Journal Notes

Enter to win a copy of two books about mail order brides of the Old West. The titles you can win are Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier

and

Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of

Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

In the early days of westward travel, when men and women left behind their homes and acquaintances in search of wealth and happiness, there was a recognized need for some method of honorable introduction between the sexes. The need was readily fulfilled by the formation of a periodical devoted entirely to the advancement of marriage. Throughout the 1870s, 80s and 90s, that periodical, to which many unattached men and women subscribed, was a newspaper called Matrimonial News. Here’s a sample of one of the advertisements that appeared in the publication:

No. 206 Dear Old Men, here is your chance to get a true loving companion. I am a widow by death; age 69 years, but don’t look or feel or act over 40; always in good humor, very loving and kind; a good housekeeper, weight 104, height 5 feet 2 inches, blue eyes, brown hair: would like to meet some congenial gentleman near my own age, with means enough to make a good home.

To learn more about mail order brides and the advertisements they placed in various publications read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

The time is now to enter to win a copy of two books about mail order brides of the Old West. The titles you can win are Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

In the early days of westward travel, when men and women left behind their homes and acquaintances in search of wealth and happiness, there was a recognized need for some method of honorable introduction between the sexes. The need was readily fulfilled by the formation of a periodical devoted entirely to the advancement of marriage. Throughout the 1870s, 80s and 90s, that periodical, to which many unattached men and women subscribed, was a newspaper called Matrimonial News. Here’s a sample of one of the advertisements that appeared in the publication:

No, 228 – If there is a gentlemen of honor and intelligence between the age of 35 and 50 who wants a genuine housekeeper, let him write to this number. I am a widow, 34 years old, weight 110 pounds, 4 feet and 5 inches in height: am brunette and have very fine black hair.

To learn more about mail order brides and the advertisements they placed in various publications read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

Enter to win a copy of two books about mail order brides of the Old West. The titles you can win are

Hearts West:

True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and

Object Matrimony:

The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

In the early days of westward travel, when men and women left behind their homes and acquaintances in search of wealth and happiness, there was a recognized need for some method of honorable introduction between the sexes. The need was readily fulfilled by the formation of a periodical devoted entirely to the advancement of marriage. Throughout the 1870s, 80s and 90s, that periodical, to which many unattached men and women subscribed, was a newspaper called Matrimonial News. Here’s a sample of one of the advertisements that appeared in the publication:

No. 245 – I am fat, fair and plan on losing no weight. I am 48, 5 feet high. Am a No. 1 lady, well fixed with no encumbrance: am in business in city, but want a partner who lives in the West. Want an energetic man that has some means, not under 40 years of age and weight not less than 180; of good habits. A Christian gentlemen preferred.

To learn more about mail order brides and the advertisements they placed in various publications read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the Western Frontier.

Enter to win a copy of two books about mail order brides of the Old West. The titles you can win are Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier

and

Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the

Western Frontier.

A Husband Wanted

By a lady who can wash, cook, scour, sew, milk, spin, weave, hoe, (can’t plow), cut wood, make fires, feed the pigs, raise the chickens, rock the cradle, (gold-rocker, I thank you sir!), saw a plank, drive nails, etc. These are a few solid branches; now for the ornamental. “Long time ago” she was good at syntax. She can read Murray’s Geography and through the rules in Pike’s Grammar. Could find six states on the Atlas. Could read, and you can see she can write. Can – no, could paint roses, butterflies, ships, etc. Could once dance, can ride a horse, donkey or oxen, besides a great many things too numerous to be named.

Now for her terms. Her age is none of our business. She is neither handsome nor a fright, yet an old man need not apply, nor any who have not a little more education than she has, and a great deal more goods, for there must be $20,000 settled on her before she will bind herself to perform all the above.

Advertisement placed in the Marysville, California newspaper in April 1849 by Dorothy Scaraggs.

To learn more about mail order brides and the advertisements they placed in various publications read Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and

Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail Order Match Making on the

Western Frontier.

Enter now to win a couple of books about women of the Old West.

You pick which title you’d like to have.

The winner will be announced on Friday July 1.

Like us on Facebook and be eligible to win

a third book of your choosing from the titles listed above.

Enter now to win a couple of books about women of the Old West.

You pick which title you’d like to have.

The winner will be announced on Friday July 1.

Like us on Facebook and be eligible to win

a third book of your choosing from the titles listed above.

Ever hear the expression “write what you know?”  My version says “write what you want to know.”  If you want to know about the history of the Old West, write about the history of the Old West.  If you’re fascinated by the Old West, maybe your character lives there.

Take a literary ride with the Most Intrepid Western Author’s Posse as they travel through the sand hills and Great Plains of Nebraska.  The Most Intrepid Western Author’s Posse is comprised of five published, award-winning western authors; Monty McCord author of Mundy’s Law: The Legend of Joe Mundy and Hastings: The Queen of the Plains; Sherry Monahan author of Mrs. Earp: The Wives and Lovers of the Earp Brothers, The Cowboy Cookbook, and Frontier Fare; Bill Markley, author of Deadwood Dead Men and Dakota Epic: Experiences of a Reenactor During the Filming of Dances with Wolves, Kellen Cutsforth, author of Buffalo Bill, Boozers, Brothels, & Bare-Knuckle Brawlers:  An Englishman’s Journal of Adventure in America, and Chris Enss, author of Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West, Hearts West: Mail Order Brides of the Old West, and Object Matrimony: The Risky Business of Mail-Order Matchmaking on the Western Frontier will tell exciting tales of the Old West.

Stories told by the posse promise to transport readers back to the days of the wild frontier when times were rowdy and justice was swift.

The Most Intrepid Western Author’s Posse’s first stop will be the Sturh Museum in Grand Island on Friday, June 10 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.  On Saturday, June 11, the Posse will be in Beatrice at the Homestead National Monument of America from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.  The Posse will be discussing their books and the taming of the Wild West.

For more information visit www.chrisenss.com.

Last chance to enter to win the book

High Country Women: Pioneers of Yosemite National Park

Celebrate the 126^th anniversary of Yosemite!

The dark clouds that hovered over a crude trail in Yosemite Valley in May 1899 broke loose with a torrent of rain that nearly knocked Paiute Indian Maggie “Ta-bu-ce” Howard and her fourteen-year-old niece, May Tom, off the rocky path where they walked. Mighty claps of thunder echoed around the majestic granite walls of Yosemite Falls, and huge boulders shook from the sound. A powerful wind charged down the mountain and tossed leaves, twigs, and brush into the air. Maggie and May Tom hurried to an outcropping of craggy rocks and huddled underneath them. Lightning flashed violently, and the wind raged on without ceasing. It was as if the sky just beyond their crude shelter was in an angry pursuit to destroy them.¹

As soon as the rain eased a bit, the pair raced toward a grove of trees, and it was there they made camp. The following morning they had planned to travel to their home in Indian Village along the Merced River. In spite of the wind and continual rain, Maggie and May Tom eventually managed to fall asleep. Their uneasy slumber was interrupted sometime in the night by a massive pine tree that blew over on them. May Tom was killed instantly. Maggie’s collar bone was broken; the bones in her right leg were fractured, and her ankles and feet were severely injured.²

When the two didn’t arrive home the evening of the storm worried relatives had gone in search of Maggie and her niece. They were heartbroken by what they saw. May Tom’s mother and brothers took her body back to the valley where they lived, and Maggie was transported to a doctor. He set her bones in casts that extended over most of her frame. She was unable to move until the bones mended in late August. Maggie couldn’t recall anything after the tree hit her, but the lifetime limp she acquired as a result of her injury served as a reminder of the events leading up to the tragedy.³

Naturalist and explorer John Muir referred to the storms that occurred at Yosemite as “not easily borne.” Maggie was in complete agreement. According to the June 3, 1910, edition of the Hayward, California, newspaper the Hayward Daily Review, it is estimated that Maggie “Ta-bu-ce” Howard was born in 1867 at Mono Lake thirteen miles east of Yosemite Valley. She was a Paiute Indian and her name Ta-bu-ce meant “grass nut” or “sweet-root.” Her father, Joaquin Sam or Kosana as his tribe called him, was a medicine man who made frequent trips to Yosemite to gather acorns and pinon nuts. He would bring them home to Maggie’s mother who would grind them into meat to use to make bread. Kosana passed away at the age of eighty while en route home from Yosemite Valley. A snowstorm overtook the group of Indians he was traveling with, and they were unable to make it over the Sierra Mountains before Kosana died from exposure. He was buried near what is now the Yosemite Museum.⁴

　To learn more about Maggie Howard and the other women who helped make Yosemite a National Park read

High Country Women: Pioneers of Yosemite National Park

Enter now for a chance to win the book

High Country Women: Pioneers of Yosemite National Park

Celebrate the 126^th anniversary of Yosemite!

At the turn of the century Yosemite Valley, in particular the area known as Bridalveil Falls, was referred to as the “show place of the Sierras.” Artists from every medium thought the falls cascading down more than six hundred feet of rock wall into the valley to be so beautiful that it was considered selfish for anyone who looked on the splendor of the setting not to share the pleasure with others using whatever talent they were given. Among the many famous guests who visited the most prominent waterfall in the Yosemite Valley were General Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greely, General William T. Sherman, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Naturalist John Muir entreated the public to visit the spot often. According to his memoirs he challenged park patrons to “climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” He assured them that “nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”¹

It’s not unusual that couples chose the stunning Bridal Veil Falls as the backdrop for their nuptials. The first bride to plan her wedding at the spot was a prominent young woman from Los Angeles. According to the August 6, 1901, edition of the newspaper The Boston Globe, the ceremony was “so incredible it defied description and started a trend in civil unions held at the majestic National Park.” The momentous occasion highlighted in The Boston Globe article was duplicated by hundreds of betrothed couples in the early 1900s. “With a mighty altar and the generous diapason of an incomparable waterfall furnishing the melody of a bridal march Miss Annie Ripley of Los Angeles and Henry C. Best of San Francisco were wed in the valley a few days ago,” The Boston Globe article continued. “It was the first marriage ceremony performed in Yosemite, and for solemnity and picturesqueness it was surpassingly notable.”²

One hundred guests of the bride and groom were present and walked with them over trails and under trees to the place where the water crashed upon the rocks beneath the towering cliffs on either side of Bridalveil. “The day was a superb one and the scene one of matchless beauty,” The Boston Globe article continued³

“Miss Ripley was prettily attired in a mountain costumes and the man who was to be made her husband had set aside the customary garments and wore camping attire as well. Their look was fitting for the setting.

To learn more about Annie Ripley, Elizabeth Fry, and Sara Haight

and the other women who helped make Yosemite a National Park read

High Country Women: Pioneers of Yosemite National Park