Gold Rush Brides

"While the Young Folks Were Having Their Good Times Some Of

The Mothers Were Giving Birth to Their Babies. Three Babies Were

Born in Our Company That Summer. My Cousin, Emily, Gave Birth To

A Son in Utah, Forty Miles North of the Great Salt Lake One

Morning. But the Next Morning She Travelled On 'til Noon When A

Stop Was Made and Another Child Was Born, This Time Susan

Mollmeyer. and Gave the Baby the Name Alice Nevada."

Taken From _women's Diaries of the Westward Jouney_

By Lillian Schlissel

Follow the Typical Signs, the Hand-painted Lines, Down Prairie Roads.

Pass the Lone Church Spire. Pass the Talking Wire From Where to Who Knows?

There's no Way to Divide the Beauty of the Sky From the Wild Western

Plains. Where a Man Could Drift, in Legendary Myth, By Roaming Over

Spaces. the Land Was Free and the Price Was Right.

Dakota On the Wall Is a White-robed Woman, Broad Yet Maidenly. Such

Power in Her Hand As She Hails the Wagon Man's Family. I See Indians That

Crawl Through This Mural That Recalls Our History.

Who Were the Homestead Wives? Who Were the Gold Rush Brides? Does

Anybody Know? Do Their Works Survive Their Yellow Fever Lives in the Pages

They Wrote? the Land Was Free, Yet It Cost Their Lives.

In Miner's Lust For Gold, a Family's House Was Bought and Sold, Piece

By Piece. a Widow Staked Her Claim On a Dollar and His Name, So Painfully.

In Letters Mailed Back Home Her Eastern Sisters They Would Moan As They

Would Read Accounts of Madness, Childbirth, Loneliness and Grief.