My great grandmother, Sarah, as a very young single girl (probably lied about her age), filed her own homestead claim and trapped furs and hauled lumber (with a borrowed mule team) to pay for the necessary improvements on her claim. She was apparently widely known in the area, (and talked about, since few single women homesteaded successfully alone), and there's a very nice little "bio" in a couple of the local/regional history books. Great Granny Sarah was a lady trapper and a muleskinner.

When she got final title on the claim, the guy at the other corner of the section married her, and they have a whole bunch of descendants in the region; but mostly pretty much unknown to my branch of the family. We've found names of at least 6 or 8 (a couple still questionable) of her children, but no credible record of how many she had.

Her parents homesteaded in the same area, with "the rest of the kids" while she worked her own claim. We haven't found any reliable records of how many constituted "the rest" of them. We've also never been able to find much about the "guy her mother (Sarah Jane) married." A "name" is known, but from the absence of records his real name may have been "Handsome Stranger." They appear to have married immediately before "migrating West" or possibly on the way here. He apparently "drifted" a bit, before the marriage and again after great-great granny died(?), or somewhat before... although it may just be that he remarried (she was only 56 or so when she died) and he moved elsewhere. Sarah Jane's grave marker is impressive, implying fairly well-to-do circumstances, but whether he was still around then - or she just had a lot of friends - is unknown.

It's the untold stories that get to you.

John