Letters of a Woman Homesteader
by Elinore Pruitt Stewart
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elinore Pruitt StewartEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-05-15
ISBN: 0395911516
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Book Reviews of Letters of a Woman Homesteader
Book Review: "The blue veil of distance"
Summary: 5 Stars
What is more intimate than a letter? In this hectic age we pepper our friends with emails and text messages, but letters require a different level of commitment. Sitting with pen in hand, really thinking about what you mean to convey, and getting it right the first time at penalty of a complete rewrite...this is a true test of communication. The letters of a writer can be a magic lantern into her world, and this collection from the pen of Elinore Pruitt Stewart is a fine example.
Elinore was supporting herself and her small daughter as a laundress in Denver in the early 1900's. Longing for fresh air and open spaces, she took advantage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 to file a claim for land in Wyoming. She answered an ad from Clyde Stewart of Burntfork, Wyoming, who was looking for a cook and companion, and they were married soon after her arrival.
From 1909 to 1913 Elinore wrote letters to her former Denver employer, Mrs. Coney. She wrote about the neighbors--a loose term describing anyone within a two-day ride of the ranch at Burntfork. She wrote about traveling by carriage, sled or pony up ravines and over buttes with camping gear and a mess box. She described the daily routines, the activities of her daughter Jerrine, the pleasures of her small house, the pain of an infant's death, the easy hospitality extended to travelers in the beautiful but unforgiving Wyoming wilderness. Always she wrote of "the sage, sand and sunshine" of her adopted state. In a letter about a hermit sheep rancher missing his family in the South, she described a treasured daguerrotype of his family peering out from "the mellow twilight of long ago."
This long-ago time is brought to life through the humor and vividness of her writing. Though she often apologizes to her correspondent for the length and detail of her letters, Mrs. Coney must have found them worth keeping, because they were serialized for publication in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine in 1913 and first published as a book in 1914.
Writing about her wedding to Clyde Stewart at their ranch, Elinore describes her urgent desire to make a good impression on the neighbors. She cooked and cleaned all morning; when she dressed for the wedding, she left her good shoes for the last moment. Standing up before the justice of the peace with her bridegroom she realized that she still had on her soft house shoes and her apron. Did this ruin her day? Not at all; she wrote, "At least the shoes were comfortable and the apron was white." This is the spirit that Elinore Pruitt Stewart brought to her life as a Wyoming homesteader, and you will be enchanted and inspired by her descriptive letters. She did her best to persuade her correspondent that homesteading was well within the capabilities of anyone, and recommended it for "the troops of tired, worried women" in the dingy cities.
I listened to the unabridged audio of Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Primary Source History), narrated by Kate Fleming, and enjoyed it very much. As usual with an audio production I missed out on the biographical notes and photographs, but found them on a historical website. Five stars
Linda Bulger, 2009
Summary of Letters of a Woman Homesteader
"Peopled with the kinds of characters most novelists only dream of"(Christian Science Monitor), this classic account of American frontier living captures the rambunctious spirit of a pioneer who set out in 1909 to prove that a woman could ranch. Stewart's captivating missives from her homestead in Wyoming bring to full life the beauty, isolation, and joys of working the prairie.General Books
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