Year: 1877

~ u place fifteen miles away from the
nearest nrighbor sat u woman, surround
ed hy her family of seven children, and
Watching the dead body Of her husband.
4 large fire which she and her oldest
boy, lad of IA, had built, threw a
ghastly glare over the lonely landscape.
The broad sky above. and the huge hills
around made more intense the sense OF
Hesolation and the littlcneSs OF human
itv, and the murmur of the stream near
nv and the bark Of the fox in the dis.
-nnce were the only uttcrances of soil
tude to grief This womans story, AS
;old in the Denver Tribune, is one of the
most affecting in the strange annals OF
American pioneer adventure. Her hus.
band, w. H. Ostrom, had come to Colo
,ndo from Alabama, and, on account of
the deprcdations of the grasshoppers had
not been very prosperous. He had pre-
pared new home for his family in
park on the North Platte, and set out
that morning from Pine Grove GuIch for
the Journey of twenty miles, in West
ern wagon drawn by team of mules,
and loaded with his household and his
household goods. Toward evening, as
he was crossing small stream at a
rough part of the road, one of the mules
SHE'D, and the wagon was overturned.
1t is probable that Ostrom was walking
beside it, and flung himself in the way
TO try and save his wife and children.
They were thrown violently out and he
was caught under the overturned wagon
and borne to the ground with the cross
bar of the wagon.bed across him and a
weight of 1906 pounds crushing him.


His terrified wife found him lying in this
WHY, cool and consderate, but very pale.
He directed her in her vain efforts to
pry the wagon over, and died within
five minutes. even while assuring her
that he was not dangerously hurt, The
oldest boy was on foot, driving COW,
and came up only in time to join his
mother in her attempts to release his
fathers dead body. With true pioneer
readiness and sternness the team was un


bitched and put to drag off the wagon,
the corpse was rolled in sheet, fire
was built, the mules were corralled, and
the widow and orphans sat down in
their dismal biyouac. Even when death
comes by slow approaches and with fair
warning, where the care of anxious
friends and the comforts of civilized life
mitigate suffering, the loss of a husband
and father is calamity that evokes our
sympathy for the afflicted. 1t ia grief
that no condolences can soften, no wealth
alleviate, no companionship render en-
durable. 1t wonld be useless, therefore,
TO dwell upon the terrors of death when
it struck down the head of family un-
expecteily and violently in Colorado
wilderness, leaving woman and chill
dren desolate, with darkness and the de-
sert aboht them. We think q picture of
this night-wstch Of Mrs. Ostrom would
be as characteristic of great phase in
American life as any scene that the i'm
agination could conceive of. In her bit.
ter experience, giving Us a glimpse Of
the sutferings of the women of the West
ern frontier, we have something to sug-
gest the trials and lab6rs of all that
hardy generation which pushed slowly
on from the Atlantic 10 the Mississippi.
before whom the wilderness receded like
the horizon. II is the fault OF our time
to underrate the rough virtues Of the
pioneers, and forget the value Of their
achievements. We are losing sight of
the romantic and heroic aspects OF their
life, in the refnements and luxuries of
our own. Her story should bring back
old memories to those in the heart of
civilization, and teach them what they
cost 1t was not by enchantment that
the log cabin was changed to the brown
stone mansion, the honespun dresses TO
silk, the emigrant wagons to family car
riages. The metomorphosis Was rapid,
but it was the result OF the sacrifice and
endeayor OF ages heaped into few years.
The Colorado woman, sitting all night
in her mourntul bivouac, with her seven
children around and the corpse of her