Journal Notes

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Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

The long shadows of a beleaguered wagon train stretched across the Carson River Route, a parched trail through Nevada. Pioneers traveling west used this unavoidable route to get to California. The long, dry crossing was one of the most dreaded ordeals of the entire emigrant experience. The sources of fresh, drinkable water were forty miles apart from one another. Thirty-year-old Sarah Royce had read about the desolate section of land in the fragments of a guide book she’d found while on the journey to the Gold Country in 1849. By the time many of the sojourners had reached this part of the trek their wagons and livestock weren’t fit to continue.

Sarah, her husband, and their two-year-old daughter, Mary, stared in amazement at the abandoned vehicles and carcasses of ox and mule teams lying about. It seemed to the weary couple that they could walk over the remains of the animals for the duration of the trip and never touch the ground. The grim markers were nothing Sarah envisioned she would see when she embarked on the six-month venture. Having left her home in Iowa to follow the hordes of other pilgrims hoping to find gold, she set her sights on a serene and profitable life in a country depicted as a utopia. The expedition had proved to be more difficult than she had expected.

To learn more about Eliza Mott and the school she founded in 1863, and about the other brave educators in an untamed new country read

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

It’s time to enter to win a copy of the book

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

A precious, wide-eyed seven-year-old boy studied a sample of the alphabet in front of him and tried to copy the material onto a small slate with a broken piece of chalk. His teacher, Mrs. Eliza Mott, stood over his shoulder, kindly guiding him through the work and praising him for his effort. A handful of other youngsters reviewed the letters and practiced writing them out with pencil stubs on scraps of paper. Eliza’s kitchen served as a classroom, and students sat on bare logs around a crude, wooden table – some enjoying the learning process; others cursing the day school was created.

The Carson Valley area where Eliza and her husband, Israel settled in 1851 needed a place where children could learn the three R’s. In early 1852, the Motts offered their home as a temporary school; and, armed with a pair of McGuffey Readers, Eliza began teaching. Monday through Friday she welcomed boys and girls dressed in plaid, gingham dresses, home-knit stockings, tan trousers and over-shirts, who were either barefoot or wearing rough shoes with hard leather soles. The class ranged in age from five to eleven years. It toiled over a variety of subjects, sharing the limited books on spelling and arithmetic. On a few occasions, Eliza escorted the children to the small cemetery to read the epitaphs on the tombstones. It served not only to aid the students in learning to read but instilled a sense of reverence for those who had passed away helping to tame the wild territory.

To learn more about Eliza Mott and the school she founded in 1863, and about the other brave educators in an untamed new country read

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Time to enter to win a copy of the book

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

Twenty-one-year-old Anna Webber rubbed her eyes and leaned against the rough wall of the sod schoolhouse where she taught. The view from the window of the small building framed the tall grass and wheat field around Blue Hill, Kansas, perfectly. A slight breeze in the middle distance brushed across the tops of cottonwood trees lining the banks of the Solomon Rivers, richly adding to the peaceful scene.

Anna squinted into the sunlight filtering into the tiny classroom and stretched her arms over her head. The one-room schoolhouse was empty of students, and the young teacher was sitting on the floor grading papers. The room was only big enough for a half dozen pupils but served more than sixteen children on most days.

Inside the roughly constructed building, made from strips cut from the prairie earth found in abundance around the small settlement, the furnishings consisted of a chair for the teacher and several boards balanced on rocks for the students to sit. There was no blackboard and no writing desks. The primitive conditions made Anna’s job more difficult than she had anticipated and robbed her of the job she initially felt when she entered the profession.

To learn more about Anna Webber and the school she founded in 1863, and about the other brave educators in an untamed new country read

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Time to enter to win a copy of the book

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

The sprawling mining community of Bannack, Montana, was awash in the far-reaching rays of the morning sun. The rolling hills and fields around the crowded burg were thick with brush. Saffron and gold plants dotted the landscape, their vibrant colors electric against a backdrop of browns and greens. Twenty-seven-year-old Lucia Darling barely noticed the spectacular scenery as she paraded down the main thoroughfare of town. The hopeful schoolmarm was preoccupied with the idea of finding a suitable place to teach. Escorted by her uncle, Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton, Lucia made her way to a depressed section of the booming hamlet searching for the home a man rumored to have a building to rent.

Referring to a set of directions drawn out on a slip of paper, Lucia marched confidently to the door of a rustic, rundown log cabin and knocked. When no one answered right away, Chief Justice Edgerton took a turn pounding on the door. Finally, a tired voice called out from the other side for the pair to “come in.”

To learn more about Lucia Darling and the school she founded in 1863, and about the other brave educators in an untamed new country read

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Enter now to win a copy of the book

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

A precious, wide-eyed seven-year-old boy studied a sample of the alphabet in front of him and tried to copy the material onto a small slate with a broken piece of chalk. His teacher, Mrs. Eliza Mott, stood over his shoulder, kindly guiding him through the work and praising him for his effort. A handful of other youngsters reviewed the letters and practiced writing them out with pencil stubs on scraps of paper. Eliza’s kitchen served as a classroom, and students sat on bare logs around a crude wooden table-some enjoying the learning process; others curing the day school was created.

The Carson Valley area were Eliza and her husband, Israel, settled in 1851 needed a place where children could learn the three R’s. In early 1852, the Motts offered their home as a temporary school; and, armed with a pair of McGuffey Readers, Eliza began teaching.

To learn more about Eliza Mott and the other brave educators in an untamed new country read Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Enter now to win a copy of the book

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

Twenty-two-year-old Olive Isbell cradled a loaded rifle in her arms and scanned the hilly landscape surrounding the adobe school where she taught at Santa Clara Mission in California. From far off she could hear a gun spit in swift five-syllable defiance, and she readied herself for a potential attack on the building. Twenty preoccupied students toiled away at the books and lessons in front of them. The exchange of gunfire was so routine it barely disturbed their studies.

The mission was under fire from the Mexican Army, which was trying to reclaim land it believed belonged to Mexico. Settlers scattered throughout the area had converged on the site for protection.

To learn more about Olive Isbell and the other brave educators in an untamed new country read Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Enter now to win a copy of the book Frontier Teachers:

Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.

These women, many at the ripe old age of sixteen or eighteen, were trailblazers. They risked it all – traveling thousands of miles on crude trails through wilderness, across deserts, and over mountain passes – not just for the promise of a better future for themselves, but for the opportunity to bring education and the joy of learning to the children of the western frontier. They did as much to settle the Wild West as celebrated lawmen, gold seekers, and the railroad.

The women of the West broke the mail stranglehold on the teaching profession, which was dominated by men on the East Coast. Today, more than seventy percent of teachers are women. And although, sadly, it took more than a hundred years, the descendants of these pioneers, through union organizing, established the single-salary schedule that finally guaranteed female teachers equal work, passed a collective-bargaining law to give teachers a voice in their profession, and boldly made it so female teachers couldn’t be fired for simply getting married.

To learn more about brave educators in an untamed new country read

Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.

Time is short. Enter now 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. 236: A gentleman of 25 years old, 5 feet 3 inches, doing a good business in the city, desires the acquaintance of a young, intelligent and refined lady possessed of some means, of a loving disposition from 18 to 23, and one who could make home a paradise.  Must like biking. 

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.

To do list: WIN! 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:

May 1873 – I am 33 years of age, and as regards to looks I am average with most men. I am looking for a lady to make her my wife, as I am heartily tired of bachelor life. I desire a lady not over 28 or 30 years of age, not ugly, well educated and musical. Nationality makes no difference, only I prefer not to have a lady of Irish birth. She must have at least $20,000.

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.

To do list: WIN! 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. 282 – A few lady correspondents wanted by two bashful men in their 30s, of fair complexion. Both 5 feet 5 inches tall, weight 130 – 145 pounds. Would prefer brunettes of fair form about five feet, between 18 and 20 years of age. Object, improvement, and if suited, matrimony. No elderly ladies need apply.

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.