Main Street, Wyoming; 625; Elinore Stewart

Main Street Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. And the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through their study of Wyoming history values and ideas. You may have read her book Letters of a woman homesteader or seen the movie heartland which was based on her life but you won't want to miss mainstreet Wyoming when we'll be traveling with a group of students from western Wyoming college to visit the actual homestead of Eleanor Pruitt Stewart. Oh. Welcome to Main Street Wyoming I'm Deborah Hammond and today we're traveling with a class

from western Wyoming college to the homestead of Eleanor Pruitt Stewart. Mrs. Stewart's letters have entranced generations of readers. Her tales of leaving Denver as a wash lady and traveling to birth for quiet her dream proving up her own homestead. Marcia hams leans Western American literature class read letters of a woman homesteader as an example of Pioneer writing magical Pruitt Stewart Wyoming's Willa Cather the class members just like the woman homesteader loaded up their vehicle and headed 60 miles south of Rock Springs. Current Wyoming April 18th 1909. Dear Mrs. Conan are you thinking I am lost like the babes in the wood. Well I am not and I'm sure the robins would have the time of their lives getting weaves to cover me out here. I

am way up close to the forest reserve of Utah within half a mile of the line 16 miles from the railroad. I was 24 hours on the train and two days on the stage. Oh those two days the snow was just beginning to melt and the mud was about the worst I ever heard of. The Stuarts homestead is inaccessible to the public but the class received permission for its annual visit. Norma Damn I knew the Stewart family joined us that very windy day. Cried Stuart a Wyoming rancher had advertised for a housekeeper. Rupert answered his ad and soon found herself and her daughter traveling to distant fork Wyoming. Marshall what do we know about Eleanor Pruitt Stewart's life. Well we know some from her letters but she really doesn't say very much about herself in her letters. But what we do know a biographer Suzanne George has written a book called The

Adventures of the woman homesteader and what I've learned about her life that isn't in the letters is primarily from that book. She did grow up in Oklahoma. She or her parents died when she was very young. She had responsibility for raising her own her own brothers and sisters because she was the oldest child in the letters she says that she was married but that her husband died in an accident. And the information that Susan George found out contradicts this. And there is probably very good evidence that that she was her husband did not die but there was some sort of a divorce or in a strange moment. And so when she came to Denver it was probably as a. Woman who was divorced not as a widow. And so that's really an interesting issue about the story why would she not tell that to people why would she keep that quiet and probably because of the stigma may be attached to to being a divorced person at that time so there's a little bit of a mystery there about about her marital

status before she came. Eleanor described Mr. Stewart in her letters. I have a very very comfortable situation and Mr. Stewart is absolutely no trouble for as soon as he has his meals he retires to his room and plays on his bed pipe. Only he calls it his but it is the Campbells are coming with out variations at intervals all day long and from seven till eleven at night. Sometimes I wish they would make haste and get here. What Eleanor failed to mention to her former employer Mrs. Coney was that she and Mr. Stuart were married six weeks after her arrival. The engagement was powerfully short because both agreed that the trend of events and ranch work seemed to require that we be married first and do our sparking afterwards. You see we had to change in the wedding between times that is between planting the oats and other work that must be done early or not at all. In Wyoming ranchers can scarcely take time even to be married in the spring time.

She did do some writing before she came to Wyoming So I think that's another piece of evidence it lends credence to the idea that she probably or may very well have written the letters with the idea of publication in mind from the very beginning. How many children did she finally have and when did she pass away. She had dreamed of course by in the marriage she had the one baby who died and then three sons with Clyde who did live. There's a wonderful account in Susan George's book about how she before her death. She wanted to go up into the mountains one more time. And so they made a camp for her and took a tent and everything and she wrote some letters to friends from that from that account and one of her sons came to check on her a few days later and found that she was ill and that was when they took her into the hospital in in Rock Springs and she died in Rock Springs. Thank you thank you.

I. Know you came here in 1940 and you lived with the stewards. Yes I lived with the stories I came out to school. Can you tell me where or what parts of the house they lived in and what were the original parts in the Yad on over on this side where the original parts and this is where I lived with her for her father because my sister was gone before that time and Cleo Terry owned least this part of the ranch and lived in this part of the house. And then dream left here in December 1940 and got married. So then I moved in with the Terrys and I've been out here ever since. So original part was this in the add on that was she put that on as her part of the homestead. Well as I understand it that one port over there was one room and then if you look back in the back there you'll find were they drawing together.

Later she had one and he had the other and they had to they had lived in their own place in order to prove up on the homestead and so then they had to join them later after they got married. Marsha literally it goes right through the middle of the property line goes right through the middle of it. It was so that when she homestead it is not the way you understand it this way I understand it is that when she hosted it she just had to build on to Clyde's. Yeah and her plan was the other side so that she could prove up in that way. Let's look inside. This is the room the dream and I lived in when I first came here and your father lived in that room there where we all lived. We lived in both groups. But she and I slept in this room and the father slept in that part over there and then for the cooking and everything was that in the center part no the cooking was done here. Oh OK. Because the cherries and sales had this part over here and they were a separate family and they did their own cooking and. Whatever. All right. Dream

cooked for us over on this side. OK. And incidentally when I first came here I taught for $90 a month. And they got a bargain. OK OK. Yeah. Four times. The cracks in the date was a very early date to find. Out where the computer was. Left. But this is this is the this is your in the next room was the kitchen. And. So over here in this corner was a big huge truck. With lots of things in the other motherhood and if you are. What's your name. George

George wrote the book. She. Got into the stronger some of the papers out of the trunk she got them from sure enough to complete the deal. So her book is based on a lot of things that really. At the time I would have gone through the dirt. Rather than round something special for. Their Time now for. Some of the old cabins how they put them together in the corners they're all put in different ways in different cabins. From here you have the windows and. You can imagine her. Looking out. In the. Countryside as she describes. There's one letter where she describes the inside of her. House.

Dear Mrs. Coney I feel just like visiting tonight so I am going to play like you have come. It is so good to have you to chat with. I'm sure this room must look familiar to you for there is so much in it that was once yours. I have two rooms each 15 by 15 but this one on the south is my really room and in it are my treasures. My house faces east and it's built up against a side hill or should I say hillside. Anyway they had to excavate quite a lot. I had them dump the dirt right before the House and terrace it smoothly. I have sown my terrace to California poppies and around my porch which is 6 feet wide and very long. I have planted wild cucumbers every log and my house is a straight as a pine can grow. Each room has a window and a door on each side and a south room has two windows on the south with a space between for my heater which is one of

those with a great front so I can see the fire burn. It is almost as good as a fireplace. The logs are unhuman outside because I like the rough finish but inside the walls are perfectly square and smooth. It cracks in the walls are snugly filled with dobbing and then the walls are covered with heavy gray building paper which makes the room very warm and I really like the appearance. I had two rolls of wallpaper with a bold rose pattern by being very careful I was able to cut out enough of the roses to make a border about 18 inches from the ceiling. The woodwork is stained a walnut brown oil finish and the floor is stained in oil just like it or a floor covering I have a braided rug a blue and white made from old sheets and Turing's old dresses. As I understand it her cabin was that of his caddy was this. And then when they came to give it or give it to

them they simply were separated. First yes and then they joined them with that section. Of the signage that makes more sense. And that was the wood box because they all burned wood. And I can remember going on a trip. One time with the Stuarts in the wagon and we got one over on Cedar Mountain got some cedar wood for the winter. The cookstove is right over there and they have a shelf some covers over here to show us. Yes to Eleanor Pruitt Stewart's first collection of letters was published in 1914. Five years after her move to burnt cork. But what are they stories about homesteading life say to readers today. Because I know this is so small it's a large file size. This is like a house that long else. Where you think if you had.

Been out here than you think you could have done what they did you know. You have too many luxuries now. Yeah I can never have. Yeah but still. Now I couldn't live out here if you could. Sure miles around there can you get around on boards with no electricity or anything on farms just lots more school on the whole works so it's not really you don't know me. What really compared to them this is the seven from the source from which I can.

Tell you that's what that's what he says. You know. The question I think everybody and I think that still holds true to a certain extent I mean if you if you come from circumstances where you were brought up having to learn how to rough it it's a lot you know. But it must be difficult for Elmo because you came from Denver and it's interesting because all of you girls said no be too hard do you think it was any different a woman's life in a man's life and you know you're the one that thinks you can do it I and you can do it. So my family does every summer we go camping we stay out there a long time backpacking stuff like that's in the summer when we go swimming with my dad he said in the snow for the tent. What parts of the book did you think sounded like fun. We talked about some things that sounded kind of hard. What did you think sounded like it was better than maybe what we have today.

Freedom to do anything you want out there. Is in people. Yet it was always being invited to go with me. You know that was one thing I thought I made in the book is that there is only all this eating going on from like this that there was always cooking going away so it really was not just like you said you noticed a lot of cooking. I think just the role perspective with male female jobs and thats why why so I could I wouldn't mind doing this now I'd like to do it because I think the male role was all of the females part of cooking and cleaning and taking to Ricketts was much more difficult than you know working in the hay field. So that's probably why I do it. You guys are all

going at it. There mower and love that you. Don't like. Yeah I think we should. So I cut the potatoes during help and we dropped them in the rows. The man covered them and that ends the man's part. By that time the garden ground was ready so I planted the garden. I had almost an acre in vegetables I irrigated and cultivated it myself. We had all the vegetables we could possibly use and now Jermaine and I have put in our cellar more than two tons potatoes half a ton of carrots a large been a beets one of turnips one of onions one a parson eps and on the other side of the cellar we have more than 100 heads of happy each and everything that they have in that you think you would like to have now that we don't have.

I think the feeling of independence the feeling that anything is possible. I think a lot of that's been lost over the years. So you know civilization is sort of like encroached just at every corner. You know can we get away from it anymore. And back then you could still sort of. You know make your way by you know on your own and get away from it and do it don't do it Eleanor Pruitt Stewart did and like she was I think ahead of her time because a lot of women are more than happy to stay wherever they work and staying you know stay in their apartments of their own city like. The people that don't know. Stewart new in Denver before she left and that she was content to do that she wanted to go off and do her own thing and it was possible for her to now I think a lot of those possibilities are sort of lost you know I know I was struck You know when I read about the poor of Denver and she wanted to let them know hey you can come do what I I think she made it sound too easy you know for us because she knows she's like well just hard working everything but I

think she kind of painted it with a kind of look through with rose colored glasses sort of because it's it would be hard I wouldn't want to do it you know. I asked Assistant Professor Hensley how her students had reacted to the letters of a woman homesteader over the years. I think students tend to react to it on a real personal level. And I think I did when I first read it. And I think that's what they react to is they think they see that they can identify with the places that she's writing about because they they live close to these places and they can in class we talked about her descriptions of the landscape. They could they could identify with those descriptions of the landscape. She even tells jokes that are still some of the same jokes we tell about Wyoming like well there's only two seasons while in Wyoming there is winter and July and August you know. And you know that form of a joke is being told is told still today about our weather and so I think we can

Adana with that. Watch. I think that she she also one thing that she said in her first letter to Mrs. Currie she says did you think that we were lost like I was lost like babes in the woods. Well I am not and I think that she there is that that tone to her letters of trying to justify maybe to her friends back in Denver why would she do this extraordinary thing to leave the city and go to a place that they might have thought of as kind of remote and and uninhabitable. And I think some of us who live in Wyoming today have find ourselves in the position of defending our lifestyle to other people in that same way and saying I'm not lost out here. I like it here and the way I like to marry you try to imagine yourself you know I can't I'm from Boston I cannot imagine why you don't mean to

signal you I'm a pioneer. Here you come from another part of the country do you really feel like Wyoming is different than other parts and that will get you thinking about homesteading mentality is still here. If it's a totally different view point. It's more oh well to store or cool to me. You guys is. Babies to go to Sturbridge or Plymouth Rock and this old and new. I asked the students if seeing this registered national historical place had changed their impressions of Eleanor Pruitt Stewart's line when we came out here the first thing I thought was oh I have a deeper growing respect for this woman because I mean especially with the way they lasted through the winter I I know I can do it I'd be gone within a week and

not even a week like an hour I wouldn't be able to stay here. She never really focused on the hard times it was more to me it was more like the good times that she went through. That's kind of the feeling I got when I read. It would you feel the same way that you focus on the good times. Oh you. Know what I think she did. She was justifying herself. To Mrs. Conway to try to turn it on. This is a good thing. I'm having a good time and. I didn't make a mistake you know. So you know that there were difficult times it was just that she wasn't writing about that that wasn't the. Thing that she was trying to portray. And I think one thing we overlook is that we think that because those books a book is written in letter form that it is just an account of what was happening to her. Instead of a literary creation. And I think that there's a good deal of evidence that it really was a literary creation certainly based on what was happening to her. But they are just simple letters that you would dash

off. In a few minutes to a friend. There's there is a beginning a middle and end to the stories and they are literary not just letters and so we you know. She was telling a story. And she was telling the story from her perspective and she wanted it to be a happy story here and I'm afraid if your family's like this for my family. If you die. After watching. Orange lamp. Did you ever eat pork and beans heated in a frying pan on a camp fire for breakfast. Then if you have not there is one delight left you but you must be a way out in Wyoming with the morning sun just gilding the distant peaks and your pork and beans must be out of a can heat it in a disreputable old frying pan served with coffee boiled in a battered all pale and drunk from a tomato can. You'll never want iced melons powdered sugar and fruit or 69 varieties of breakfast food. You once said on

Wyoming san and eat the kind of breakfast we had that day. For sure it's a. Sense of fun just drop the reasoning is let's have a party. And there was no logo your linen table for these plates it was just. My favorite part was some gal you sweating. Can you tell me that yet regalia and her sister sit down. I mean everybody thought you would get married first and this meant it but it turned out to be some gal you married the man they wanted to marry. Again he is always using these big words. She showed up at the at the wedding everything walked up to Eleanor and said Are you going to the function. Then there's this old man. There was this older man there who went up to Clive. He said What's a function. And I'm. Clive told him it was a disease and so they went through the entire. Party there telling everybody to stay away from Sedalia because she

had a function. It's a great story. Whenever I come to this site I can just imagine her sitting on the on the horse with green behind her and heading up to the hills for a little break from her work. Our next stop was the burnt fork cemetery where members of the Stewart family are buried. Do you remember I wrote you up a little baby boy dying. That was my own little Jamie our first little son. For a long time my heart was crushed. He was such a sweet beautiful boy. I wanted him so much. Little Jamie was her first little Stewart. God has given me two more precious little son. You know sorrow is not so keen now. I couldn't bear to tell you about it but I never could before. I met you. For 50 years I've had hardships he fed to frack water.

We didn't have any electricity. We were really really hard as I'm sure the Delta had to roll all of assent to. But it is a wonderful place to live in and I wouldn't trade it. When you think of me you must think of me as one who is truly happy. It is true I won a great many things I haven't got but I don't want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine. I have my home among the Blue Mountains my healthy well born children my clean honest husband my kind gentle milk cows my garden which I make myself. I have loads and loads of flowers which I tend myself. There are lots of chickens turkeys and pigs which are my own special care. I have some slow gentle horses on an old wagon I can load up the kiddies and go where I please. Any time I have the best kindest neighbors and I have my dear absent friends. Do you wonder I am so happy when I think of it all. I

wonder how I can crowd all my joy into one short life. Now. The. Bigger. The. Bigger. The. The Earth the. For a copy of this or any Main Street Wyoming send a check or money order to Wyoming Public Television or

call us at 1 800 4 9 5 9 7 8 8. Please include the subject a broadcast date of the program. The cost of each VHS tape is twenty dollars. We accept Visa MasterCard and discover mainstreet Wyoming is made possible by Kennicott energy company proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the coal and uranium industries which includes exploration mining and production. Amber Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching the lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history Bell use and ideas.