Homesteaders

This morning before leaving Montana we went to a homestead museum of sorts. There were a good many buildings that were brought in and restored with original furnishing when possible. The average cabin was 12 x 12 and sometime two families lived in it. The first order of business was getting the land ready and then a dwelling. The pictures below are of a church, general store, washing machine,kitchen. These were pretty fancy for the day.









Hey check out this vintage RV. Bed, Stove, Cabinets - now what else could you ask for? Oh yeah--maybe a toilet.




There was also an old train depot with several cars. One had wood sides which is the first I have seen.


I just finished reading “Letters Of A Woman Homesteader”. The author of the letters was a widow with a small child who worked as a laundress and wanted to homestead. She eventually did get her homestead and married the man who had a ranch next to hers. While she worked her land, she took care of all the duties of her home and helped with harvests etc. The letters were written over a period of several years to a friend of hers in Denver. I have included below one of the final letters in the book.
I was surprised at the number of women homesteaders in this area. I honestly don’t know how one person can do all they had to do each day. In the letters there was not one word of complaining. Just matter of fact, this is what had to be done and I did it. And she was always so thankful for all the things around her. A lot of the women buried husbands and sometimes children and just kept keeping on. I have so much respect for their strength and courage. Maybe there wasn’t a choice. They just did what had to be done.


Dear Mrs Coney,
This is Sunday and I suppose I ought not to be writing, but I Must write to you and I may not have another chance soon.
Now this is a letter I have been wanting to write you for a long time, but could not because until now I had not actually proven all I wanted to prove. Perhaps it will not interest you, but if you see a woman who wants to homestead and is a little afraid she will starve, you can tell her what I am telling you.
I never like to theorize, and so this year I set out to prove that a woman could ranch if she wanted to. We like to grow potatoes on new ground, that is, newly cleared land on which no crop has been grown. Few weeds grow on new land, so it makes less work. So I selected my potato-patch, and the man ploughed it, although I could have done that if Clyde would have let me. I cut the potatoes, Jerrine (6 yrs old) helped, and we dropped them in the rows. Man covered them, and that ends the man’s part. By that time the garden ground was ready, so I planted the garden. I had almost an acre in vegetables. I irrigated and I cultivated it myself.
We had all the vegetables we could possibly use, and I have put in our cellar full, and this is what we have: one large bin of potatoes (more than two tons), half a ton of carrots, a large bin of beets, one of turnips, one of onions, one of parsnips and on the other side of the cellar we have more than one hundred heads of cabbage. I have experimented and found a kind of squash that can be raised here, and that the ripe ones keep well and make good pies; also that the young tender ones make splendid pickles quite equal to cucumbers. They told me when I came here I could not grow common beans, but I did. And also I raised lots of green tomatoes and preserved them. I found I could make catchup of goose berries. I made it exactly the same as I do the tomatoes and I am delighted. Goose berries were plentiful this year so I put up a great many. I milked ten cows twice a day all summer and sold enough butter to pay for a years supply of flour and gasoline. We use gasoline for our lamps. I have raised enough chickens to completely renew my flock and all we wanted to eat, and have some fryers to go into winter with. I have enough turkeys for all our birthdays and holidays.
I worked in the field. In all I have had no help but Jerrine. Many of my neighbors did better than I did, although I know many town people would doubt my doing so much, but I did it.
When I read of the hard times among the Denver poor, I feel like urging them every one to get out and file on land. I am very enthusiastic about women homesteading. It really requires less strength and labor to raise plenty to satisfy a large family than it does to go out to wash, with the added satisfaction of knowing their job will not be lost to them if they care to keep it. Any woman strong enough to go out by the day could have done every bit of the work and it would have been so much more pleasant than to work so hard in the city and then be on starvation rations in the winter. To me, homesteading is the solutions of poverty’s problems, but I realize that temperament had much to do with success in any undertaking, and persons afraid of coyotes and work and loneliness had better let ranching alone. At the same time, any woman who can stand her own company can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the washtub, will certainly succeed; will have independence, plenty to eat and home of her own in the end.
Here I am boring you to death. You would think I want you to homestead, wouldn’t you? But I am only thinking of the troops of tired worried women, sometimes even cold and hungry, scared to death of losing their places to work, who could have plenty to eat, who could have good fires by gathering wood, and homes of their own, if they had the courage and determination to get them.
Affectionately,
Elinore Rupert Stewart