Part 8 (1/2)

REID, SAMUEL C. _Scouting Expeditions of the Texas Rangers_, 1859; reprinted by Steck, Austin, 1936. Texas Rangers in Mexican War.

ROBERTS, DAN W. _Rangers and Sovereignty_, 1914. OP. Roberts was better as ranger than as writer.

ROBERTS, MRS. D. W. (wife of Captain Dan W. Roberts). A _Woman's Reminiscences of Six Years in Camp with The Texas Rangers_, Austin, 1928. OP. Mrs. Roberts was a sensible and charming woman with a seeing eye.

SOWELL, A. J. _Rangers and Pioneers of Texas_, San Antonio, 1884. A graphic book down to bedrock. OP.

WEBB, WALTER PRESCOTT. _The Texas Rangers_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1935. The beginning, middle, and end of the subject. Bibliography.

12. Women Pioneers

ONE REASON for the ebullience of life and rollicky carelessness on the frontiers of the West was the lack--temporary--of women. The men, mostly young, had given no hostages to fortune. They were generally as free from family cares as the buccaneers. This was especially true of the first ranches on the Great Plains, of cattle trails, of mining camps, logging camps, and of trapping expeditions. It was not true of the colonial days in Texas, of ranch life in the southern part of Texas, of homesteading all over the West, of emigrant trails to California and Oregon, of backwoods life.

Various items listed under ”How the Early Settlers Lived” contain material on pioneer women.

ALDERSON, NANNIE T., and SMITH, HELENA HUNTINGTON. A _Bride Goes West_, New York, 1942. Montana in the eighties. OP.

BAKER, D. W. C. A _Texas Sc.r.a.pbook_, 1875; reprinted, 1936, by Steck, Austin.

BROTHERS, MARY HUDSON. A _Pecos Pioneer_, 1943. OP. The best part of this book is not about the writer's brother, who cowboyed with Chisum's Jinglebob outfit and ran into Billy the Kid, but is Mary Hudson's own life. Only Ross Santee has equaled her in description of drought and rain. The last chapters reveal a girl's inner life, amid outward experiences, as no other woman's chronicle of ranch ways--sheep ranch here.

CALL, HUGHIE. _Golden Fleece_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1942. Hughie Call became wife of a Montana sheepman early in this century. OP.

CLEAVELAND, AGNES MORLEY. _No Life for a Lady_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1941. Bright, witty, penetrating; anecdotal. Best account of frontier life from woman's point of view yet published. New Mexico is the setting, toward turn of the century. People who wished Mrs.

Cleaveland would write another book were disappointed when her _Satan's Paradise_ appeared in 1952.

ELLIS, ANNE. _The Life of An Ordinary Woman_, 1929, and _Plain Anne Ellis_, 1931, both OP. Colorado country and town. Books of disillusioned observations, wit, and wisdom by a frank woman.

FAUNCE, HILDA. _Desert Wife_, 1934. OP. Desert loneliness at a Navajo trading post.

HARRIS, MRS. DILUE. Reminiscences, in _Southwestern Historical Quarterly_, Vols. IV and VII.

KLEBERG, ROSA. ”Early Experiences in Texas,” in _Quarterly of the Texas State Historical a.s.sociation_ (initial t.i.tle for _Southwestern Historical Quarterly_), Vols. I and II.

MAGOFFIN, SUSAN SHELBY. _Down the Santa Fe Trail_, 1926. OP. She was juicy and a bride, and all life was bright to her.

MATTHEWS, SALLIE REYNOLDS. _Interwoven_, Houston, 1936. Ranch life in the Texas frontier as a refined and intelligent woman saw it. OP.

MAVERICK, MARY A. _Memoirs_, San Antonio, 1921. OP. Essential.

PICKRELL, ANNIE DOOM. _Pioneer Women in Texas_, Austin, 1929. Too much lady business but valuable. OP.

POE, SOPHIE A. _Buckboard Days_, edited by Eugene Cunningham, Caldwell, Idaho, 1936. Mrs. Poe was there--New Mexico.

RAK, MARY KIDDER. _A Cowman's Wife_, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1934. The external experiences of an ex-teacher on a small Arizona ranch.

RHODES, MAY D. _The Hired Man on Horseback_, 1938. Biography of Eugene Manlove Rhodes, but also warm-natured autobiography of the woman who ranched with ”Gene” in New Mexico. OP.