Mail-Order Bride Stories

 

Photo by Dalyn Weller. 

(Real wedding day photos)

So, about those Mail Order Brides...

Or How the West was Built.

We're all familiar with the men who went West to seek their fortunes, escape, or maybe they were just young and craved a bit of adventure. But what about the women who went West? I don't mean the wives and daughters who endured the rugged trail and all the hardships to build something with their husbands or fathers. I mean women who went West on their own.

You have heard about arranged marriages, but have you heard about mail-order brides? See, the West was full of lonely men. There just happened to be a shortage of men back East after the Civil War, and many of those left went West. Some were facing the loss of everything dear, some needed a change after the terrible toll war had taken on them and theirs, but whatever the reason, the West was full of men, riches, hardships, and potential. But had very few women.

Many men sought wives from the abundance of single and widowed women in the East. They faced their own hardships: poverty, loneliness, and a lack of suitors, dads, and brothers. The West might have seemed pretty good for a poor woman working in a factory or selling matches, fruit, coal, or doing mending, barely earning enough to survive. Many women placed advertisements for a husband to escape poverty.

I have read many of the reprinted advertisements. They can be good for a laugh, but they also offer great insight into how people of that era lived and thought. Their worldview was different from our modern views. 

Can you imagine the bravery it took to agree to leave everything familiar and marry a stranger? What a risk! But if you have nothing to lose, it might be the best option. 

It was common to put in an advertisement-or answer one-in a marriage broker's magazine or even the newspapers. Why not if your options are few or even none? Women wanted their own home and family away from the crime and filth of the cities. Men were lonely for the nurturing company of women and home-cooked meals. Many of them missed mothers and sisters and wanted their own families. They craved a home, not just a house...music, art, literature, and all the things women bring to make a place a community and not just a camp.

Why do we still like to read these stories?

• There's instant tension. Two people who don't know each other are thrown together. We want to know if they will regret their choice.
• We love a fresh start.
• We like to read about danger. The West was not safe.
• There's something satisfying about a hero who chooses a wife for practical reasons, or a heroine who chooses a man for practicality. When, at the end, they choose each other, we sigh.
• Some of us were perhaps descended from a mail-order bride and are curious.
• Some of us like stories of brave, hopeful women. 

Little House on the Prairie and other pioneer shows are still popular today because we love stories about people who overcome hardship, choose to love and hope for it after the commitment has already been made. 

I loved writing my mail-order bride story. Last year, one of my writing groups decided to explore mail-order bride stories and had so much fun writing them that we have decided to continue the series. The Wild Rose Ridge Historicals are fun novellas in Kindle Unlimited and available in Print and some in Audio. Check them out HERE

 

You can read my book, which was recently a finalist in The Women Writing the West WILLA Literary Award, 2026 romance category. I'm over the moon about that.

You can find Elinore HERE

A frontier town in need of taming.
A threadbare socialite with everything to prove.
And a lonely bachelor who’s never been kissed.

When Elinore Cantrell’s reckless father gambles away their fortune, society slams its doors, and danger opens a darker one. Her only escape from paying back her father’s debt to a “gentleman’s club” is the Wild West, as a mail-order bride. If a husband in Wild Rose Ridge can restore her good name, she’ll face the unknown in Washington Territory and stake her last hope on a stranger.

Robert Cameron is a wealthy farmer with plenty of land and no one to share it with. His mother’s scandalous past has ensured that. Thirty-five years ago, she arrived tattered and bruised, with a baby and a bag of gold. The whispers never stopped, and the handful of women on the Ridge shun her still.

Robert’s one chance for happiness rests in a bride who knows nothing of his family’s shadowed reputation. But when Elinore steps off the boat expecting wealth and status, she finds a modest man and a truth she’s not sure she can accept.
She’s traded one scandal for another.

Sometimes, what begins in desperation can grow into a love stronger than any dare to dream. On the rugged frontier, hearts aren’t easily tamed… but miracles bloom where the soil is hardest.

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Until next month, Dalyn