All Comments on 'An Oregon Trail Story'

Excellent story!

5

Seems to accurately describe some of the hardships and the trials and tribulations of these ventures into the West.

Well done.

Coincidentally, I have been doing some reading about the Oregon (and Mormon) trail. You have certainly captured the story of the pioneers.

We live in the Northwest, and have gone through the Dalles along the Columbia.

Next year we hope to make a trip to visit some of the trail, though it won't be quite the same in a Lexus hybrid. The only stock we'll take will be our old basset. Still, it should be an adventure.

I liked it. Good read!

Fun fact, I live about 10 minutes away from the covered bridge in Stayton and have visited a dozen or so here in Oregon. The early bits of your story were spot on.

I really like this story, and it indeed reflects many difficulties that pioneers faced traversing the Oregon Trail, one of which was the rampant death. Seeing Elizabeth's husband and son die the way they did truly hit hard. You drew well the people's resilience (Elizabeth's) and steady strength (the Breedens, Jed) to shoulder the narrative. You certainly reached and surpassed the typical length (3 Lit pages) usually needed to adequately support a full story.

About the only thing I would address (and it's by no means a glaring issue) would have been to shorten the intro more in order to further sketch Jed and Elizabeth's married life. You managed well the person that bought the diary in order to have him conclude the story through research (nice touch). You assembled this one pretty well and you sold it on story, not on sex (especially to be non-erotic)! 4

I don't know if this story was based on the journals as you said or you researched the Oregon Trail, I think you did did a good job of depicting what the immigrants faced on the trail. Thank you

Behind every strong woman is a good story or, in this case, a great story.

Very good. Would have been better if you found some descendants of Elzabeth and Jed to give them their Journals.

Nice

Certainly a very amazing story! 5*

Wonderful story, thank you for telling it. It's hard to imagine the hardships our early pioneers had to endure. Good bless them.

I think that only a few people are aware of the extreme hardships those early pioneers had to endure on the Oregon Trail but life in general for the those who suffered those hardships. My dad said to me not long before he died, “My shadow will never get longer”. I realized the immediate implication of his saying but, i really didn't realize the full meaning of what he said until some time much later. He was born befor the turn of the last century on a farm. Working that farm he was in the field before sunup until subdown. Of course he like so many other farmers saw how long their shadow was at sunup and how it slowly grew shorter until high noon after which it slowly grew longer until sundown. Even at that time there were steam tractors but, how many small farmers could afford a steam tractor? So their tractor was a team of stout horses. That was a tough life and it grew many tough hard people- Men and Women as well. Your story Ronde tells me what I know to be true and you have done an excellent job of capturing it in words. Please don't stop there. MM

We were once a nation of hard workers and pioneers. Now? Imagine a Gen X trying to do the Oregon Trail.

I love the historical aspect of the story, however, a little research is needed when writing historical fiction. The Henry repeating rifle wasn't invented until 1860, ten years after the time of the story. Great writing, please continue to entertain us.

A first-rate story, well written. I’m going to read a lot more of your contributions.

Well done story. For those that might like to read of a modern trip on "The Oregon Trail" you should read the story by Rinker Buck. He used mules to pull his wagon. The title of his book is, "The Oregon Trail". Truely worth reading.

Damn man, that was really, really well done. Seriously. Good character development, dialogue, and period correct references. Just a great read. Thank you!

I’m gonna say dang, too. Juxtaposition between the dispassionate tone in the telling, and the emotional rawness of the reality of the story conveyed was most compelling. Thank you

A very different story to the normal fare on this site. Very, very good. Thank you 5* of course.

I live within sight of the Chisholm trail, ( about 800 yards ) and in my younger days just a good days walk from Indian territory. My family still owns the ground we homesteaded. The grave of those lost on the trail from Kentucky are lost as these graves mentioned would be. Life was incredibly hard. I’m betting in some cases where land was granted to the husband but the wife would have nothing that the new husband Jed would simply take the name of her late husband. No fingerprints or photo ID to prove otherwise. And family is what you make it.