BONNETS OR BURN by Marisa Masterson

 

Glory trudged behind the wagon. Three days out and the walking hadn’t grown easier. Not like some silly man spouted last night at the company meeting. He’d said day three would be less painful on everyone. Something about muscles being used to the exercise.

Well, hers screamed to turn around and walk east. She wanted the home they’d left, rough though it was, and she longed for her mother. Both, of course, were gone.

Perhaps grief made each step harder than the previous. Lifting her feet one after another felt as if she hauled large, heavy stones. She knew deep inside that she needed to fall into the grass with its dry rattle to one side of the trail and rest. Its waving motion in the slight breeze mesmerized her.

She took one step and then another into it. “Where you goin’, Glory?” The voice surprised her. She pushed back the long-brimmed bonnet to see who spoke.

Alfie Severson ran up to her, his young face eager for excitement. “Are you gonna look for sticks? I’m good at findin’ them.”

Bonnets! That was what my wagon-train romance needed! I’d written a whole novel without adding the one thing that no woman would have been without in the 1850s.

My heroine finds herself on the Santa Fe Trail in the late summer. Historically, I knew that 1858 was a year of terrible drought and hot days. Every decent woman wore a bonnet at this time.

But why? Of course, it made sense that a woman out in the sun would cover her head to avoid heat stroke. Wearing the bonnet went beyond that, though, as I found in my research.

Women covered their hair outside or in public. Modesty and Christian teaching demanded this. Glory, my heroine, would never have left her wagon without something on her head.

Still, on the trail some of society’s rules were forgotten or bent. This one, I don’t think, would have been one of them. The bonnet, while hot, kept a woman’s hair cleaner and helped her avoid a sunburned face.

Some prairie bonnets had even longer brims.

The prairie bonnet, as it is called, had a longer brim. Some of the women who traveled the trails would probably have had a shorter brimmed sun bonnet. Those are what my great-grandmother wore.

My grandmother's bonnet had cardboard compartments

that made the brim stiff so it didn't flop onto her face

 as she worked in the garden. This is an example of that.

My family never threw away things. My great-grandmother’s every day bonnets were kept in a closet at my grandfather’s farmhouse. I remember playing with them, not realizing how old they were. Beautiful, simple cotton with cardboard compartments to make the brim less floppy, I can still see them. Each bonnet actually matched a shirtwaist and skirt that was born for every day wear!

With those old family bonnets in mind, I’ve got some rewriting to do. Yes sir, the ladies in my novel are wearing bonnets!

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! 

Dead set on making Pike’s Peak and its goldfields, Glory’s father leaves her little choice but to go. Will they make it leaving so late in the season?