The above picture is of my great grandparents and other relatives on their homestead in 1915 in Eastern Montana. I like how well the following book excerpt goes with the picture above... "Sometimes I walk up to the hill where my husband built that sod shanty and gaze about me at the wreckage of our dreams, wondering if I shall ever see anything here but phantom homes. Those of us who remain have lost the romantic vision, lost the dream that brought us here. I look less than seven miles from my old house and see seven phantom homes. Dry and deserted, I see the fields where plows have gone patiently up and down, now weed grown, and fences down. And I feel the hand of desolation.
"I look a little farther and see one tiny house. So small appears that fence field, but it is not small, except by comparison with the vastness of the untilled land about it. I look again, and in the immensity of the unbroken acres of range land, ... among the scattered bunches of cattle, beyond the sheep wagon, are horses.
"These horses are our only hope. We have no feed for them. They must fend for themselves... and they must be strong enough to pull sleds and wagons 18 miles to the nearest town. If our horses starve, and if the wild horses starve, we will starve...
"Through my tears I see them still, the phantom homes. Dear, painted, shingled houses... Stacks of grain... Trees tended by loving hands... Gardens loved and cared for... And fat, gentle, sheltered horses."
~excerpt from Montana Woman Homesteaders-A Field Of One's Own, Chapter 13- Life in the Badlands: Pearl Danniel (homesteader in Eastern Montana)
What's around the next corner on Memory Lane?
What's around the next corner on Memory Lane?
See you next Monday!
Grab my button and take your own walk down memory lane every Monday!
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Don't forget to leave me a comment so I can walk along with you!
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Don't forget to leave me a comment so I can walk along with you!
4 comments:
That is very cool - you can almost feel like you're right there when you read it.
This picture is amazing Alison! Truly a priceless one for family history!
Ah, makes me want to cry too when I think of how good I have it compared to those homesteading women! I'm so thankful great grandpa and grandma survived those years.
It's hard to imagine how they survived at all--and then think about how they survived in the winter, freezing cold!
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