Letters on an Elk Hunt by a Woman Homesteader Annotated with Terms of Reference

Elinore Pruitt Stewart''s book, "Letters on an Elk Hunt by a Woman Homesteader," is a lovely, delightful, and insightful compilation of letters she wrote to a former employer, Mrs. Coney, during the earliest part of the twentieth century. This book was published in response to the great popularity of her first book, Letters of a Woman Homesteader.

            Elinore took whatever work she could find as a house cleaner and laundress in Denver, Colorado, after she, unfortunately, lost her husband in a railroad accident in 1909. Supporting herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine, she soon realized that working as an enslaved person at the minimum wage of the day only guaranteed that they lived below the poverty line and that she would worry forever about rent and food.

Already dreaming of owning her own land through homesteading, she had a physical breakdown caused by worry and her hard work and was counseled and encouraged by her pastor to post an ad which offered herself as a housekeeper to a homesteader. At the same time, she went ahead and applied for her own homestead. As a result, a Scottish cattleman, Mr. Clyde Stewart, answered her ad, and after her first vetted interview, the two decided it would be a good match. Mr. Stewart took her and Jerrine back to his ranch. There, in southwestern Wyoming, she was able to claim her own homestead adjacent to his.

Her letters to Mrs. Coney in this book describe an elk hunt she and her husband, Clyde, and three of her children participated in. The letters have been reproduced as they were published in 1915 and include grammatical errors and slang of the day. I have included a Terms of Reference to accommodate slang and Elinore''s referrals to particular people or stories of the day. All these references are in italics.

Letters on an Elk Hunt by a Woman Homesteader is part of the Tina Assanti Books Presents a Pioneering Women''s Series.

Enjoy.