Free Land

September 3, 2008

I finished Free Land last night, another of Rose Lane’s books which I referred to in my 7/26/08 post. To recap, the novel was published in 1938, a story of homesteaders working to make their living in the territorial West, after the Homestead Act was enacted in 1862. Rose compiled the work as a narrative of stories her parents had related to her about their times “starting out.”

Reading the historical-fictional story has given me a new perspective, learning about the hardships the homesteaders had to endure. Their livelihood depended on the success of their crops, which depended on the weather. In times of drought, they didn’t have sprinkler systems to water the fields. They didn’t have pesticides to ward off the swarms of grasshoppers and other unwanted bugs. They didn’t have central heat to warm them during blizzards or air conditioning to cool them during the summer. And if their crops failed, due to bugs or lack of rain or otherwise, they couldn’t exactly take a trip to Wal Mart to pick up extra groceries.

When their clothes and shoes wore out and there was no money for new ones because they had no crops to sell. They patched up their clothes by hand and made do the best they could; sometimes that meant going barefoot. In times of illness or broken bones or farming accidents, there was no emergency room or ambulance service. There were no antibiotics in case of fever or infection and what medicine they had was simple and primitive by modern-day standards.

There were no phones to call the neighbor for help or just to invite them to dinner – and certainly no cell phones to contact someone working in the fields!

Our country has come a long way in 140 years!

On the other hand, human nature was not much different. Good neighbors helped each other, kids went to school. Farmers borrowed money from the bank with interest, to buy equipment or sometimes just to make ends meet until a crop could be sold. Some borrowed sparingly and managed what they had, but others found themselves deep in debt after a few seasons.

Even crime was prevalent, in the form of horse thieves and claim jumpers (as a side note, Claim Jumper is the name of a popular restaurant chain in the western part of the country – California, Colorado, Washington, Nevada, etc. In fact we had lunch at a Claim Jumper just before flying home from San Diego. Wouldn’t the settlers of the Old West be surprised, or more like appalled, that a restaurant would one day be named after common criminals!).

Things may change, but people don’t. Reminds me of the scripture in Ecclesiates 1:9-10:

9 That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.

I felt that Free Land was written as if the writer were writing a journal, a diary, or maybe a letter to a friend or family member. It’s a light, easy read for those interested in this time period. If you want to read a (nearly) firsthand account of a settler’s life in the Old West, order a copy of Rose Lane’s Free Land. Knowing the struggles the settlers endured will have you appreciating modern-day living more than ever before!