Think of Me As One Who Is Truly Happy

I told Tabetha the other night that finishing a really good book is like having your best friend move away, and that is the way that I felt when I finished reading  Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart.  

Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Letters of a Woman Homesteader is the real letters written by Elinore Stewart to her previous employer, about her life in Wyoming as a homesteader.  
Elinore moved to Wyoming in 1909 with her baby daughter after her husband died.  She took a position as house keeper for  Mr. Stewart who is a cattle rancher, and as as you can tell by the last name she ends up marrying Mr. Stewart.   Her letters cover about 4 1/2 years of her life as she arrives in Wyoming and begins to settle into a new life there.  
Elinore had a such a way with describing everything, especially people.  She makes you feel like you know her friends and that her friends are your friends as well.  Elinore was kind to all her neighbors and they all took such good care of each other.  One time she and two of her neighbors took the time to make a 12 year old girl feel special by making her some new clothes.  Her mother and father were dead and she lived with her grandparents.  They were incredibly poor and when the women gave the 12 year old the new clothes,  she hugged them to her and cried and cried.
My favorite thing about this book though, is Elinore's upbeat attitude about everything.  She was just so happy to be alive and she found joy all around her, even in the smallest things.
Elinor writes,

"When you think of me, you must think of me as one who is truly happy.  It is true, I want a great many things I haven't got, but I don't want them enough to be discontented and not enjoy the many blessings that are mine.  I have my home among the blue mountains, my healthy, well-formed children, my clean, honest husband, my kind, gentle milk cows, my garden which I make myself.  I have loads and loads of flowers which I tend myself.
There are lots of chickens, turkeys, and pigs which are my own special care.  I have some slow old gentle horses and an old wagon.  I can load up the kiddies and go where I please any time.  I have the best, kindest neighbors and I have my dear absent friends.  Do you wonder I am so happy?  When I think of it all, I wonder how I can crowd all my joy in to one short life."

When the book was over I was left with the feeling that the world was a little better because Elinore Stewart was here and I was better as well for having know her even if it was just a little from her letters.

To Get Letters of a Woman Homesteader free on your Kindle click here.