Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1854-1860 (Covered Wagon Women)

Rating:
Summary: A walk in their shoes
Review: The yearning for friends and family left at home; the constant concern for the health and safety of spouse and children; the physical challenges; the inconveniences of camp cooking, laundering, bathing -- what was it really like for those women who traveled the Western trails? Told in their exact words, transcribed faithfully, these diaries give you have the rare opportunity to "walk in the shoes" of someone who really lived in those times. This is Vol. 7 in a series edited and compiled by Kenneth Holmes, and I have read and re-read the first ten. I recommend all of them.

Rating:
Summary: Strength of mind, patience, grit
Review: We journey once again with the emigrants over plains, prairies, rivers and mountains via these womens' diaries and letters. The years covered in this volume are 1854-1860.
Without being overly exhaustive, a few to mention would be:

Forty-eight year old Sarah Sutton whose 1854 wagon train had lost numbers of cattle from the Snake River westward due to alkali water, dust and exhaustion; how crowded the trails were at their time of passing; Indian occurrences along the way; etc. Sarah was very articulate in all her observations and died just before reaching the land of her dreams.
Twenty-nine year old Mormon Sara Mousley's 1857 account of traveling to Salt Lake City. Her description of a cattle stampede is rendering; the many way-stations along the trail to aid the Saints in provisions, etc;
Julia Anna Archibald (Holmes) who was twenty-years old in 1858 when she went to Colorado. A very outspoken advocate on women's rights. She wore the avant-garde attire `bloomers' and was somewhat admonished by others in her train. First woman to climb Pikes Peak.
Thirty-four year old Hannah Clapp's 1859 letters from Salt Lake City to a Wisconsin newspaper lashing out at the Mormons' zealous ideologies and fanaticisms.
And twenty-two year old Martha Missouri Moore's 1860 adventures of driving 5100 sheep to California.

All these diaries and letters give the reader an understanding as to the resolve, determination and sacrifices these emigrants endured while traveling westward so long ago. Excellent reading.