A Bride Goes West

Blizzards, droughts, predators, unpredictable markets, and a host of other calamities tell the history of the daily struggles of Western ranching, and perhaps no one has told the story better than Nannie T. Alderson, a transplanted southern woman who married a cowboy and found herself in eastern Montana trying to build a ranching business a one-hundred-mile horse-and-buggy ride from the nearest town. Unfamiliar with even the most basic household chores, she soon found herself washing, cooking, riding, cleaning, branding, and a host of other ranch activities for which her upbringing had not prepared her.

Although Nannie Alderson and her husband, Walt, would eventually move to Miles City, her story of the rigors of ranch life serves as the preeminent account of Montana ranch life and culture. This edition features a foreword from Nannie’s great-grandniece, Jeanie Alderson, who ranches in the same area.

Author Biography

Nannie T. Alderson was born in Union, Virginia (later West Virginia), in 1860 and grew up in a genteel southern family. In 1883 she married Walt Alderson, a cowboy she had met while visiting relatives in Kansas, and they moved to Montana to start a cattle ranch. Helena Huntington Smith was a journalist and contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, and other magazines. Her books include We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher and The War on Powder River. Jeanie Alderson is the great-grandniece of Nannie Alderson and is a fourth-generation rancher from Birney, Montana.