Although a large number of women homesteaders were young, single women like Edith and Ida Mary, there were many widowed and divorced ones as well. “Widow Fergus,” homesteading with her young son, was the first woman to visit the Ammons sisters and soon became one of their dearest friends (p. 21–22). Other examples abound. A widow with two small children became a homesteader in the early 1880s, when she learned that a number of her friends were leaving for Kansas to enter timber claims. She recalled, “I jumped up, saying, ‘I am going to Kansas.’ In a few minutes I left the door with my collar in my mouth and putting on my cuffs, and I was soon on the train to join the western party.”5 A divorced woman with a four-year-old daughter boarded a train for Montana, where she chose a 360-acre homestead, while another joined an Oklahoma land run to obtain a homestead to support herself and her four-month-old child.6
It was also not unusual for married women to retain and work their claims on their own after marriage. Although Ida Mary Ammons left her share of the claim to Edith after her marriage to Imbert Miller in 1909, many others wanted to add to a husband’s farm or ranch through their own homesteading efforts. Former Denver washwoman Elinore Pruitt continued to hold her Wyoming claim after she married cattle rancher Clyde Stewart in 1910. Because the boundary line of her claim ran within two feet of Stewart’s house, her claim shack was erected as an addition to his home. Despite this joint housing, Elinore Pruitt Stewart insisted that she did not allow her husband to help her with her claim, for she wanted the “fun and experience” herself.7
While the need to improve their financial situations clearly attracted women of all ages and marital statuses to the Plains, they were also drawn by what Enid Bern called the “enchantment of the prairie” and Kohl described as the “wild adventure” of homesteading.8 Abbie Bright, a single homesteader in Kansas, claimed that her “desire to cross the Mississippi and a love of traveling” lured her to a homestead. In 1904, Martha Stoecker of Iowa enthusiastically accepted her brother’s invitation to join a party of homesteaders; after giving the matter more thought, she realized that the “thrill” of taking up land on her own fascinated her. She also thought that the undertaking was a great opportunity to see Dakota, “that awfully barren state we’d heard so much about in the song ‘Dakota Land’”—a dubious inducement, since the song ended with the lines, “We do not live, we only stay/We are too poor to get away.”9
The costs of homesteading seemed relatively modest to most women, although expenses naturally varied depending upon the region, era, improvement level of the claim, and expectations of the individual. The Ammons sisters figured that their land, claim shack, food, fuel, and other necessities would total approximately $300.00. They held costs down by claiming a “relinquishment” or “improved” homestead that a bachelor forfeited after building a claim shack on it because he could not endure the loneliness (p. 8). In 1887, twenty years before the Ammons migrated to South Dakota, homesteader Susan Carter paid only $21.75 for her Nebraska claim and its shack, including a stove and rudimentary furniture. She then spent another $5.10 on flour, groceries, and soap, $3.75 on dishes and a lamp, $3.00 on a cupboard and chairs, and $.35 on thread and needles, for a total capital investment of $33.95.10 Another woman’s homestead expenses in 1909 were about $15.00 for transportation to South Dakota, $14.00 for the initial filing fee, $4.00 an acre to have sod broken, $50.00 for a shack, and $80.00 in additional fees if proving up in fourteen months rather than in five years. It did not take her long to decide that the “five year plan” with its minimal proving-up fee was for her.11 A Wyoming woman of the same period saved receipts showing that she paid $23.48 in claim filing fees, $.48 for a pound of bacon, $.15 for a container of milk, and $.15 for two Hershey bars.12
Once on their claims, women frequently discovered that the low costs and aura of adventure were more than offset by the hard work involved in their enterprises. Edith Kohl declared her sister and herself to be “wholly unfitted for the frontier” having “neither training nor physical stamina for roughing it” (p. 6). Yet they were far from alone in their predicament, for while many women homesteaders came from farm backgrounds, many also came from towns and cities. Despite their lack of preparation, the women rallied an unbelievable store of courage as well as a willingness to tackle chores and master new skills. One Nebraska woman learned to use a rifle, once killing a “pesky gopher” and another time “5 little birds to make broth of.”13 Anna and Ethel Erickson, sisters who homesteaded in North Dakota, not only learned to use rifles, but became adept at carpentry and hanging wallpaper as well.14
Women homesteaders turned to men for help when confronted by tasks that were beyond their strength or ability. The Ammons sisters relied upon neighboring homesteaders and cowpunchers for occasional aid while other women sought help from fathers, brothers, friends, and hired hands. Although Nebraska homesteader Susan Carter planted her own corn and beans, she hired a man to dig her well while her future husband broke sod for her.15 Similarly, Abbie Bright of Kansas planted her corn, hoed her beans and peas, and made improvements on her claim shack, but paid to have a dugout bored into a hillside and relied upon her brother Phillip to do the heavy work of the claim.16 Bess Corey of South Dakota had no male friend or relative to call upon, so she hired men to break sod, construct fencing, erect her frame shack, and build a dam.17
Primitive housing also presented a problem to women homesteaders. The Ammons sisters’ horrified reaction to their first claim shack was a common one among women homesteaders who were dismayed by the crude state of their homes and furnishings. Dimensions of these shacks were typically nine feet by twelve feet, twelve feet square, or twelve feet by fourteen feet. They ranged from frame shacks, covered inside and out with tarpaper or flattened tin cans (as protection from the harsh winds and cold of the Plains), to dugouts in hillsides or huts made of strips of sod ripped from the ground with plows. Furniture was wooden and often homemade; a cupboard made of wooden boxes, painted or wallpapered and hung with muslin curtains, was a universal feature. Bedticks were stuffed with cornhusks, hay, or slough grass while small cookstoves burned “cats” of twisted hay, buffalo “chips,” or scarce wood and coal. A precious clock, rocking chair, or mirror, carefully transported across the Plains by a determined owner, sometimes supplemented these sparse furnishings. The rooms were completed by curtains, a crucial household item for most plainswomen, who made them of muslin, petticoats, or old sheets. Other household items appeared as a result of women’s inventiveness: a table with two loose boards designed to serve as an ironing board or an old trunk placed outdoors to be used as a refrigerator.18
Women expressed great pride in the improvements they added to their claim shacks, shanties, sod huts, and dugouts. Edith Kohl explained that “from the moment we began to make improvements, transforming the shack, it took on an interest for us out of all proportion to the changes we were able to make” (p. 27). In other words, women quickly began to invest part of themselves in these strange dwelling places, turning them bit by bit into homes that functioned as effective workplaces, sometimes even boasting a small touch of elegance. The things that could be accomplished by a determined woman within the walls of a diminutive claim shack were often remarkable. A Kansas homesteader