Mollie

I pulled a couple books off my shelf that I had begun reading but were put back on the shelf before I finished them. I love reading about other people's lives & experiences. Here's one of the ones I recently finished.



Mollie Dorsey Sanford is a journal of an early pioneer. The book starts when she was young, moving to Nebraska with her parents and siblings. Eventually, to help support her family, she moves out to take different jobs, cooking, teaching, cleaning, whatever she can find. She ends up marrying a man that takes her further west to Colorado in early 1860's. He works different jobs but mostly as a miner. She ends up being the cook for all the miners and isn't paid a cent. At one post, she has to cook for 30-40 men with no conviences at all, not even a stove/oven. Eventually, they move on from that post and her life gets a little easier because she becomes a cook for as many men but is able to cook on a wood stove in a cabin with a few conviences and a little girl to help her.

Her life was one of struggle. She was always homesick for her "Hazel Dell" as she called the home she grew up in (in Nebraska). Eventually, her husband enlisted during the civil war and he was gone for months, during which time she had no idea whether or not he was alive. She seemed to take her trials well. The last page of her journal, she is summing it up. She has two babies and a house and husband to take care of and can no longer "journalize" as she put it.


She ends her journal by saying "althou hard times are with us, and troubles surround us, we are happy..." which seemed to sum up her life pretty well, I thought. I hope I can have more of that attitude in my life when things aren't going the way I want.