OREGON TRAIL DIARY - MARGARET TANNER
I haven’t read anything of late except books that I needed
for research. I picked up a book in the library and thought it would be as
dry as dust to read, but I was desperate for the information it might have
contained. Well, what a surprise. I actually read the whole lot, not just the
sections that I thought I would need. Normally, I would skim through the pages
looking for information, but I actually read this book from cover to cover. It
is called Days On the Road, Crossing the plains in 1865, and was the diary of Sarah
Raymond Herndon. She was a 24 year old school teacher who left her native
Missouri with her mother and brothers, to join a wagon train heading along the
Oregon Trail. They were four months on the trail. She kept a diary and it made
for a fascinating read.
The reason I was interested in this kind of information, is
I have recently started writing Western Romance, and I wanted to get a better feel
for the hardships people endured out on the plains. I am multi-published in
historical romance set in Australia, and very familiar with our history, but
American history, well, I can do with a little help.
I really enjoyed reading about Sarah and her mother straining
milk into a butter churn that had a lid, and fixing it to the front of the
wagon, where it was churned into butter by the motion of the wagon. How clever
was that.
What I really found interesting (maybe it’s the romantic in
me), was the fact that with so many single young men available, a couple of
doctors and reasonably well to do gentleman who were interested in Sarah, she
had no interest in any of them. She did
eventually marry, but not in this story.
A few months after the family’s arrival in Virginia City, a
school was started and Sarah became a teacher there, earning the princely sum
of $125.00 per month. So, you can see this book was a goldmine of information
on day to day living for someone like me.
ADAM’S FRONTIER BRIDE
Fear almost crushes Tommy Lindsay when she
arrives in South Dakota to live on her uncle’s isolated ranch. She will need all her courage and daring to
survive the hard times ahead.
Adam Munro is a wealthy rancher who thought he
only wanted a presentable wife who would give him heirs. When he meets Tommy, he is smitten. Can he
ever hope to capture the heart of this beautiful English rose?
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