Book Reviews: Letters of A Woman Homesteader

“No, we have no rural delivery. It is two miles to the office, but I go whenever I like. It is really the jolliest kind of fun to gallop down. We are sixty miles from the railroad, but when we want anything we send by the mail-carrier for it, only there is nothing to get.”
― Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters Of A Woman Homesteader

I did not know what to expect when choosing to read this book. I’ve been interested in better understanding the tapestry of women’s lives throughout history, and this seemed like an interesting place to start. Elinore Pruitt Stewart was born in 1876 and had a challenging start in life. She was orphaned young and grew up largely fending for herself. She was first married; however, her husband died in a railroad accident. In an effort to change her life, she took herself and her daughter to Wyoming to work on a homestead with Henry Clyde Stewart, whom she later married and had children with.

Elinore’s story is touching, and it’s inspiring to see a woman of that time take charge of her life. However, as a woman of color, there were certain nuances in her story that stood out to me. She is a glass-half-full kind of woman who truly counts her blessings and takes joy in the life she has built largely with her own two hands. The book unfolds as a series of letters she writes to a friend of hers from Denver. 

Happy at the homestead, Elinore pushes Clyde Jr. and Calvin in a wagon, with Jerrine sitting nearby and Clyde standing proudly over his Stewart brood. — Stewart family photo courtesy Sweetwater County Historical Museum

Can't Ignore the Racism

Throughout the book, Elinore makes a handful of distasteful comments about people of color, particularly African Americans and South Americans. She often paints a vivid picture of the Wyoming landscape and its homesteading community, only to follow it with a radically racist statement that feels jarring and unnecessary. At the same time, those moments reveal how women of her time viewed people of color, even while living through poverty, limited resources, isolation, and the demands of surviving in a remote area. Elinore was a single mother who moved to Wyoming and later married her landlord, for lack of a better term. In some ways, she was not privileged, but in others, she clearly was.

Because of this, I think it is important not to romanticize Elinore’s memoir. Her racist remarks make clear that no one—not even someone idealizing the homesteading lifestyle of the 1900s—is exempt from having such poor taste in how she perceives other human beings. However, I will say that it serves as an important reminder of the realities people of color faced, and understanding the inner psyche of someone like Elinore shows that the harm of racism runs much deeper. It often goes unseen, which is frightening, because her racism exists entirely behind closed doors. Although she is not inflicting physical harm, her racism still causes psychic wounds that can be deeply felt.

​I am happy to see: 1. The National Park Service has an article about African American homesteading which is a fascinating read here. 2. There is an informative video from The National Council for History Education about "Homestead as Rescue": Black Homesteaders and the Lure of the Great Plains, and 3. An article about Indigenous People in Wyoming and the West, 4. An article about "How Chinese Americans Influenced the Old West" and likely a great deal more of resources that uncover the experiences of people of color during that time if one took the time to lean into them. This isn’t to say that Elinore’s retelling isn’t important; if anything, it is important because it shows one individual’s experience and prompts us to look deeper.

The Heart of "Simple" Living 

Despite Elinore’s lack of self-awareness, I can acknowledge that her homesteading experiences speak to a desire for simple living. She leaves her job as a cleaning lady in Denver, Colorado, to return to the roots of sustenance and cultivation. Ironically, I think this theme is still very present in modern society, as many individuals are leaving behind the corporate, capitalistic, consumerist grind in favor of a more remote life—homesteading, living off-grid, and seeking a closer connection to the land. It must have felt fulfilling for her to live off the land and reap the rewards of her labor in such a tangible way.

Elinore Pruitt Stewart on a horse-drawn mower, 1925 (Sweetwater County Historical Museum)

But through her entries, it becomes clear that homesteading and living out in the “Wild West” — or rather, the Northwest — was not always idyllic. Throughout the book, Elinore meets people at many different stages of life: an old mountain man named Zebulon Pike who has lost touch with his family, a young woman named Cora Jane who dies after giving birth and leaves behind a daughter, and an older man whose been settling down in the area for years so that he could finally marry his East Coast lover. Elinore helps each of these people, and I think her willingness to offer comfort and care shows her adaptability and the important role she comes to play in her homesteading community.

Throughout the book, everyone relies on someone else, which feels deeply heartfelt. Neighbors truly took care of one another, whether by gathering fabric to make a dress or pooling their provisions to prepare a feast. There was a stronger willingness to help because people understood the harsh realities of living in a remote place with very little support. Not everyone was as lucky as Elinore, who at times seems to have stepped into this lifestyle somewhat easily. I also think her radical optimism plays a large role in that. She never painted the homesteading lifestyle as "lacking", rather she makes you feel the abundance of it and how much it can actually give you if you're willing to put the work into it.

​This does raise an important question, though, returning to the issue of racism: could a woman of color in Elinore’s position have been as successful as she was? Would the surrounding community have welcomed and supported Elinore if she had been African American, Asian, Native American, South American—anything other than white? I find myself wondering what those experiences were like for women who did not have the same choices Elinore did. At the end of the day, Elinore entered homesteading willingly, whereas many others likely had no other options or were legally and socially barred from enjoying the so-called “simple” life. If you were a person of color, life was anything but simple in early twentieth-century America.

The Echoes of a Lost Appreciation

The one thing I will give this memoir is Elinore’s dreamy, natural description of living in Wyoming. Her love for the outdoors is evident, and it’s refreshing to read her anecdotes about her adventures and the many senses she uses to engage with her environment. It feels idyllic when you think of mountain ranges, the smell of wildflowers, the sound of a babbling stream, and the expansiveness of the desert. I can’t blame Elinore for championing homesteading when the reward is life in such a beautiful place.

She talks lovingly about her home, which today feels almost antithetical to our more pessimistic ideas of belonging. While many of us struggle to own homes and, even spiritually, to find a true sense of home within ourselves and our spaces, Elinore seems to crack the code. She carves out a life for herself and her family that resonates deeply with her values as a homesteader.
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​I think that connection to the land is something we are fundamentally missing as we deplete the Earth of its beauty and all it has to offer. We are exchanging flowers for fences, and instead of building communities centered around nature, we are closing ourselves off from it, slowly isolating ourselves until everything that really matters is outsourced, capitalized, or gone entirely.

Elinore’s story urges us to rethink how we engage with the natural world and reminds us that there is far more depth in truly working with and caring for the land. There is really no greater feeling than cultivating a relationship with the Earth, something early 1900s homesteaders like Elinore were able to do.