Carolyn Gilman Middleton Guyer

Mail Order Bride Carolyn Gilman Middleton Guyer

Alice had worked twelve hour days, six days a week for eight years and she was tired and sick of it. She saw an advertisement in the newspaper that men in the west were looking for brides. She finally got up her nerve to investigate the source of the ad and decided to apply. When she received tickets to travel west on trail and stagecoach, she gave up her job and left the city. No one was there to greet her and she asked the depot clerk if he knew a man named Rolf and he told her Rolf was in the saloon. They married and he drove her to a shack in the middle of nowhere. It had a hole in the roof and was one dirt floor dirty cabin. Alice cooked good meals for Rolf, who seldom spoke to her and if she didn't know something he sneered at her. Sometimes he punched her and sometimes he disappeared for a few days. Alice worked hard and learned lots about farming. When Alice birthed a baby she named her Esther and Rolf loved the little girl and relented of his abusive treatment, although he had wanted a boy. When Alice became with child again, the baby boy died at birth and Rolf beat Alice accusing her of killing his son. He disappeared for a few days and when he returned he had been beaten severely. Alice gave him laudanum and kept him sedated for days and then sent for the doctor who came and said his wounds were infected. He gave her more laudanum and when Rolf died, Alice acted as a sad widow, but inside she knew she could make the farm profitable, even though the parson and her friend Lottie wanted her to re-marry.