In 1909, Elinore Pruitt answered an ad in the Denver Post to become Henry Clyde Stewart’s housekeeper on his homestead outside Burntfork, Wyoming. Stewart’s letters are an engaging, charming, and candid glimpse into life on a working ranch and the unique challenges faced by a woman with a young child in the harsh American West. This warmly delightful, vigorously affirmative memoir of a woman homesteader in early twentieth-century Wyoming inspired the acclaimed film Heartland (The Wall Street Journal). Letters of a Woman Homesteader is the fascinating true tale of life on the American frontier by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. Her letters to her friend back in Denver show her resilience and tenacity as she staked her own homestead claim and tirelessly faced the endless chores and challenges of making a living in the unforgiving frontier. Stewart was resourceful and industrious and after working for a time in Denver, she traveled to Wyoming to work for Henry Clyde Stewart as a housekeeper on his homestead. She married her first husband in 1902 and was widowed in 1906 while pregnant. Born Elinore Pruitt in 1876 in Chickasaw Nation territory in modern day Oklahoma, her birth father died when she was very young and her mother and step-father both died when Stewart was a teenager, leaving her in charge of her younger siblings at age 18. First published in 1914, Stewart’s work is a collection of 26 letters written by Stewart from 1909 to 1914 which follow her adventures in Wyoming.

“Letters of a Woman Homesteader” is the fascinating true tale of life on the American frontier by Elinore Pruitt Stewart.

Elinore pruitt stewart homestead