I must have too much time on my brain: not on my hands, mind you, because I’m always busy with something it seems. But my mind does have time to wonder and ponder things.

I wonder what thoughts went through pioneer women’s heads when they realized they were about to embark on trip that would take them thousands of miles away from friends and family that they would likely never see again? Did they think of the trek as an adventure?

If so, I wonder if their views changed when they faced their first river crossing, when the wagon train had its first casualty, or when one of their children got sick and died?

I wonder how they kept their sanity living in a soddy in the middle of the prairie without seeing another woman for months on end?

Some toughed it out much the way women all over the world have done for centuries, and some couldn’t face the trauma and retreated into a place inside their heads where they didn’t have to acknowledge the pain anymore.

It all boils down to wondering what I would have done? Would I have been a survivor or not? Would I have been terrified of the unknown that lay before me? With my nice house and air conditioning in the summer and heat pump in the winter, I’m afraid I’m much to wimpy to have managed as they did. And I also don’t like change very much. I like to know what’s around the next bend. But I’d like to think that faced with some of the same trials, I’d buck up and pull through.

I do know that the women who stood by their men and marched across this land and settled it, planting gardens and growing children into the next generation, were brave and determined and sacrificial.

They were true heroines.

Happy trails,

Pam Hillman