This is another book I read years ago, and now cannot recall what it was like. ( )

must edit at leisure (1.17.23)

I was so impressed at the way Joanna Stratton wove all of the various notes into a cohesive and interesting story of life for women pioneers in Kansas. I learned so much from this book. When I got to the end and saw the enormous amount of data that had to be sifted, measured and molded into a wonderful book. ( )

This was a wonderful collection of accounts written by the women who played an integral part in settling Kansas. These women worked side by side with their husbands while raising a passel of children. There were no Wal-Marts back then so most everything was made by hand including all their clothing and the soap they washed it with. They rarely complained about the hard work, but the loneliness was hard to bear. The pictures showed them in their "Sunday best" but it's no wonder that nobody was smiling.

It made me tired just to read these vignettes of backbreaking work to raise a crop only to have it wiped out by a hailstorm or other freak of nature. The grasshopper scourge in the mid-1800s would have been the worst thing for me to bear. Not only did they eat all the crops but they invaded their homes as well. *Shudder* This is history at its finest sharing the human side of misery rather than just stating the facts of what happened. ( )

What a fabulous book, compiling many first hand accounts written by actual Kansas Pioneer women into a very readable book.

Pioneer women is well organized into distinct sections so that the diverse stories of the settlers could be brought together into a cohesive story. The chapters focus on different aspects of the pioneer life, from the houses, to a pioneer childhood, to the effects of the Civil War. All of the information is based on the first hand accounts in the Lilla Day Monroe Collection of Pioneer Stories.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the pioneer life. ( )