Homesteading Life

WELCOME!

Thanks for visiting Notes from the Frontier! This blog is for history lovers fascinated by the American West
and pioneer and Indian life on the frontier. I started this new blog in 2019 and it grew very quickly
to more than 100,000 readers! Today it has nearly 400 posts.
I spent many years of researching my just-released debut historical novel, Blood to Rubies
about Chief Joseph and his heroic struggle to save his people in 1877. (It's already bestselling and award-winning! Press the blue button below for more info.) During my research, I discovered that so much of what we'd been taught in history books and by Hollywood was just plain wrong. So I decided to start a history blog. And it's been a pure joy and a life's passion project for me.
We'll cover many topics: from "soiled doves" to slavery, firearms to freak show, home brew to homosexuality, tough men and tougher women, cowboys and Indians, childbirth and death, dreams and desperation, myths and the truth. And, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction!
It's sure to be a wild ride! So hang on to your hat and let's GIDDYUP!

SPECIAL NOTE: Go to the Directory to view more specific categories .

Here's me, author-to-be, Deborah Hufford, at 16 and the Dayton Rodeo Queen in Iowa (which was the U.S. National Rodeo of the Year that year! My childhood horse was named Sundance, and was a celebrity among all the children in my small farming town. He even carried the Iowa governor in our rodeo parade one year.

When Sundance died at the ripe old age of 30, our town newspaper ran his obituary. I was so lucky to have the best horse in the world 💙

Take a wild ride into America’s past.

7 min read

Pioneer Survival Guides in the 1800s

The mortality rate of westering pioneers was very high. Perhaps the greatest cause of death was pioneers not knowing the basics of survival.

5 min read

1800's Human Hair Funeral Art

As early as the 1400s in Europe, creating hair art to memorialize the dead began, especially because epidemic and plagues took a high toll.

9 min read

How Log Cabins Were Built

The log cabin is an American icon. The rough-hewn, squat and humble house has long been lionized in our lore.

8 min read

What Pioneers Ate

Pioneer survival depended on harsh realities and there was little room for sentimentality in food production.

5 min read

For the Love of Horses (& Mules!)

For those of us who grew up with horses, who know the touch of horses, who love horses, we understand how much we owe to the horse and mule.

6 min read

Pig-Malia

Pigs have been maligned and misunderstood throughout history. But the fact is they are smart, clean and do not sweat.

8 min read

Frontier Quilts

In frontier America, quilts were a way for women to gain immortality.

7 min read

In Praise of Oxen

If patience is a virtue, oxen are saints.

6 min read

What Pioneers Packed to Go West

Packing could mean the difference between life and death on the trail and varied wildly depending upon sensibilities.

3 min read

Prairie Companions

Because the wilderness was their backyard, many other species of animals were sometimes adopted, usually as babies that could be tamed.

4 min read

Outhouses

The little wooden outhouse has been an architectural fixture of America since the 1700s, when it began to replace chamber pots.

2 min read

Frontier Tornadoes

The earliest written mention of tornadoes in North America came from explorers in the 1500s.

3 min read

1800's Birth Control

Life was hard on the frontier, especially for women.

1 min read

Women Homesteaders

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, single women, widows, and divorced or deserted women had the right to claim 160 acres in their own name.

2 min read

My Pioneer Mother

Both my mother and my mother-in-law grew up on Iowa farms and attended one-room country schools.