Elinore Pruitt Stewart
1876-1933
THE JOYS OF HOMESTEADING ~ Chapter XX
January 23, 1913.
Dear Mrs. Coney,—
And now I want to thank you for your kind thought in prolonging our Christmas. The magazines were much appreciated. They relieved some weary night-watches, and the box did Jerrine more good than the medicine I was having to give her for la grippe. She was content to stay in bed and enjoy the contents of her box.
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 that their job will not be lost to them if they care to keep it. Even if improving the place does go slowly, it is that much done to stay done. Whatever is raised is the homesteader's own, and there is no house-rent to pay. This year Jerrine cut and dropped enough potatoes to raise a ton of fine potatoes. She wanted to try, so we let her, and you will remember that she is but six years old. We had a man to break the ground and cover the potatoes for her and the man irrigated them once. That was all that was done until digging time, when they were ploughed out and Jerrine picked them up. Any woman strong enough to go out by the day could have done every bit of the work and put in two or three times that much, 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 solution of all poverty's problems, but I realize that temperament has 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 all the time, and a home of her own in the end.
Experimenting need cost the homesteader no more than the work, because by applying to the Department of Agriculture at Washington he can get enough of any seed and as many kinds as he wants to make a thorough trial, and it doesn't even cost postage. Also one can always get bulletins from there and from the Experiment Station of one's own State concerning any problem or as many problems as may come up. I would not, for anything, allow Mr. Stewart to do anything toward improving my place, for I want the fun and the experience myself. And I want to be able to speak from experience when I tell others what they can do. Theories are very beautiful, but facts are what must be had, and what I intend to give some time.
Here I am boring you to death with things that cannot interest you! You'd think I wanted 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 the wood, and comfortable homes of their own, if they but had the courage and determination to get them.
I must stop right now before you get so tired you will not answer. With much love to you from Jerrine and myself, I am
Yours affectionately,
Elinore Rupert Stewart.
In 1909 a widowed "washlady" traveled from Denver, Colorado to Burnt Fork, Wyoming with her ten year old daughter "Jerrine" to take on work as a housekeeper for a Scotch-American cattleman. Elinore Rupert Stewart soon learned that Wyoming had three seasons: "winter, July and August." She wrote twenty-six letters to a friend back in Colorado that were collected and published in 1914 as Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Written between April 1909 and November 1913, the letters showcase her arrival in Wyoming, the purchase and homesteading of her own plot of land as she continued to work for the rancher, her marriage to the man in 1910, and their life together even as she continued to work her own land. Though not intended originally for later publication, Stewart's missives are frontier portrait masterpieces in themselves. Those knowing the motion picture "Heartland" may recognize the inspiration of Stewart's life and writing in that film.
LETTERS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
Elinore Rupert Stewart.
In 1909 a widowed "washlady" traveled from Denver, Colorado to Burnt Fork, Wyoming with her ten year old daughter "Jerrine" to take on work as a housekeeper for a Scotch-American cattleman. Elinore Rupert Stewart soon learned that Wyoming had three seasons: "winter, July and August." She wrote twenty-six letters to a friend back in Colorado that were collected and published in 1914 as Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Written between April 1909 and November 1913, the letters showcase her arrival in Wyoming, the purchase and homesteading of her own plot of land as she continued to work for the rancher, her marriage to the man in 1910, and their life together even as she continued to work her own land. Though not intended originally for later publication, Stewart's missives are frontier portrait masterpieces in themselves. Those knowing the motion picture "Heartland" may recognize the inspiration of Stewart's life and writing in that film.
LETTERS
OF A WOMAN
HOMESTEADER
BY
Elinore Pruitt Stewart
