How Tired Can You Be?

I often wonder how could a frontier women not suffer from constant fatigue?  She was exhausted from childcare and never seemed to rest.  Says one pioneer woman "this gypsy life is anything but agreeable.  It is impossible to keep anything clean and it is with difficulty that you do what you have to do."

Even records of journeys to the west tell of woman laboring - supervising the children in cramped wagon quarters, making sure the older children didn't run off while herding the cattle.  A mother's exhaustion was surely psychological as well as physical - there was no down time for her, no place to get away to peace and quiet.

Woman also took on jobs usually done by men when needed - loading and unloading wagons, yoking the oxen, even driving the wagons and riding horseback.  One of the best quotes I have found that expresses a pioneer woman's plight is

"A man doing woman's work was doing the woman a favor
A woman doing man's work was doing what was necessary"

Dirt, dust, monotony, fatigue,,,the life on the journey west.

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