Bachelor Bess: The Homesteading Letters of Elizabeth Corey, 1909-1919

by Philip L. Gerber (Editor), Elizabeth Corey, Paul Corey (Foreword)

In July 1909 twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth Corey left her Iowa farm to stake her claim to a South Dakota homestead. Over the next ten years, as she continued her schoolteaching career and carved out a home for herself in this inhospitable territory, she sent a steady stream of letters to her family back in Iowa. From the edge of modern America, Bess wrote long, gossipy accounts—"our own continuing adventure story," according to her brother Paul—of frontier life on the high plains west of the Missouri River. Irrepressible, independent-minded, and evidently fearless, the self-styled Bachelor Bess gives us a firsthand, almost daily account of her homesteading adventures. We can all stake a claim in her energetic letters.

540 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

Reviews

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Great Aunt!

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just wished there were more letters!

[Marci]

A good compilation of years' worth of good letters

[Sharla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got bogged down partway through - too many pages!!!