While I’m not a fan of housework, I do believe I would have
been just fine had I lived in the late 1800s or early 1900s. It was a time when life was a bit harsher,
but a lot simpler.
I enjoy riding horses, working cattle, and even the baking.
Drawing water from a well and using an outhouse are things I’ve had to do in
this lifetime and can imagine it being an everyday occurrence that you wouldn’t
even think twice about. Especially, since you wouldn’t know any different.
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| oil lamp |
Growing up we lived rural, had our electricity go out often, had oil lamps filled and ready when it did. We used an outhouse, packed water up from the ditch, and used a wood cookstove and
a wood stove for heat. We went out as a family and gathered wood in the fall to
get us through the winter months. We had a large garden and canned all the vegetables
we needed to sustain us through the winter, by.
The clothes were hung on a clothesline outside until it was
too cold to do so.
All the elements that go into a good historical western
romance are things I would have been able to cope with as a woman in the wild
west. I wouldn’t have made it in the city, being coddled. I would have had to have
worked in a factory or cleaned houses. I wouldn’t have liked to sit around
doing handwork and telling others who to run my house.
The thought of being out west, helping build a ranch and a
family appeals to me. Hard work but very satisfying. I think had I lived 100-150
years ago, I would have fit in and thrived. It’s why I enjoy writing historical
western romance. It gives me a chance to live in a time that women were blossoming
into equal partners in the west and having more liberties.
If you’d like a glimpse at this time period through my eyes
and those of my characters you can check out my Halsey Brothers Series, Letters of Fate trilogy, or my new Silver Dollar Saloon series.
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