Q&A with Jane Kirkpatrick

Q. What inspired you to write One Glorious Ambition?

A. I'd read about Dorothea Dix as a young reader when biographies of women were hard to find. She was memorable for her passion and for being someone who could make a difference in the lives of others. I retired superintendent of Oregon State Hospital urged me to write her story as a novel so others could know of this remarkable woman. I finally listened to him.

Q. How did your own background in Mental Health work influence your writing, research?

A. The healing power of compassion certainly drew me to Dorothea's life and that's how I have seen my life as a mental health counselor then administrator and then as a specialist to families with children with disabilities and Native American families. I see writing as healing work so writing about a woman who sought to heal the injustices of the mentally ill was for me an act of carrying on my profession. I could draw on experiences I had as a therapist but also as someone trying to affect legislation as Dorothea worked to do. And I think I could see within her life how she was a good steward of her own childhood pain, not allowing it to hold her hostage but to transform her so she might make a difference.

Q. During your research, did you find any similarities between your life and Dortheaâ??s?

A. Oh see above! I did not have a troubled childhood as she did but I did have a lonely childhood not due to anyone's neglect but my own introverted nature. I suspect Dorothea was also introverted. She was also a writer and earned many royalties (not exactly a similarity to my life except for writing part.) She bore no children and neither have I but found her family in the families of her students and the mentally ill. She was also a seeker of knowledge and wisdom and wanting to follow God's will for her life. She took risks to do that and I would say we shared that as well. That she found her true passion when she was in her forties is also something we share in common as my first book was published the day before I turned 45. I also think she discovered that relieving the suffering of others can relieve our own. That's a belief I've come to accept.

Q. What accomplishment(s) do you believe was Dorthea Dixâ??s greatest in her lifetime?

A. She made the world, literally the world, aware of the need for seeing the mentally ill as human beings, as "the least of these" in need of our compassion and care and for advocating moral treatment, that is treating the mentally ill as human beings. Her ability to visit prisons and almshouses and find those abandoned there by family or there because there was no treatment available for them and to then pursue remedies from coal for the stoves to legislation to build hospitals is nothing less than astonishing for a woman in that era.

Q. What do you hope readers glean from One Glorious Ambition?

A. That each of us has the power to make a difference in the lives of others; that giving to something fully in one glorious ambition brings meaning to our lives. And that we're never too old to act.