Happy as a Big Sunflower: Adventures in the West, 1876-1880Oh, I am happy as a big sunflower That nods and bends in the breezes! And my heart is as light as the wind that blows The leaves from off the treeses! In 1876 Rolf Johnson and his family left Illinois for Phelps County, Nebraska. There they faced the challenges of pioneering on the Great Plains: digging wells, building sod houses, plowing and planting crops, and fighting prairie fires. Johnson's diary goes beyond individual conquest, however, and provides insight into the great cooperative endeavor of plains settlement. Rolf's Swedish family and neighbors worked and socialized with other Swedes just as nearby Danish settlers remained in close physical and cultural contact with other Danish immigrants. A very eligible 19-year-old bachelor, Rolf also offers touching vignettes on the rituals of courting. Abruptly, with no explanation in his diary, and with no itinerary or prospects, Rolf left home in 1879 "with the intention of going west for a season". His departure may have been sparked by the marital fervor exhibited by a female suitor. Rolf felt he was "not quite prepared to leave the state of single blessedness for that of double misery". In Sidney, Nebraska, he ran with the "sporting" element, who showed him photographs of "fast women of the town stark naked". He found employment with a wagon freighter headed for the Black Hills, where he saw Calamity Jane in action. Rolf's education continued until the diaries end in Cubero, New Mexico, in 1880. He returned to Phelps County in 1882 and remained there for most of his life. Rolf's lively diaries offer an entertaining eyewitness account of pioneer life and an unmatched resource for historians. |
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... railroad also owned land it hoped to sell to the colonists . The Union Pacific had received title to thousands of acres of land on July 1 , 1862 , when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act . The company received the ...
... Railroad went from Galesburg about twenty miles to the northeast to Galva , where the emigrants would have boarded the Chi- cago , Rock Island , and Pacific Railroad . They crossed the Mississippi River from Rock Island , Illinois , to ...
... railroad trains . The wagon bridge was less than a mile due south of Kearney and was in place by 1874. The Burlington and Missouri Railroad laid track and built a bridge across the Platte in the fall of 1872. This bridge was nearly four ...
Contents
Summer Rambles in Eastern Nebraska | 24 |
The Buffalo Hunt | 52 |
The Harvest Circuit | 102 |
Copyright | |
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