The subtitle to the book is True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier. It’s by Chris Enss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI’m enjoying the matrimonial advertisements & snippets from letters & diaries in the book, as well as the stories of real women & men who found one another through the US mail system. With such a dearth of women on the Western frontier, men turned to newspapers like the Matrimonial News to advertise for a wife. Women, as well, advertised themselves as available. If someone seemed suitable, letters would be written & sometimes arrangements made for passage out West & a wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I research the era for my stories, I tend to look for letters, diaries, news articles, & other first-hand accounts of events. Not only are you more likely to get the (mostly) true story that way (aside from any personal biases of the writers), but you also get the flavor of speech of that period of history. I recommend this book if you’d like to find out what the whole mail-order bride thing actually was, either in addition to your romance reading or as a nonfiction account of an interesting period of our history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you ever had a pen pal?<\/p>\n