[ Spoken intro from: Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey (byLillian Schlissel) ]
"While the young folks were having their good times
some of the mothers were giving birth to their babies.
Three babies were born in our company that summer.
My cousin, Emily, gave birth to a son in Utah,
forty miles north of the Great Salt Lake one morning.
But the next morning she traveled on
'til noon when a stop was made and another child was born,
this time Susan Mollmeyer.
And gave the baby the name Alice Nevada."
Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairieroads.
Pass the lone church spire.
Pass the talking wire from where to who knows?
There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky from the wildwestern plains.
Where a man could drift, in legendary myth, by roaming overspaces.
The land was free and the price was right.
Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly.
Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family.
I see Indians that crawl through this mural that recalls ourhistory.
Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know?
Do their works survive their yellow fever lives in the pages theywrote?
The land was free, yet it cost their lives.
In miner's lust for gold, a family's house was bought and sold,piece by piece.
A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name, sopainfully.
In letters mailed back home her Eastern sisters
they would moan as they would read accounts of
madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Over your shoulder, please don't mind me if my eyes have
fallen onto your magazine for I've been watching and wondering why
your face is changing with every line you read. All those lines
and circles, to me, a mystery. Eve pull down the apple and give
taste to me. If she would be wonderful, but my pride is in the
way. I cannot read to save my life, I'm so ashamed to say.
I live in silence, afraid to speak of my life of
darkness because I cannot read. For all those lines and circles,
to me, a mystery. Eve pull down the apple and give taste to me.
If she could it would be wonderful. Then I wouldn't need someone
else's eyes to see what's in front of me. No one guiding me.
It makes me humble to be so green at what every kid can
do when he learns A to Z, but all those lines and circles just
frighten me and I fear that I'll be trampled if you don't reach
for me. Before I run I'll have to take a fall. And then pick
myself up, so slowly I'll devour every one of those books in the
Tower of Knowledge.