Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Fall 2001
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 21, No. 4, Fall 2001, pp. 352.
Abstract
In December 1876, Rolf Johnson, the twenty-year-old son of the Swedish immigrant parents in Henderson Grove, Illinois, began writing a diary he would continue until it ended without explanation four years later in Cubero, New Mexico. In March 1876, the family moved, with other Swedish settlers from Knox County, Illinois, out to Phelps County, Nebraska. Rolf recounts the excitement and hardships of pioneering of the Plains, including plagues of grasshoppers, prairie fires, lawlessness, and Indian unrest. But he also tells of courage, neighborliness, and community building. He works the harvests in eastern Nebraska and hunts buffalo to the west.
Comments
Copyright 2001 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln