Only the Lonely

One of the hardest thing for a frontier woman was not the work as we might think, but the isolation and loneliness of being separated from loved ones and friends.

Compare it to living in another country without internet and phone, where a single letter could take a year to reach you, and the cost of visiting was about $7000 one way.  For many women, they never saw their family or friends again.

Women on the frontier often compared leaving home to death saying "not at all possible that we will ever meet again on this side of the dark river".  The emotional void that came with starting a life in the west developed into an actual illness "homesickness."  It was a dreaded illness that faced many a frontier woman.  (Today we would probably call it depression).

Initially setting up house kept  women busy, and a few recorded their loneliness in journals.  Some women visited other women nearby  to lessen the heartache, but many journals lament "the plain fact of the matter is, we have no time for sociability."

Next time - Common Troubles for All

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