Many routes and reasons.(children, frontier life)

During the 1800s, thousands of people traveled west in hopes of finding a better life on the American frontier. Many of those settlers were young children who had dreams of their own. Meet four real children and read the stories they might have told about their lives on the American frontier.

Gertrude Appolonia Braat Vandergon (1860-1941)

When I was 7, our family left Holland for a "better life" in Minnesota. We packed our belongings into trunks, loaded our organ onto a cart, and sailed to England. There we boarded another ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Twenty-five days later, we arrived in New York City. Next, we journeyed by train to St. Paul, Minnesota. We traveled the last miles by wagon. Finally, we reached the 80 acres of land and "house" Father had purchased.

We found our new home to be an old roofless cabin. For a while, we felt homesick. Our organ, though, brought us much joy as we sang and played our familiar Dutch songs. Later, we built a new log cabin and found that our dream of a better life had come true.

Charles Speese (about 1883-1970)

Have you ever seen a house like mine? It's a "soddie." We didn't have many trees in Nebraska, so we used prairie grass--sod--for building.

My brothers and sisters and I helped our parents run the farm. We tended the cows, pigs, and chickens. We planted and harvested wheat, corn, oats, and sweet potatoes. We collected cow and buffalo chips to fuel our stove.