Quotes from “Frontier Ways: Sketches of Life in the Old West”

I found the book Frontier Ways: Sketches of Life in the Old West, by Edward Everett Dale, on eBay as Brian and I were searching for living books for homeschool last year. Ever since I read the Little House on the Prarie books and the Kirsten American Girl Doll books as a child, the Old West has fascinated me–homesteaders in particular.

What I like best about this particular book are the beautiful language Edward Everett Dale employs and the fact that he lived in a small town, surrounded by homesteaders, Native Americans, and cowhands, at the turn of the last century. He has first-hand experience of what life was like in the Old West. His love of that time period, and his nostaglia for those long-gone days, shows in every sentence. His writing makes me grieve the loss of those days along with him and shows off the simple yet abundant lives the people moving West lived. In this post, I’ll share some of my favorite quotes from the book and my ‘running commentary’ of those quotes–my thoughts as I read through the book.

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Chapter 1: The Romance of the Range

“The cowboy was after all not unlike any other young man who lived in the open an active and at times a somewhat hard and adventurous life. For while his work sometimes brought long periods of comparative ease and leisure, it also brought periods of terrific exertion, of hardship and privation, of exposure to cold and rain and the ‘bright face of danger.’ Such being the case he learned to take life as it came. Complaints could not change conditions, so why complain? Unconsciously he became a philosopher. He ate thankfully the flaky sour-dough biscuit, and juicy beefsteak in time of plenty, and tightened his belt with a grin in time of famine.

Happy-go-lucky and full of the joy of living, he sang and whistled at his work and play whether it was a bright morning in spring when he cantered over the green flower-spangled prairies to make a friendly visit, or a cold, rainy November night when he must crawl from between his wet blankets at the glad hour of 2:00 A.M. and circle slowly a restless herd until daylight.”

Now I want to be a cowboy. I am definitely in danger of romanticizing such rough living, but it does sound nice to spend so much time outside with animals.

Chapter 2: Cowboy Cookery

“The diet of the cow country on the whole rested upon seven pillars–flour, beef, bacon, beans, coffee, syrup, and dried fruit. With these essentials–plus salt, sugar, and soda–any man, whether a regular cook or a cowhand in some remote line camp which he occupied alone or with a single companion, could prepare tasty and nourishing meals with a surprisingly wide range of variation.”

Simple and delicious, although I think I would miss fresh fruit.

Chapter 3: American Frontier Culture

In writing about why people would leave their homes behind to settle in the West, Dale says, “Often the lure of strange lands attracted him. He was eager to see what lay beyond the far horizon. In many cases he was an idealist, often an incurable romanticist, imbued with a spirit of daring and filled with an eager desire for change and adventure. He was a dreamer who looked far off into the future and saw there wonderful things.”

This description makes me want to cheer. I feel the same as those settlers–bring on the adventure!

Chapter 4: From Log Cabin to Sod House

“Whether or not one accepts the idea that frontier characteristics persist as a cultural heritage long after the conditions which produced them are gone forever, few will deny that these pioneers had certain qualities or characterisitics that America will need in the crucial years that lie ahead. Very much shall we need the courage, patience, persistence, energy, and industry of the log-cabin dwellers, the buoyant optimism, breadth of vision, and belief in the future of the prairie settlers, and the tolerance, kindness of heart, and deep spiritual faith of both.”

If this was true in 1959, when Frontier Ways was written, it is even more true now. In addition to bracketing this passage, I underlined the words “tolerance, kindness of heart, and deep spiritual faith.” I don’t think he meant ‘tolerance’ the way we mean it nowadays–I think he meant learning to work with people, settlers, from all different backgrounds. The world, especially the internet-at-large, needs a heaping dose of ‘kindness of heart.’ The entire world would benefit from more people speaking louder the truths of the gospel–those of ‘deep spiritual faith.’

Chapter 5: Wood and Water

“Nebraska, owing to the efforts of J. Sterling Morton, made provisions for Arbor Day, specifying a certain day each year on which its citizens were urged to plant trees.”

Good to know. I often wondered where Arbor Day originated. The settlers on the prarier needed trees for shade, lumber, and fuel, so the government encouraged settlers to plant as many trees as possible.

When we moved into our house, there were a few trees along the property line (our neighbors planted them on our property by mistake), but none elsewhere in the yard. Brian has planted over 50 trees this year. We’ll have our own little forest someday. Sigh.

“The author as late as 1907 found an old gentleman in the Panhandle of Texas hauling water nine miles for household use and livestock. When asked why he did not drill a well, he replied that it was ‘just as near to water one way as the other’ and he preferred to get his ‘along horizontal rather than perpendicular lines!'”

Ha. This quote made me laugh. Horizontal rather than perpendicular lines.

Chapter 6: Food of the Frontier

“Corn bread was literally the staff of life of most frontier settlers. The simplest form was made by salting the meal and scalding it with sufficient boiling water to make a thick dough. This was made out in small cakes and fried to a golden brown in hot fat. These fried cakes were commonly called ‘corn dodgers’ or, in the Deep South, were sometimes known as ‘hush puppies.'”

Hush puppies are one of my favorite side-dish foods. In the city where Brian and I used to live, there was an excellent Cajun restaurant that served them. I liked to eat them as a side with my shrimp po’boy. I dipped them in remoulade, a spicy mayoinnaise-based sauce made for sandwiches and dipping. So yummy.

“Yet there were many wild products which were widely utilized, including several kinds of ‘wild greens’ such as lamb’s quarter, ‘poke salad,’ dandelions, and two or three varieties of dock.”

Dandelions?

Chapter 7: The Social Homesteader

“They have many happy memories of their social life in a far different West and feel that with the passing of the old-time ways and customs, there passed away something fine and beautiful which we will never see again, in quite the same form at least.”

I feel this way about history. I remind myself that someone, sometime will probably say this about our time. Then again, I don’t know who could look back with fondness on all the hours they spent scrolling on Facebook instead of spending time with their families and friends or going out and seeking after family and friends. I hope that in the coming years we can regain some of the strong community the Old West settlers had. I’m thankful for the ways I already see this happening, especially in the churches, homeschool groups, and schools I’ve been a part of.

Chapter 8: Teaching on the Prairie Plains

“In spite of short terms and low salaries most teachers took their work very seriously and sought diligently to improve their methods and cultivate a professional attitude.”

Especially at a Christian school, teaching is ministry. I work with a group of gifted, passionate teachers who embody the spirit of this quote.

Chapter 9: The Frontier Literary Society

“Talent, like gold, is where you find it.”

Yes.

Chapter 10: Frontier Medical Practices

I didn’t bracket any quotes in this chapter. I was, perhaps, a little disappointed he didn’t discuss the use of leeches to treat sickness. So gross, but also so interesting.

Chapter 11: The Old-Time Religion

I didn’t bracket any passages in this chapter, either, but his writing did make me feel like I was right there with him at a small-town revival meeting, enjoying the music and feeling the sway of the minister’s lively preaching. The revival meetings of the Old West as he describes them seem more like performances meant to evoke emotion rather than commitment, although I’m certain that many people came to know Jesus through them, and that makes them worth doing and studying. They also sound similar to what I experienced at summer Bible camp and a Billy Graham crusade I once attended with my mom and my sister. Times have changed, but it’s eerie how much they’ve stayed the same.

Chapter 12: Old Navajoe: A Typical Frontier Town

This was my favorite chapter. Edward Everett Dale describes the town in which he grew up, Old Navajoe, the people who made Old Navajoe their permamnent residence, and all the ‘characters’ who visited from time-to-time. I’m so glad he chose to end the book by sharing his personal experiences in pioneer life. He filled the final passage of the book with so much beauty and longing that it made me cry:

“Few strangers ever visit the site of Old Navajoe now. Once in a great while an automobile, perhaps bearing the license tag of another state, will stop at the little grass-grown cemetery and a gray-haired man alight to spend a few hours cutting weeds or planting some rose bushes about the grave of one who nurtured and cared for him in his childhood of more than half a century ago. Sometimes he may linger at his task until the sun has gone down in a radiant glory of crimson and gold and twilight begins to wrap the wide prairie in an ever darkening mantle. Then as he returns to his car and pauses for a moment to watch the first stars peep over the dark bulk of the Navajo Mountains he may almost imagine that he can hear the ring of ghostly spurs as some lean, brown cowhand rides in to visit his old familiar haunts where these pioneer people lived and loved, dreamed of the future in the ruddy dawn of western Oklahoma’s history.”