Letters of a Woman Homesteader ~ Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Letters of a Woman Homesteader
by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Elinore Pruitt Stewart is the embodiment of the pioneering spirit, longing for a place of her own and willing to work hard for it.  These cheerful letters to a former employer, full of humorous incidents and vivid language, detail the adventures of the first few years in Wyoming.

Hardship is no stranger to Eleanor.  As a child her parents had died within months of each other.  Later, her husband was killed in a railroad accident leaving her with a baby to raise.  After a difficult bout with the grippe she decides to make a change and takes her little girl, Jerrine, away to the wilderness of Wyoming in 1909.  

In Wyoming she works as a housekeeper for a Scotsman while homesteading her own piece of land.  She is an inspiration in her industriousness.  “I have done most of my cooking at night, have milked seven cows every day, and have done all the hay-cutting, so you see I have been working.  But I have found time to put up thirty pints of jelly and the same amount of jam for myself.”

Her wonderful adventures are full of language that is very conversational and easy to read, but also picturesque.  “We were driving northward, and to the south and back of us were the great somber, pine-clad Uintah Mountains, while ahead and on every side were the bare buttes, looking like old men of the mountains, - so old they had lost all their hair, beard, and teeth.”

Her sense of humor is evident throughout the letters, as when she goes to file a claim on her homestead and, “modestly kicked over a chair,” in order to get the land agent to pay attention to her. 

Even with so much hardship and work, she remains cheerful, kind and full of hope.   A light in a snowstorm leads her to Zebulon Pike, who gives her and Jerrine shelter.  Elinore learns that he has not been home, or heard from home, since the end of “The War.”  She writes letters for him and reads those that arrive in return.  With the help of her employer, she arranges for someone to stay at Zebbie’s homestead while he takes the train home for a visit, with a ranch hand for an escort.

On another visit to Zebbie’s, her imagination takes flight as they sit in a cabin listening to him play the fiddle while a terrible storm rages outside – “Zebbie was playing what he called ‘Bonaparte’s Retreat.’  It all seemed to flash before me – I could see those poor, suffering soldiers staggering along in the snow, sacrifices to one man’s unholy ambition.  I verily believe we were all bewitched.”

She also manages to find romance in sparsely populated Wyoming but loses her first son as an infant, to an infection which could be easily treated with penicillin today.  “His little message to us had been love, so I selected a chapter from John and we had a funeral service, at which all our neighbors for thirty miles around were present.  So you see, our union is sealed by love and welded by a great sorrow.”

Elinore is at once a product of her time and place, and also leaves us a record of it.  Besides the book of letters which is a quick and enjoyable read, there is a recording of the book available on CD which lends the perfect voice to Elinore, pleasant and homespun.  It can also be listened to online through our library’s subscription to Talking Tumble Books.  I highly recommend it.