Covered Wagon Women, Volume 2: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850

This is a thoroughly engaging book composed of journals kept by women as they crossed the prairies in 1850, destination California, Oregon, or Salt Lake City. The daily struggles to feed their families and stock, keep their children safe, and assist in all aspects of survival are fascinating to read, and contemplate. I especially enjoyed comparing the descriptions of the same landmarks, like Chimney Rock, by different writers. A map of the routes taken would have been great.

There is a great deal of cold weather and frost even in summer & in my heart I wish them no better for a meaner set lives not on this earth than those very people calling themselves Latter Day Saints. I know many instances where they have cheated men out of a whole winters work merely because they didn't belong to their church. These demons marry some girls at 10 years of age. For instance a man will take a mother & her daughters & marry them all at once.