Twelve years ago my husband David and I left Washington, DC to become innkeepers in Ashland, Oregon, home of the world-class Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We had little idea of what was in store.  We knew we could cook, we knew how to make a bed and we love meeting and getting to know new people.  But, coming from the land of politics, we also knew some people can be challenges. 

That said, we had little experience in actually running a business – keeping payroll records, retaining receipts, keeping track of all the taxes, etc. 

This book highlights our experiences hosting the theatre lovers who populate rooms named after denizens of the original Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, which has grown from six rooms in one building to sixteen in four buildings.

Not all of the drama here occurs on stage.  Scone by Scone: Tales from an Innkeeper’s Life, shares what it’s really like backstage at the inn through stories of how we’ve dealt with the myriad situations an innkeeper faces. Whether it’s producing an impromptu wedding one afternoon, discovering a guest is the woman I visited in Senegal 20 years ago or introducing actors to early morning breakfast – nearly every day has brought another fascinating story to our door.  Each chapter contains not just our recipe for business success, but also the recipe for whichever item on our vast menu is featured in the story.

There is much material to cover, not least of it our own story. To our surprise, we’ve discovered that innkeeping is indeed our métier. It calls on skills we didn’t know we had. It’s inspiring work, transforming work. Demanding, yes. But laced with entirely unexpected ingredients – the love and friendship of many amazing people who came to us as guests but whom we now count as treasured friends for life.

Deedie’s Bio

After a lifetime on the East Coast of building communities, Donnan Beeson (Deedie) Runkel moved West with her husband David in 2002 to take over a struggling bed and breakfast that caters to theaterlovers attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  As a dear friend said, she went from public service to serving the public. 

Over many years spent in Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Washington, Deedie opened a camp for inner-city kids including her own, employed Saul Alinsky tactics to improve lives in an increasing racially segregated city, promoted public libraries and legal aid for older people, and worked to reduce world conflict through the US Peace Corps and the anti-nuclear war organization Peace Links.

Woven throughout these varied endeavors was Deedie’s gift for story-telling and writing. She comes from a family of readers and activists whose American roots go back to Quakers who settled in Philadelphia at the time of William Penn.  Her father was both a local politician and the author of an unpublished book on the Molly McGuires, 19^th-Century women activists who fought for better conditions for Pennsylvania coal miners.

Deedie majored in English at Penn State, where she met her husband when they both wrote for The Daily Collegian. Just recently, she earned her Master’s degree in Fine Arts in writing from UC/Riverside.  Her first book, an autobiography titled “Boxes: Lifting the Lid on an American Life” was published in 2010. Her opinion pieces and articles have appeared in The Philadelphia Bulletin, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Friends Journal, and other publications.

She’s the mother of three and grandmother of two grandgirls.