The mothers and wives of the pioneers are justly entitled to kind remembrance. They were
devoted and self- sacrificing beyond measure. Their labor performed and the hardships they
endured should live in the hearts of the people to the remotest generation.
Here is a picture not overdrawn; A young bride of 20 has left her father's home of
comfort and luxury in the east, and with the determination to assist in hewing out a new
home in the wilderness of the west. With no capital except a strong resolution to win and
strong faith in the future, they bid adieu to friends and kindred, and with a steady eye
fixed upon the star of empire they penetrate the wilderness. A little log cabin or a sod
house or a dugout has been hastily built for shelter. A parlor, a sitting room, kitchen,
and a bedroom are all combined into one. The bare walls of this rude home are brought in
contrast in the mind of a young wife with the beautiful home of her childhood, but in her
young breast"hope is like an anchor to the soul". When the first Sabbath dawns
she may listen in vain for the sweet chimes of the church going bell. but looking out on
the broad expanse of the prairie all is solitary. Sometimes with heaviness of heart she
labors on and on, and che!
ers the faltering heart of her husband in his endeavors. The little means that they have
brought are rapidly melting away before any return for their labor is in sight. The
beautiful garments of her youth are facing and becoming tattered. By and by she becomes a
mother, and while the beautiful gift of heaven bring joy and gladness, yet in the same
train it brings anxieties and sorrows, a constant care by day and by night. The young
father must sometimes go long distances from home, to be gone days at a time, to a mill
fifty or a hundred miles away, or to a city far away, andlong nights in the lonely
home,with no protector but God. And now comes a strolling band of Hungary Indians to
frighten and annoy her, and while her child is screaming with fright she must stand in the
door and face these ferocious wild men. She must frequently leave her child to cry, while
she goes long distances after the cows, or to a distant spring for water, or carry the
baby on her arm and a heavy!
bucket of water with the other. The again harvest time comes or something else occurs
when several work hands must be provided for, when, with scanty means at command she must
perhaps carry the babe upon her arm and with the other do the work of cooking for the
hands. And again the night comes she must divide her bed and make beds upon the cabin
floor for men, as her husband keeps a free hotel for all strangers, she must deny herself
and little ones ease and comfort to wait upon strangers, and frequently make her children
wait at mealtime while strangers eat their bread, and the mother and children make their
meal from the scraps. This is no fancy sketch, it has occurred ten thousand times, of
which there are plenty of living witnesses.
Oh! who but a mother can tell of the weariness of a mother's life on the frontier; so
often struggling to keep the wolf from the door,
so often beset with dangers, so often overworked with slavish labor,and so often
overwrought with anxious care. No wonder that untimely gray hairs appear, and that her
cheeks are furrowed while she should yet be in the prime of her womanly strength and
beauty.
Young men and maidens, you that have such pleasant homes today, will you please remember
what it has cost your mothers in the years gone by to prepare these homes for you. In your
grateful hearts will you in a becoming manner reverence and love them?
If you can fully realize what they have done for you in your imagination it will surround
the gray heads with the grace and beauty, intermingled with a halo of holy light.
William Wallace Cox 1880 Seward County,Nebraska