Ida: Her Labor of Love
Ida met her husband in Nebraska when she was 14 but waited until she was 15 before marrying him. She was somewhat disgusted with her mother for having so many children, yet she herself was to have fourteen. She obediently followed her husband from Nebraska to Kansas and on to Colorado, never establishing a real home and usually on the move. Ida could be the story of a down-trodden woman but instead it is the story of a woman with great dignity, honor and grace.
- Published
- 1999
- ISBN
- 1-890437-18-2
- Pages
- 287
- Category
- History
- Place
- Colorado
- Publisher
- Western Reflections
- Listed at
- $23.68
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer. Cover image courtesy of Open Library.
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About this book
Ida: Her Labor of Love is the story of one woman's life on the Western frontier. Ida met her husband in Nebraska when she was 14 and waited until she was 15 to marry him. She was somewhat disgusted with her mother for having so many children, yet she herself had fourteen.
She followed her husband from Nebraska to Kansas and on to Colorado, never establishing a real home and usually on the move. The description says it could have been the story of a downtrodden woman. Instead it is the story of a woman with great dignity, honor and grace.
Goodreads calls it a true, expanded biography of a woman who lived in Colorado in the late 1800s, covering her part in settling the American West and the joys and hardships of frontier life. A reader review there says the author wrote it as a tribute to her grandmother. Our catalogue lists it under biography and pioneers. Sources disagree on the first publication year and on the page count, so we give neither.
Who it is for
This book suits readers of women's frontier history and family biography. It follows a life of repeated moves across Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado.
Ways to use this book
Researching a pioneer woman in your own family
If a great grandmother also followed a husband across state lines, start with the homestead land records at Homestead NHP, then check county and state holdings in each place she lived. Write down every town and year first, so each search has a name and a date.
Reading a long family biography alongside the map
Ida's story crosses three states, so a map helps. Browse Kansas Memory for photographs and maps from the decades in the catalogue description, and note where the family stopped.
Finding other books on frontier women
Browse our History category in the library for other books about settlers and families in the West, then compare how each one handles hardship, work and household life.
Go deeper
Ida's life, as the catalogue describes it, ran from Nebraska through Kansas to Colorado. These public archives cover each of those states and can help a reader see the landscape and the paperwork behind a pioneer family's moves.
Homestead National Historical Park
A National Park Service site near Beatrice, Nebraska, about homesteading. Its page lists homestead land record case files and invites visitors to submit a homestead story.
Kansas Memory
The Kansas Historical Society's online collection, which can be browsed by decade, including the 1870s and 1880s, and by type, such as photographs, maps and manuscripts.
Stephen H. Hart Research Center
History Colorado's research library. Its website says you can search the online collection and request an appointment to see the items you pick.
Good to know
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