Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1886 — The Pioneer Women of California. [ARTICLE]

The Pioneer Women of California.

Thirty-five years ago an ox team was creeping across the plains to California. By night the men walked, on guard against the Indians. By day the women tramped beside the patient beasts. Food was scarce, and it was necessary to save the cattle. At the head of one of these teams trudged a young woman with eyes alert for foe in form of redskin or friend in shape of water. Blistered bare feet—for shoes were worn out early in the tramp—sun-scarred faces and hands rock-hardened through constant exposure bespoke the hardships of the trip as they painfully dragged into Truckee after months of travel. That trip seared itself into a memory that never grew dim until three weeks ago. Then a palace sleeper, a baggageman, a transfer company, and a telegraph rubbed so heavily upon the indelible mark of u sl” that now but the turn test outline of the figures

I remain. The terrible trials endured by 1 our pioneer women will never be appreciated by the palace-hotel-cable-car-telephone generation. The girls of today cannot understand - why their mothers and grandmothers were in . such a hurry to get here. The fact that many came to join husbands does not seem to figure with Miss Shallow. But ' add a year or two and a share of love to Miss Shallow’s experience, and even in this 11 good-match” day she herself might travel from ocean to ocean to join a dear one. Our present-day women are just as noble, just as brave, and just as true as those who lived in the nauseatingly praised “good old times. San Francisco Report.