Letters of a Woman Homesteader
She went west to prove a woman could homestead alone. What she found was a life so vivid, so funny, so stubbornly joyful that her letters still crackle across a century. In 1909, Elinore Pruitt Stewart left Denver with her young daughter Jerrine, heading for Wyoming and a remote ranch that would test every ounce of her courage. Through letters to a friend, she captures the journey with startling immediacy: the stark beauty of the prairie, the eccentric characters who become her neighbors, her eventual marriage to Mr. Stewart, and her fierce insistence on proving that a woman could run a homestead. But these aren't mere pioneer chronicles. Stewart writes with sharp humor and sharper observations, finding comedy in hardships and wonder in isolation. Her voice is utterly distinctive: practical, warm, unpretentious, and quietly radical. Here is a woman building a life on her own terms in a world that assumed she couldn't. A window into American frontier life before it calcified into myth. Stewart gives us the real work: the loneliness, the labor, the small triumphs. Yet what endures is her spirit. She writes herself into history without fanfare, and her warmth keeps reaching across the decades.
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“The sagebrush is so short in some places that it is not large enough to make a fire, so we had to drive until quite late before we camped that night. After driving all day over what seemed a level desert of sand, we came about sundown to a beautiful cañon, down which we had to drive for a couple of miles before we could cross. In the cañon the shadows had already fallen, but when we looked up we could see the last shafts of sunlight on the tops of the great bare buttes. Suddenly a great wolf started from somewhere and galloped along the edge of the cañon, outlined black and clear by the setting sun. His curiosity overcame him at last, so he sat down and waited to see what manner of beast we were. I reckon he was disappointed for he howled most dismally. I thought of Jack London's "The Wolf.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“It is true, I want a great many things I haven't got, but I don't want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“It seemed as if we were driving through a golden haze. The violet shadows were creeping up between the hills, while away back of us the snow-capped peaks were catching the sun's last rays. On every side of us stretched the poor, hopeless desert, the sage, grim and determined to live in spite of starvation, and the great, bare, desolate buttes. The beautiful colors turned to amber and rose, and then to the general tone, dull gray. Then we stopped to camp, and such a scurrying around to gather brush for the fire and to get supper! Everything tasted so good! Jerrine ate like a man. Then we raised the wagon tongue and spread the wagon sheet over it and made a bedroom for us women.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“Of course I am extra strong, but those who try know that strength and knowledge come with doing. I just love to experiment, to work, and to prove out things, so that ranch life and "roughing it" just suit me.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“It was too beautiful a night to sleep, so I put my head out to look and to think. I saw the moon come up and hang for a while over the mountain as if it were discouraged with the prospect, and the big white stars flirted shamelessly with the hills. I saw a coyote come trotting along and I felt sorry for him, having to hunt food in so barren a place, but when presently I heard the whirr of wings I felt sorry for the sage chickens he had disturbed. At length a cloud came up and I went to sleep, and next morning was covered several inches with snow.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“If you only knew how far short I fall of my own hopes you would know I could never boast. Why, it keeps me busy making over mistakes just like some one using old clothes. I get myself all ready to enjoy a success and find that I have to fit a failure. But one consolation is that I generally have plenty of material to cut generously, and many of my failures have proved to be real blessings.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“But those who try, know that strength and knowledge come with doing.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“My brother Calvin is very sweet. God had to give him to us because he squealed so much he sturbed the angels. We are not angels so he dont sturb us.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
“There is always some happy and interesting thing happening, and I shall have two pleasures each time, my own enjoyment, and getting to tell you of them.””
— Elinore Pruitt Stewart
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<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8Cite this book
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Stewart, Elinore Pruitt. Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Lex, lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8.Stewart, E. P. (n.d.). Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8Stewart, Elinore Pruitt. Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/letters-of-a-woman-homesteader-8f965db2-5f95-433b-a7f9-11d38a2704a8.
