Nancy Hunt Story Part 2

Sometimes the journey proved to stressful for both men and women.  Nancy Hunt's journal also tells us another story.

Nancy and her husband decided to settle in California, hoping the milder climate would restore his health.  Exposure on the trail seemed only to weaken him more each mile they traveled. 

"He was very sick through Nevada.  He was a soft kind of man, with little grit on vim in him."
By August the cool winds of the Sierra Nevada and the burning sun of the days had taken their toll...
"We laid his body away in the best manner we possibly could, but there was no grass for the cattle.  We must push on."

Nancy was widowed like many pioneer women on the trail.  She moved herself and her two small sons into her parents wagon.  When they reached the mining camps near Sacramento, she hired herself out to work for the day.  She wrote that "women were scarce in California.  Sold wagon for $2.50 in California slugs."  She earned $75 a month and a year after her husband's death she married again.  "I married in white, with pink embroidered flowers."  She was just 24 years old with 2 sons.  She would have 5 more sons.  Life went on  because the new land was only for survivors. 

Next time...Roxana Cheney Foster