Things Not Recorded in Women's Overland Journals

A goodly portion of the wagon trains started out their journeys with determination to adhere to the Sabbath observance, but the demands of the road soon made such rituals impractical.  Stopping for Sunday rest made the travelers feel vulnerable to Indian attacks, and as the season advanced into midsummer and early autumn, the chance of being caught in the mountains by early snows made any delay even more risky.  Sundays were marked by a reading of the Bible during lunchtime stops before the wagons moved on, honoring the timetable that stopped for no one, not even the Lord.

Women's journals of the journey surprisingly note little about child care.  What is preserved shows that the women used all their wits to combat the discomforts of the journey.  "For sores about the mouth a concoction of sage, borax, alum and sugar."  But crying babies must have been a continual sound in the wagons with teething and coughs, earaches, diarrhea - all the ordinary childhood illnesses.

Since the journals were a sort of overland instruction manual for future travelers to follow, you would
expect there to be experiences concerning the care of children included also.  "How to travel for five or six months out of doors with small children and babies."  Maybe children were part of that oral exchange that women shared along with information about marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and so on.  Much of a woman's life under normal circumstances was hidden in the 19th century by elaborate taboos.

A good time to share those "womanly things" was at the river on wash day where you would see women carrying kettles, washtubs, and piles of unwashed linen.  Usually it was hard soap and cold water.  Days of sun, wind, soap and water were hard on women's skin as Rebecca Ketchem says "Camilla and I both burnt our arms and very badly while washing.They were red and swollen and painful as though scalded in boiling water.  Our hands are blacker than any farmer's and I do not see that there is any way of preventing it, for everything has to be done in the wind and sun."

These women have certainly opened my eyes about the mystique of the pioneer wagon trains!

Next time...The Generation Gap on the Trail

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Today in Pioneer History: On September 24, 1890, faced with the eminent destruction of their church and way of life, Mormon leaders reluctantly issue the "Mormon Manifesto" in which they command all Latter-day Saints to uphold the anti-polygamy laws of the nation.

The Divison of Labor on the Trail

The division of work on the Overland Trail was heavily weighted on the woman's side.  Martha Morrison recalls:

"the women helped pitch the tents, helped unload, helped yoking up the cattle.  Some of the women did nearly all the yoking.  One time my father was away hunting cattle that had been driven off by the Indians and that left Mother and the children to attend to everything."

Esther Hanna recorded her thoughts:

"I am now sitting in our carriage in the middle of a slough.  Our mules all fell down attempting to get through.  I have never witnessed anything like it.  We have put 14 yoke oxen to the wagons to get them out.  Our provisions got wet and they had to be unpacked to air and then packed again."

And we've learned that that fell under a woman's job, of course!  Many women on the trail felt reduced to hired hands. 

Martha Morrison later realized:

"We  did not know the dangers we were going through.  The idea of my Father was to get to the coast, no other place suited him and he went on until we got there where we settled in the Clatsop Plains close to the mouth of the Columbia River.  We did not arrive until the middle of January or first of Feburary.  We went down the Deschutes River in an open canoe, including all the children.  When we got down there was no way to get to the place my Father had determined to locate us,  but to wade through the tremendous swamps. 

I know some of the young men laughed at us girls, my oldest sister and me, for holding up what dresses we had to keep from miring, but we didn't think it was funny.  We finally waded through and got through and got all our goods.  Mother was a very fleshy woman and it was a terrible job for her to go through."

Yes it was an adventure for the young, but Martha's diary brings alive her father's determination who wouldn't give up until he reached the Pacific, and the hard work of that "fleshy" wife of his to get him there!

Next time...