Letter of a Woman Homesteader

There are a number of books that I feel like I need to read as a Wyomingite. Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart was one of those books.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader is not a novel or memoir, it's the actual letters Stewart wrote to a friend after she moved to western Wyoming in the early 1900s. The letters tell the story of her arrival and subsequent years. For me, the book was kind of slow. However, I highlighted line after line because so much of what Elinore wrote spoke to me. (yay for Kindle highlighting!)

"The quaking aspens were just beginning to turn yellow; everywhere the purple asters were a blaze of glory except where the rabbit-bush grew in clumps, waving its feathery plumes of gold. Over it all, the sky was so deeply blue, with little, airy, white clouds drifting lazily along."

"All westerns are likable, with the possible exception of Greasy Pete."

"I can think of nothing that would give me more happiness than to bring the west and its people to others who could not otherwise enjoy them. If I could only take them from whatever is worrying them and give them this bracing mountain air, glimpses of the scenery, the smell of the pines and sage."