Elinore Pruitt Stewart

author

Elinore Pruitt Stewart

b. 1878

Best known for turning her Wyoming homesteading letters into a classic frontier memoir, she wrote with humor, grit, and a sharp eye for everyday life in the early West. Her work still stands out for showing ranch and homestead life from a woman’s point of view.

2 Audiobooks

Letters of a Woman Homesteader

Letters of a Woman Homesteader

by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Letters on an Elk Hunt

Letters on an Elk Hunt

by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

About the author

Born in the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, Elinore Pruitt Stewart built a life shaped by hard work and self-reliance. After early family losses and a difficult first marriage, she supported herself and her young daughter in Denver before heading to Wyoming in 1909 to work as a housekeeper for rancher Clyde Stewart.

Wyoming gave her the material that made her famous. In letters sent to a former employer in Denver, she described homestead and ranch life with warmth, wit, and a strong sense of adventure. Those letters were gathered into Letters of a Woman Homesteader in 1914, followed by Letters on an Elk Hunt in 1915.

What makes her writing last is its voice: practical, lively, and deeply human. Her books offer a rare firsthand account of frontier life by a woman, capturing both the hardships and the pleasures of building a home in the West.