Page 17 - 2007 DT 12 Issues

I n T h i s I s s u e

Featured Article
Women of the West...........................1
Special
Visitor Survey..................................3
Hikes Contest..................................7
Departments
News & Notes..................................2
March 2007 Programs & Hikes...........................4
Desk Schedule................................6
Bulletin Board................................8

WOMEN OF THE WEST. . . many exceptions, however, including

resourceful, rash, resilient and remarkable instances when the husband headed
west to find gold and get settled, prom-
ising to send for his wife. Months and
by Chuck Kleber Western scene. Some never made it as even years could pass. Lucinda Mann
women; life ended on the pioneer trail waited three years without word, and
n the impressive "Pioneer Woman as a child. One poignant marker reads: then decided to take the children and
Statue" in Ponca City, Oklahoma, "Mary Jane McClelland. Departed this head for California on her own. When
Ishe confidently leads her young life Aug. 18th, 1849, aged 3 yrs,
son into a future of peril and promise. 4 mos."
Although the image is symbolic, it The West created a unique
exemplifies the raw courage of women relationship between men and
who faced their own special ordeals women. For one, it seemed there
in the Old West. She still carried the were never enough women. The
gentle and delicate female image, (at cowboys, prospectors, soldiers and
least to men), but she endured the other frontiersmen, who had been
same roster of hazards that men faced, out in the wilds for weeks on end,
plus the enormous responsibility of were generally uncomfortable in
children, and even pregnancy, on the the presence of "good" women,
trails to the West. though paying them great and
The stuff of Hollywood continues often exaggerated respect. They
to hang on to our picture of Western were more at ease with women in
women, like Susan Hayward in a the saloon, who were immediatey
covered wagon, looking as if she had friendly. Although they, too, were
just stepped out of a Rodeo Drive viewed with some awe, that didn't
beauty salon. But whether in a covered protect them from being slapped
wagon, singing in a saloon, prospect- around now and then. When Wyatt
ing or handling firearms, the movies Earp did it, the Dodge City Times Pioneer Women, Kansas Statehouse
hold an underlying truth—women did reported that they ". . . were only
all these things, and more. They could dance hall girls." Their life could be
ride, shoot and drive a team of oxen, dangerous, and some died violently she arrived at the mining town of Jack-
son, she was dismayed to learn that
as well as mend clothes and make at the hands of a man. It was much
soap. They were as much a part of the more likely, however, that a man died her husband had died several months
West as their men, and the list is long. at the wrong end of a six-gun held by earlier. The resourceful Lucinda took
There are the famous ones, the Annie a man—you did not mess with another over her husband's store, served the
Oakley’s and the Calamity Jane’s with man's woman. miners and made it a success. The
their flamboyant careers and person- The usual picture of pioneers mining camps had a need for women in
alities, and there are the thousands of heading west has the family together
nameless women who made up the in the covered wagon. There were Women, continued on p.6