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Happy As a Big Sunflower: Adventures in the West, 1876-1880

Amazon.com Price:  $17.18 (as of 02/05/2019 18:24 PST- Details)

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Description

In 1876 Rolf Johnson and his circle of relatives left Illinois for Phelps County, Nebraska. There they faced the challenges of pioneering at the Great Plains: digging wells, building sod houses, plowing and planting crops, and fighting prairie fires. Johnson’s diary goes beyond individual conquest, on the other hand, and provides insight into the good cooperative endeavor of plains settlement. Rolf’s Swedish circle of relatives and neighbors worked and socialized with other Swedes just as nearby Danish settlers remained in close physical and cultural contact with other Danish immigrants. A very eligible ninetten-year-old bachelor, Rolf also offers touching vignettes at the rituals of courting.

Abruptly, with out a explanation in his diary, and with out a itinerary or prospects, Rolf left home in 1879 “with the intention of going west for a season.” His departure can have been sparked by the marital fervor exhibited by a female suitor. Rolf felt he was once “not reasonably prepared to go away the state of single blessedness for that of double misery.” In Sidney, Nebraska, he ran with the “sporting” element, who showed him photographs of “fast women of the town stark naked.” He found employment with a wagon freighter headed for the Black Hills, where he saw Calamity Jane in action. Rolf’s education continued until the diaries end in Cubero, New Mexico, in 1880. He returned to Phelps County in 1882 and remained there for most of his life. Rolf’s energetic diaries offer an entertaining eyewitness account of pioneer life and an unmatched resource for historians.


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