Sketches from the Life of a Pioneer Woman
by Joe Wolff
English 102
May 17, 1937
Introduction
The material on the following pages
is in the form of sketches. These
sketches are some of the events from the life of a pioneer woman. It could be almost any pioneer woman, but in
this case it is my grandmother, a pioneer of the North Dakota Territory. Her time as a pioneer was over sixty years
ago, but as in the case of any great movement, pioneering has become one of our
national monuments and has lived on.
The country of several decades ago
needed women like Hannah Bell. It needed
women who had courage, the courage to give up all vestiges of a former life and
accept the hardships of a new and unsettled country. It needed women with
courage to stay at the job, the job of raising children, of caring for one’s
scattered neighbors in times of need.
Statues have been raised, books
written, and pictures painted to symbolize the pioneer woman. She represents the sturdiness of character,
the willingness to learn, and the knowledge that there wasn’t any such thing as
failure, which are qualities of all great people or worthwhile movements.
I picture my sun-bonneted
grandmother striding forward against a strong wind which blew her full skirts
against her limbs. The wind symbolizes doubt, fear, and despair as to the
future. It was sometimes almost too
strong for her but with determination she bucked it till it seemed no more than
a breeze. I am proud of my grandmother.
Sketches
of a Pioneer Woman
A lone spot in the bleak North
Dakota prairie lands one fall day many years ago was the covered wagon
belonging to Hannah and Doug Bell.
Crawling along only a few miles each day, the wagon pulled by a pair of
lumbering oxen bumped and lurched over the ruts and gopher holes. Hannah and Doug were going through friendless
territory. This land of ruts and holes
was indian country. They traveled along
with a sense of freedom which knew no direction.
They were going to the buffalo
country. That was enough direction for
them. Day after day they rumbled over
the rough prairieland and night after night they spent beside the brilliant
embers of a dying fire somewhere in the midst of the western plains.
 |
| Young Joe Wolff |
Buffalo! It was almost a magic
word. Money and food for the asking. Each
skin meant five dollars to the young couple.
Each buffalo meant fresh meat, choice pieces of tongue and steak. By their figuring it wouldn’t be long before
they would be rich. Riches meant returning
home to Virginia to start as new a life as they were starting when they turned
west. The new life in Virginia was
reclamation, trying to build up to the former position many families enjoyed
before the war. At that time the west
seemed to be the one place where one could obtain capital in a hurry. Hannah and Doug Bell were going west for
Virginia.
II.
One afternoon as the glow of the
western sunset was spreading itself like a gaudy Indian blanket over the bare
prairieland, the dust laden wagon lumbered along its uncertain way. Hannah pulled tight on the reins and stopped
the slow-gaited oxen. Ahead of her was
the trunk of a lone tree with a swinging ragged piece of rope hanging from a
lone limb. Her eyes fell from the rope
to the foot of the tree where a freshly made mound and stone told her husband
who walked ahead with the cattle, that Lame Johnny, a highway man had been
lynched there a few days previously. It
was one less evil for them to look out for.
With that observation Hannah and Doug passed it off. With no sense of fear or repulsion they prepared
to pass the night by this tree.
Hannah’s time for bearing a child
was near and they could no longer use every available minute to cover the rough
country. Doug made a fire from chunks of
the tree and Hannah cooked their supper of jerked buffalo meat and thick black
coffee. That night Hannah used the mound of Lame Johnny’s grave for a
pillow. The piece of rope moving lazily
in the soft breeze drugged her tired eyes.
She forgot how weary and homesick she was. Hannah pulled a buffalo robe up under her
chin and dropped off to sleep.
