Showing results by author "Elinore Pruitt Stewart" in All Categories

Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1876-1933) was a homesteader in Wyoming and a memoirist who, between 1909 and 1914, wrote a series of engaging letters describing her life. The letters, which are short stories, reveal an adventurous and resourceful personality. They were first published in the Atlantic Monthly.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

After losing her husband, Elinore Pruitt washed clothes in Denver to support herself and her daughter. In 1909, she took a job working for a rancher near Burnt Fork, Wyoming. Subsequently she filed her own claim and married the rancher. The letters she wrote to her former employer over several years are packed with delightful stories and fascinating observations about her new life.

These lively, captivating letters are filled with sentiment and the excitement of pioneer life. Peopled with fascinating characters, they reveal the beauty and joy of living and working on the prairie.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader presents an outstanding first-person account of life on the American frontier. Elinore Pruitt Stewart took up homesteading in Burnt Fork, Wyoming, in 1909, to prove that a woman could ranch. Her captivating letters, sent to a former employer in Denver, reveal the isolation, the beauty, and the joy of working the prairie.