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(More customer reviews)Many of us with family histories in the west have visited Sutter's Fort or visited the Donner Historic Monument and read about Patty Reed's doll. But this book, with its first-person accounts of the journey west from the children's perspective, is altogether a different story. The incredible resiliency of the children who made the trip still haunts me. The children had no choice but to make the journey; their parents had a dream and the children had to follow. One entry tells the story of two young brothers who are left in the mountains, with a rifle, to fend for themselves for several weeks while their father takes the rest of the family down to Lassen Ranch and safety. The boys had to hunt for food, worry about Grizzly bears and wonder how long it would be before their father returned. It presents such a stark contrast to today's children who need videos to survive a trip to the grocery store in the family SUV that it's almost a social commentary without actually being one.
Each story is unique and poignant and Werner does a fine job of linking the stories by adding historic contexts and narratives.
An awesome amount of research must have gone into finding long faded documents and scraps of writings that became the heart of this book. This book helps "round out" the exciting history of the west and will remain a permanent resident on my bookshelf along with other notable "western" books like, Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, Fourth Edition, with Maps and McPhee's Assembling California.
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Between 1841 and 1865, some forty thousand children participated in the great overland journeys from the banks of the Missouri River to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In this engaging book, Emmy Werner gives 120 of these young emigrants, ranging from ages four to seventeen, a chance to tell the stories of their journeys west.Incorporating primary materials in the form of diaries, letters, journals, and reminiscences that are by turns humorous and heartrending, the author tells a timeless tale of human resilience. For six months or more, the young travelers traversed two thousand miles of uncharted prairies, deserts, and mountain ranges. Some became part of makeshift families; others adopted the task of keeping younger siblings alive. They encountered strangers who risked their own lives for youngsters and guides whose erroneous advice led to detours and desolation. The children endured excessive heat and cold and often suffered from cholera, dysentery, fever, and scurvy. They also faced thirst and starvation, cannibalism among famished members of their own parties, kidnappings, and the deaths of family members and friends. From the teenaged Nancy Kelsey, who carried her infant daughter across the Sierra Nevada, to the survivors of the ill-fated Donner party in 1846–1847, Gold Rush orphans of 1849, and the youngsters who crossed Death Valley and the southwestern deserts in the 1850s, the eyewitness accounts of these pioneer children speak of fortitude, faith, and invincibility in the face of great odds.
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