If we look back into history and read some of their journals and diaries, we see a wide variety of survival clues. Sadly, we also see that some women didn't make it. There were deaths in childbirth, accidents, from terrible diseases and suicide. I well remember a story I heard during an interview I conducted.
A young woman who had several small children, lived with her husband in a cabin back in the woods of Arkansas. And I'll later discuss why Arkansas is included in stories of the west. Burdened with washing clothes in water hauled from a spring and heated in a large cast iron pot over an outdoors fire, she would then scrub the pine board floors with left over water. She cooked, if she were lucky, on a cast iron cook stove, though some continued to cook in a fireplace. But let's say she had a cook stove. She probably had at least two children in diapers and two more small enough to need constant care.
In the yard, snakes were a menace, some of them dangerous. This early in settlement, say they came in from Tennessee in 1848, predators like bears, bobcats, and the occasional painter (mountain lion) roamed freely. If she were lucky she was able to attend an occasional social event which was usually work related. Like Quilting bees, husking parties, barn raisings where the women cooked all day and the men labored at building a barn.
One morning her husband Sam announced that he was going to town. As he headed out the door to harness the mule to the wagon, she called out.
"I'd like to go along...please?"
He tossed a reply over his shoulder. "Not this time."
Not this time, or any time. She kept the words to herself, If she didn't have some company she would go stark raving mad. The nearest neighbor was eight miles away and she couldn't round up the children and walk that far with them so small. For a long while after he left, she sat near the window (an opening with no glass) and stared after the dust cloud his leaving kicked up.
Two of the babies began to cry and she shook herself from her reverie, changed their diapers and put one to each breast to nurse. Dreaming of seeing her mother again, which she was sure would never happen, tears flowed, dropping on the forehead of her boy baby, Samuel. With trembling fingers, she wiped them away, smoothing his dark hair from his face.
Her body told her that another child was on the way. What was she to do? She loved them all, the two playing in the floor at her feet, the two at her breast, the one only beginning to grow in her belly. But, Dear God, how could she go on?
She began to cry in earnest, like a child wanting her Momma. It was hopeless, this life could not be endured a moment longer.
Pulling the children from her breast, she lay them on the bed with pillows all around.
"I'm sorry, oh, God, I'm sorry, but I can't, I just can't. He never touches me except to make another child, and then he doesn't care for them or me at all. Help me." She fell to her knees but heard no reply to her plea.
Becky and Amos began to fight, screaming so loud she covered her ears.
With the screams echoing in her head, she fetched a coil of rope off the hook on the wall, tied it into a crude loop. Making sure the doors were closed so the children couldn't go outside, she tossed the rope over a beam, dragged a chair under it and climbed up. It took a while to get the rope just so by winding one end round and round the beam, then slipping her head into the loop.
Closing her eyes, she envisioned her mother. She would never know what had happened because Sam couldn't read or write so he couldn't let her know her daughter had died in such a horrible way. She shuddered, almost backed out. If she opened her eyes and took one look at the children, she would not do this. What mother would?
One driven crazy, that's what mother would.
Crying out, she stepped off the chair. Funny, she heard the crack of her own neck breaking before darkness folded over her forever.
This is indeed a sad story. It is based on a true event. Most all my books are based within true events, though my characters are fictional with the exception of those who were really there at the time. In this blog I'll tell tales of those women featured in my books, four of which are now out at Kindle. None of them took their own lives,but they had adventures. To some the times were glorious, to others they were harsh and unbearable. I write about strong women who never gave up, no matter what happened, and they found what they were looking for, sometimes in very unexpected ways.
Please comment and occasionally I'll have a contest in which all those who have commented will be in a drawing to win a copy of one of my books. I hope you'll enjoy my stories.
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