The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840's speak throught these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and youn Birginia Reed, members of the illfated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City;Rachel Fisher, who burried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make themselves heard starting out from different places and recording details along the way, from the mundane to the soul-shattering and spirit-lifting.

280pp.