The woman settler took a place at the rear when traveling the trail but when the needs of the family were to be met, she moved to the front. A large portion of her life was toil, pain and sorrow but still she followed the quest of her dreams, a home for her family. Tragically often, her dreams perished in the fight to survive the wilds and the problems she worked so hard to conquer led to an early grave.
Others depended upon her for many things: prepare the food, provide the clothing, care for the sick, provide council and love for all. These things she somehow found a way to provide though the home she found at the end of the trail was, as compared with the one she had left, usually meaner, smaller, more poorly furnished, with only a wall and a roof to shield her. To provide a carpet, sand was sprinkled on the dirt floor.
The woman settler carded the wool, spun the yarn and made clothing from skins. The cloth she had brought with her was kept for special occasions. She could make linsey-woolsey from a mixture of wool and linen substitute made of hammered and washed fibers like milk weed.
Ordinarily, she followed what her parents had taught her regarding the preparation and serving of food but most often used recipes concerned wild foods. Tea was made from roots and leaves, and coffee was a brew made from a mixture of ground bitter nuts, corn and other seeds which had been browned.
Many of the wild foods were seasoned. Mushrooms required pickling in a salt-vinegar solution. The vinegar was obtained from wild sources as seen in the following recipe for Blossom Vinegar:
Pick a peck of sweet blossoms and place them in a pail; add three quarts sweetening and 4 gallons of boiling water. Allow to cool. When cool, add 1 quart of hop yeast. Mix the ingredients well and cover with a cloth, allow 3 weeks to make, then strain off.
One of the most plentiful wild fruits growing was wild grapes. To make wild grape dumplings, proceed as follows: Remove 2 cups grapes from the stems, cover with water and boil 15 minutes. Remove from the fire and strain off the juice, add 1 cup sweetening and return to the fire. Bring the juice to a boil and, while boiling, add dumplings. To make dumplings, sieve together 2 cups flour, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Add 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons grease. Stir to a stiff batter, place on a board and work in the flower till mixture can be cut into strips.
Few toilet articles were available but they could be made from wild products. To make Rose Water, the woman settler brushed a layer of unsalted butter on the inside of a shallow bowl, filled it with wild rose petals and covered it with a second bowl, likewise buttered. A weight was added inside the second bowl. After three days, the petals were removed, the butter scrapped off and the petals placed in a bottle of alcohol.