Women of the Frontier: 16 Tales of Trailblazing Homesteaders, Entrepreneurs, and Rabble-Rousers
O For Paul with love Boy Justin and Tom too Now I've gotten to everyone Back to page 322 Page 7
AUTHOR S NOTE As I researched this book I often wondered how I'd react to the conditions these frontier women dealt with At best'm afraid I would have complained a lot at worst I would have given up running back to Ohio if so much as a snake fell through the roof of my sod house But the women on these pages persevered Mar gret Reed and Rachel Plummer's stories haunted me The determination of Luzena Wilson and Dr Bethe nia Owens Adair humbled me The eloquence of Susette La Flesche's fight for Native American rights moved me And Carry Nation whom I prejudged as a prudish old Puritan made me laugh Most of the women here were not famous they led ordinary lives as daughters sisters wives and mothers Thousands more shared these same stories but left no written record and today are nameless and forgotten I pay tribute to every one of them Page 10
MANY A WEARY MILE I have not told you half we suffered I am not ade quate to the task Elizabeth Smith Geer the trail's end 1847 Not long after sunrise on a May day in 1841 a dozen jam packed covered wagons rumbled out of a small town along the Missouri River Ox teams pulled the wagons steadily westward toward the Pacific coast carting the baggage of 69 men women and children Dawn rose behind their backs but that night the sun would set ahead of them a sign of hope beyond the horizon They were the first trickle in a flood of pioneers lured by the promise of better lives in the American West Americans had always looked west for escape and refuge The lure of Western lands symbolized health wealth and freedom In 1837 the United States plunged into an economic depression as banks closed Back to page 322 Page 11
their doors and thousands of unemployed workers crowded Eastern cities Farm prices plummeted and many people lost their land Adding to the sense of despair were the yellow fever malaria typhoid and tuberculosis that ravaged the country year after year Eastern audiences devoured the published jour nals of fur trappers and explorers in awe over their glorified western adventures Letters from Oregon missionaries excited trouble weary Americans To many readers the missionaries tales of religious zeal paled next to their descriptions of rich farmland and forests crystal waters abundant with fish and hordes of animals awaiting fur trappers News of miraculous cures in the West's pristine air offered great hope Societies sprang up to encourage settlement of the Oregon country and California too praised as an earthly paradise of sunshine and lush fruit One woman summed up the dreams of many We had nothing to lose and we might gain a fortune The temptation of cheap land in paradise proved hard to resist During the spring of 1842 another 200 people traveled west A year later 1 000 opti mistic settlers braved the journey After the 1848 dis covery of gold in California the numbers exploded to 30 000 in 1849 and 55 000 in 1850 The Wilson fam ily abandoned their Missouri farm in 1849 for the California gold fields So we came wrote wife Luzena young strong healthy hopeful but penni less into the new world 3 Thousands of European immigrants mainly from Germany the British Isles Page 12 15 pages left in this chapter
