Elinore Pruitt, a widow and mother who washed clothes for a living
in Denver, planned to work as a housekeeper for some rancher while
learning all she would need to know about homesteading a place for
herself. In 1909 she went to work for Clyde Stewart, whose ranch
was near Burnt Fork, Wyoming, and within six weeks she married him.
"Ranch work seemed to require that we be married first and do our
sparking afterward," she wrote Juliet Coney, her former employer.
She maintained her independence by filing on a quarter section
adjacent to her husband's land and proving it up herself. Her
delightful letters, written from the time of her arrival until
1913, authentically depict an Old West that, as Jessamyn West notes
in her foreword, has been "progressively obscured by those who
portray it most often."
The critically acclaimed 1980 film Heartland was based on
Elinore Pruitt Stewart's letters and journals.
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