Something a Bit Different

[ithildin]

Something you may not know about me: I'm fascinated by anything to do with pioneers, and have been since I was a little girl. I'm particularly interested in the experiences of women who came West, and collect books on the subject. Last night I was reading a volume of Wagon Train Women, this one dealing with letters and diaries of women from 1860-65. There's a whole series, but I picked up this one since it was the time period my great great grandparents came to CA (Something I only discovered a few years ago when I found a copy of my great grandmother's marriage certificate in the B.C. Provincial archives. I about fell over when I saw place of birth listed as Grass Valley CA). I'm also rereading 'The Gentle Tamers' and Isabella Bird's 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains', which her first person account of her trip in 1873. Another favourite, though it got packed with most of my books that went to Utah, 'They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush'. Now that book I really wanted to reread... need to refresh my memory for a specific purpose :)

Comments

[inimue.livejournal.com]

That's incredibly interesting!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks :) I'm afraid I bore my family and RL friends to tears when I go off on one of my historical tangents. My brother humoured me on a trip to Yellowstone, taking a detour in Idaho so I could see portions of the Oregon Trail where there's still wagon wheel ruts in the ground.

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

Now that is cool. Recreations are great, witness accounts are fantastic, but nothing beats genuinely old stuff :)

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I thought it was cool, but I'm not sure my brother thought it was worth the half hour walk to the site and then back again [g]