Arriving on the Homestead

The period of adjustment to new surroundings was always a trying time for women.  Physical exhaustion from the journey along with meager family resources made confronting the reality of the frontier kind of like being hit broadside!

By the time a family arrived at their homestead, there were little supplies left, the family was worn out, and the work had just begun.  Add to that the lack of friends and family to help and you have what one woman wrote, "As long as I live I'll never see such lonely country".

A family just arriving, even if lucky enough to have a homestead, faced the reality of no house, no capital, hunger and poverty that loomed as large as the sky overhead.  Many a pioneer woman told herself that if they could just get to the homestead it would be alright - only to find they hadn't even begun yet.

One woman noted the following story in her journal some years later.  At the time, she was a child...
"During the trip, father saw 2 stumps standing a few feet apart and he laughingly told mother that she might live there -  to which mother insisted that father clean them out, put on a roof and we moved in - a family of eight."

Home Sweet Home?  Not quite yet...

Next time - New Home Challenges

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Appealing to the Governor

The winter following the devastating prairie fire of 1871 was severe, leaving settlers with no money for food or clothing.

One settler wrote to the governor of Minnesota saying
"I have been sick for months, and my wife is not well from exposure and hunger. It thought that there was no other way to ask you for help but to write for $25 and some clothes for my wife and daughter as we have nothing to cover our backs or our heads."

No record exists as to whether this pioneers letter was answered or whether he and his family survivied.

Next The Wichita Eagle Reports on the Locust Invasion