Pioneer Women
By Joy J. Fine
The lives of pioneer women were filled with hardships that quickly replaced any thought that a new life was going to be an easy one. It did not matter if the woman was a farmer’s wife already used to working hard or the wife of a businessman who became bored and wanted to try his hand at prospecting. These businessmen‘s wives, whose lives were spent sitting in their parlors talking with other wives, doing needlepoint or planning the next social event, would be giving it all up for a life they never thought would be theirs. They would not be consulted on this new life, simply instructed on when to leave and what to bring.
The first step for any of the pioneer women preparing to move would be a difficult one. They would have to sell their homes, and many of their belongings, as they could take only the necessities with them. This would be only a few favorite pieces of furniture, maybe a chest of linens, dishes, silver and some photographs. The essentials are what they needed room for. This would include clothing for all seasons and food. Food would be the most important item they brought and would include the staples of life. That meant coffee, beans, salt, flour and dried meat. A cow would be tied to the back of the wagon to provide fresh milk. Too often the trip did not go as hoped, perhaps it was longer than expected, and the oxen that were brought along to help till the new lands had to be killed to provide the family with much needed meat.
So few of their most cherished possessions, items that they would have so carefully and lovingly chosen, would actually have made it to their final destination. Some would have fallen off the wagon breaking as they landed and so were left behind. Others were found to be adding too much weight and were discarded. Pioneer women were constantly forced to made difficult choices. But, when they were told that their good linens, or favorite dishes given them by their mothers or grandmothers, must be left by the side of the trail because they were making the wagons weigh too much to safely cross the swollen river, they must have been heartbreaking choices.
Many times whole families did not make it from their homes to their new destinations. Children were lost most often, sometimes falling off the wagons and being trampled before it was even noticed they had fallen. Other times it was from disease. Occasionally women gave birth along the way to babies who died at birth from the harsh trip, sometimes women died in childbirth with no one to help them deliver but their husbands or young children. Every now and then they lost their husbands to accidents or disease and were left with only their children to help these brave pioneer women finish their journey.
Don’t think that reaching their destination brought them an easier life. Once they had their land they needed to build houses, prepare the land for farming and plant. These women became just as proficient at using an axe as their men. It was them who frequently plowed the fields because their husbands were off trying to strike it rich by looking for gold or silver. They plowed, cared for the children, baked the bread and prepared the meals. Their lives were still a daily trial and yet many of them left journals behind that made it clear that despite the difficulties, the hardships and the sorrows, they would do it all over again if given the choice.
