Eden Pond

Eden Pond is the main character in the Eden Pond Series.

Biography

Inspiration image for Eden's appearance. It is not intended as an exact likeness.

Born in 1917, Eden Pond grew up in the port town of Garibaldi, Oregon on Tillamook Bay. She and her twin brother Harry were raised by their much older brother Merton after their parents died during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

Eden was twenty-five when the United States entered World War II, but still lived in her childhood home with Merton. At that time, Harry moved out, relocating to nearby Tillamook.

Eden's parents, Arabelle and Rufus, died in 1918 of the Spanish Flu. Though she had no memory of them, she often tried to imagine what they must have been like. Merton rarely spoke of their parents because, she believed, of his long grief for them. Though she was unsure if she'd ever even marry, were she ever to have children Eden intended to name them for her parents.

After Merton, Eden was closest to family friend Tillie Larkin, who helped Merton raise his twin siblings. When Eden was young, Tillie lived in Garibaldi near the Ponds. She would often invite Eden and Harry when the Larkin family went on outings, though Harry rarely joined them. Eden always looked up to Tillie, both as family and as a friend. After she grew up, Eden remained close to Tillie—in some ways even closer than to her brothers.

While Eden and Harry were close as young children, after his bout with polio when he was eleven they drifted apart.

In addition to keeping house and looking after Merton, Eden was a part-time secretary for Garibaldi Public School. She read and wrote poetry, though never shared her poems with anyone.

Her favorite place to spend time was the second floor turret room that had been her father's den when he was alive. She liked to sit in his red leather reading chair, wrapped in her mother's shawl.

Description
Eden had black, shoulder-length hair which she typically curled and wore off her face. She got her hair color and large brown eyes from her mother, and her sharp, narrow nose and small mouth from her father. When asked, she described herself as plain.

She was 5'10", tall, which seemed to be off putting to many who met her. The fact she was three inches taller than Harry was a source of some tension between them, a fact she found inexplicable. She was also broad shouldered and strong owing to the physical work she did for Merton and further encouraged by Tillie Larkin.

She was fourteen minutes older than Harry.

Near the end of The Tillamook Guerrillas, Una Rapp tried to stab Eden with the same knife she used to kill Harry. Though the attempt failed due to Jonah's intervention, Una did manage to cut Eden on the left temple. The injury required five stitches. As a result, she was left with a noticeable scar.

Vital Statistics

Date of Birth: 7 February 1917
Date of Death: —

Character Affiliations

• Merton Pond, older brother
• Harry Pond, twin brother
• Tillie Larkin, long-time family friend
• Jonah Shibuya, Eden's and Harry's childhood friend
• Paul Berenger, Chief Deputy Sheriff for Tillamook County
• Ursula Voronin, Shared the attic in the St. John's Portland boarding house
• Martin Kadash, boy who lived in the shack behind the St. John's Portland boarding house
• Minnie Dornbeck, fellow welder at Oregonship

Significant Locations

• Pond Family Camp
• Pond Salvage and Repair
• Kaiser St. Johns Shipyard

Appearances

The following describes several possible books in the series. Big plans, to be sure.

The titles are provisional and subject to change. Over time, other book ideas may be added or take the place of those currently listed.

• The first novel, The Lethal Shore, takes place February through May of 1942 as America shifts to a war footing in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack.
  • Status: as of Summer 2023, this project is out on submission.
• "The Railroad Job," a short story, sees Eden as a witness to a murder on a train traveling from California to Seattle.
• Murder at the Shipyard sees Eden living in Portland in September 1942, where she works as a welder for the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation. A series of suspicious deaths hinder the record-setting attempt to build a Liberty Ship from keel to launch in ten days.
• Death of a Lady Pilot centers on the U.S. Navy's Tillamook Naval Air Station and the suspicious death of a flamboyant woman pilot.
• In Hanford Intrigue, Eden accepts a position as a welder at a new defense facility in the rolling plains of eastern Washington, unaware she’s joining one the most secret endeavors in U.S. history, the Manhattan Project.
• Fire Balloon takes place late in the war, when a death blamed on one of Imperial Japan’s infamous fire balloons may be more than it seems.