Frederic Homer Balch with an introduction by Stephen L. Harris

Frederic Homer Balch was born in Lebanon, Oregon, on December 14, 1861, to James A. Balch and Harriet Maria Snider and later moved to a farm near Goldendale in Washington Territory. There he began a life-long study of Native lore and customs. His sister Gertrude Balch Ingalls wrote that no lodge or camp was too remote “if, at the end of the trail, he found an aged representative of some tribe” who recalled his ancestral traditions. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Balch showed both fascination and respect for Native beliefs.

As a boy he received only a few months of formal education; his father—who held a Wabash College law degree—tutored his son at home. After the family settled on the mid-Columbia River in Lyle, his father suffered a mental collapse, and Balch soon went to work for the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company. Despite long days breaking rock, he would row home to study and write far into the night.

In some ways, Balch’s life parallels that of his romantic tale’s protagonist minister. Like Cecil Grey, he had one true love—his Lyle neighbor Genevra Whitcomb—who died young. He also exhibited a religious fervor similar to Grey’s when, after converting to Christianity at age twenty-one, he burned “Wallulah,” an early version of his novel.

Balch became a home missionary and served at churches in White Salmon, Mount Pleasant, and Hood River. Officially ordained a Congregational minister early in 1887, he died of tuberculosis on June 3, 1891, shortly after publishing “The Bridge of the Gods.”