In July 2010, I wrote a blog post about Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, whose wonderful letters, written in the early 20th century, described her life as a Wyoming rancher. The book had been one of my longtime favorites, and writing the post gave me great pleasure. I’ve always admired Elinore Stewart, not only for the obvious courage and apparent good cheer with which she approached her difficult life, but for her gift for writing the personal in a way that made it universal.
That post, entitled A Wyoming Pioneer Woman: Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, has had more views than any other piece on this blog.
I was pleased and surprised when, in November 2011, I received a message from Stewart’s great-granddaughter, Artemis Moore. Artemis was kind enough to say:
Hi, I came across your wonderful blog site because I have just started a blog myself. I decided to use Saturdays as my storytelling day in honor of my great grandmother Elinore Pruitt Stewart. I wanted to link in to a site that had information about her book and about her. Thank you for writing such a nice piece about her:-) I hope you won't mind if I link to your site. Your first line almost knocked me off my feet since I am blogging. I had never thought of the connection between old fashioned letter writing and blogging, but you are right, there really is one. BTW, I am related to E.P.S. because my maternal grandmother was Jerrine (her daughter). My mom's name is also Jerrine. We grew up with all of those stories and more that were never published. Love your site! Artemis
I wrote back, thanking Artemis for her note and wishing her well. She responded with this interesting comment about Elinore’s frustration with some of her attempts at writing:
I will see if my mother (who has the unpublished writings of my great grandmother) is willing to go public
Elinore also tried her hand at fiction and was actually invited to publish but for some reason, she got very angry with the process and threw the entire book into the fire place (long before hard drives I guess). My grandmother was able to retrieve the bulk of the manuscript but some was destroyed forever. It’s really too bad. She was quite hard on herself.
I’d be delighted to read more of Elinore Pruitt Stewart’s works, but whether they are published someday or remain forever private is of course a matter for her family to decide. Meanwhile, we can follow her great-granddaughter’s blog, Artemiscellaneous.
