I highly recommend Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier. The book includes excerpts from diaries, oral histories and journals and gives a very different view of the lives of those who journeyed west. The real joy of the book is all the wonderful photos on every single page. The book was written by Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith and published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
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Janell Gregson
24-7 Family History Circle
The Place for Ancestral Connections
In a similar vein of strong women, I recommend “Pioneering on the Yukon:1892-1917”, the story of Anna De Graf, who at the age of 53 went to Alaska to find her son, and stayed there 25 years. Back in the lower 48, she wrote her memoirs at age 86, hoping her son would read them and contact her. The editor of the book, Roger S. Brown is Anna’s great great grandson. Archon Books, 1992. An interesting genealogical outcome–the ggreat great grandson editing the memoires, but the lost son never turned up or was found dead.