A Wooden Bucket And A Dutch Oven Were Necessary Tools

 Grandma Lu continued her story of Nell and her trip to Iowa by telling the children about what the women were expected to do on the wagon train. She said they were expected to do the same things they had done at home. Of course, you know it was much harder wasn't it. All the cooking had to be done outside, the children needed to be cared for, the laundry had to be done. Often spreading the clothes out on bushes to dry if there were some close by. One lady whose name was Ann said that after all the camp work was done she would start out way ahead of the wagons so no one could hear then through herself in the dirt and cry she was so very tired.

Finnley said, "My daddy helps my mama. Why didn't the men help the ladies on the wagon train?" Grandma Lu said, "That's just the way it was in those days. The women weren't even able to vote. The women started fighting for the right to vote about the same time Nell started on her journey. In fact Iowa was the tenth state to let women vote and that wasn't until 1920. Almost seventy years after Nell reached Iowa, so she never got to vote. Oh how those women fought for that right. They would go in a group to the capital and demand that the right to vote, but never got the chance for a long long time. A sculpture is in the capital at Des Moines depicting the women that fought that good fight.

Marlee said, "My Grandma B votes and so do her friends." Grandma Lu said. "Yes she does and that's because ladies we never knew fought for that right with such determination that they won over the men that said that couldn't."

"Okay let's get back to our story. The last we knew was that Marlee Ada was cold and was cuddling up to her dog, Zeke, on a quilt to keep warm. Well, the next morning, her pa had trouble opening up the door. It had snowed something fierce during the night. It snowed so much he couldn't get the cabin door open. Remember that I told you about the compass flower? Well, there was something else that the pioneers did. They built their cabins so that the door was always facing to the south so if it was blowing snow they could always tell which way to go to the house from the barn. Usually in those days the barn was a small shack, as the years went by though, barns were often used as landmarks because they were so tall they could be seen from the road. My grandmother's barn was one of those big barns. We will see how a landmark saved Nell's wagon train a little later.

Well in those days the buckets were made of wood with metal hoops to hold them together. They would tie ropes onto the bucket to lower it into their well. The buckets also held drinking water that they got sometimes from a creek or stream if they didn't have a well.

"So what Pa found out was that it was not the snow that was causing the problem but ice that had fallen on top of the snow. So he poured the water from the bucket into what is called a Dutch Oven. Dutch ovens were a very important part of American History. So important that our very first president's mother, Mary Washington, specified in her will that her grandson and granddaughter should receive her metal furniture which included the Dutch Ovens. Even Paul Revere had a hand in reinventing the Dutch oven by inventing flat lids with a ridge for holding coals and legs on which the Dutch oven could stand. So when pa had the water hot he carefully poured some on the ice from inside the door, Little by little he got the ice melted so he could open the door. It was a beautiful sight to behold. The world was crystal clear with a beautiful white blanket of snow. From the cabin he could hear the creek babble as the water went over the rocks. He could see the bushes covered with snow and ice. He wondered what had happened to Nell and if the new ad he sent to the newspaper would get him a new ma for his children.