordion and piano and Sophia with a singing voice. The arrival of the Spaldings was an occasion for rejoicing for the people of Lonerock. Sophia became an unofficial “doctor” for the town, delivering babies and tending the sick when Dr. George Gaunt might be miles out in the country. Even after David died in 1935, she tended the ten-room house as before, keeping it neat and tidy inside and out and still tending to the needs of her dwindling neighbors. In 1956, she fell, fracturing a hip and was taken to Portland for hospitalization. In 1961, she died and was returned to the little Lonerock church for the funeral. By this time, Lonerock was almost completely deserted but on that Sunday, July29, more than 300 people coming from far and wide to say goodbye to the woman who had played such an important part in their lives.

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