Gold Rush Brides

Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines,
Down prairie roads.
Past the lone church spire.
Past the talking wire from where to who knows?
There's no way to divide the beauty of the sky
From the wild western plains.
Where a man could drift, in legendary myth,
By roaming over spaces.
The land was free and the price was right.

Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman,
Broad yet maidenly.
Such power in her hand
As she hails the wagon man's family.
I see Indians that crawl through this mural
That recalls our history.

Who were the homestead wives?
Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know?
Do their works survive,
Their yellow fever lives in pages that they wrote?
The land was free, yet it cost their lives.

In miner's lust for gold,
A family's house was bought and sold, piece by piece.
A widow staked her claim on a dollar and his name,
So painfully.
In letters mailed back home her Eastern sisters
They would moan as they would read
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Accounts of madness, childbirth, loneliness and grief.
Heyyyyyyyy, Yeeeeeeeeee