Complete with actual advertisements from both women seeking husbands and males seeking brides, Hearts West includes twelve stories of courageous mail order brides and their exploits. Some were fortunate enough to marry good men and live happily ever after; still others found themselves in desperate situations that robbed them of their youth and sometimes their lives.
Desperate to strike it rich during the Gold Rush, men sacrificed many creature comforts. Only after they arrived did some of them realize how much they missed female companionship.
One way for men living on the frontier to meet women was through subscriptions to heart-and-hand clubs. The men received newspapers with information, and sometimes photographs, about women, with whom they corresponded. Eventually, a man might convince a woman to join him in the West, and in matrimony. Social status, political connections, money, companionship, or security were often considered more than love in these arrangements.
I enjoyed reading the personal journal excerpts and the actual ads that prospective brides and grooms placed in the days of the “Wild West”. They were much more candid and revealing than today’s ads on eHarmony and other such websites.
Most of the couples seemed to make lasting marriages in those days.
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