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Pioneer Days Filled With People Enjoying Life

By Capper's Staff
Published on September 30, 2011

In pioneer days, people enjoyed life. For one thing, most of these pioneers were young people or in the prime of life. Everything was new to them and there was so much to see and do. Their dugouts and sod houses probably meant as much to them as our houses do to us now. They didn’t expect much, and so it didn’t take much to make them happy. People didn’t hurry like they do now, and if two people met on the road, they stopped and talked awhile whether neighbors or strangers. Schoolhouses were social centers and places for religious services, political debates, box suppers, ciphering and spelling matches.

Near election time there were big political meetings with barbecues. People carne from miles around to spend the day and eat and laugh and joke and forget about the grimness of prairie fires, blizzards and grasshopper plagues.

Dora Bucklin
Orleans, Nebraska


Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then CAPPER’s WEEKLY asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from CAPPER’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.