Walk in Their Shoes
What was it like to be a homesteaders? To get an idea, take a walk. The flags around the parking lot enclose an acre.
It may not seem huge. But plowing an acre meant walking about 10 miles. Over uneven soil. Driving a team of oxen. In sun or rain. Walk that acre. Then multiple it by 160, the size of a typical homestead.
There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields…There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.
Willa Cather, My Antonia, 1918
Courtesy hmdb.org
