Fort Laramie Blues
Struggling settlers once passed through here as they plied the Mormon Trail heading ever westward. Many of these folks ill equipped, unknowing, but in their own way brave fought daily for survival. Many never made it. They died unceremoniously along the dusty, lonely, rut filled, wagon route of their destiny. Happily many of the adventurers were literate souls from the east simply looking for a new greater and richer life. The journals which they kept have survived telling tales of desperation and hardship that most Americans today have never experienced.
“Went nooning”, the log said. That meant they camped or yet another night life was unkind along the trail. There were no doctors, markets, or laws. It was survival of the fittest. Large numbers of women, children and new born babies succumbed to the night chill, sleeping on wet ground, excessive heat, dehydration, dysentery, fever, and perhaps the trauma of being bumped, bounced, and booted around a stuffy wagon week after week after week.
Now I am here too, thinking of those noble pioneers who passed this way before me. “If I should die before………” another old journal requests. I have the same though but keep moving. It must be easier going East!