Organized religion played a key role during the settling of the West where Churches and synagogues were crucial in forging ‘social boundaries’ needed by the settlers in order to survive. In many spread-out areas, attending service provided these homesteaders their one chance to occasionally congregate with their neighbors.
The area they served was vast, and clerics handled the challenge by taking to the road to serve their scattered congregations. Most carried a portable “mass kit” or “communion kit”. Western clerics, who were usually well-educated, also stepped in wherever needed as counsellors, teachers, and general purveyors of ‘culture’. Many communities looked to them to help with schooling.
These men of the cloth played the same vital role in setting up systems of health care in various regions. The Catholic church established numerous hospitals in mining and railroad towns, which were then entirely run by nuns. Thus, my orphaned heroine Lucinda, in A Bride for Riley, finds herself on the train headed West to complete her training to become a nun.
She’s greeted at the train station by a man and two children whom she assumes are from the convent, yet somehow before the day is over, she finds herself married to this total stranger, and helping care for his niece and nephew.
Excerpt from A Bride for Riley all right reserved
Riley drew the carriage to a stop outside of the train depot in Butte and turned to his two young charges. “You two stay here. Kenny you mind your sister, hear? Vicky, you’re in charge of your brother.”
Both children looked up at him with wide blue eyes that reminded him so much of his sister it hurt. He knew what they were thinking. Was he really coming back? Or would he disappear the same way their father had shortly after their mother died?
“I won’t be long. I
promise,” he said as he climbed down. He
felt their eyes boring into his back as he strode into the train station. He didn’t know a hill of beans about raising
youngsters, but he’d promised his sister he’d do his best. Which, to his mind, meant getting them a new
mother as soon as possible.
The train pulled in minutes later and stopped with a belch
of coal smoke and the grinding sound of metal wheels on metal tracks. Shortly after, the doors opened and the
porters stepped off first, followed by the passengers.
One by one, he searched the face of each woman traveling
alone. There weren’t many. That had to be her, the plain one standing by
herself and looking around all wide-eyed and nervous. She wasn’t wearing a single fashionable
adornment like most of the other women passengers, but beneath her plain brown
bonnet he glimpsed an escaped strand of reddish hair.
He frowned. She’d
sounded different in her letters, flirty and not the least bit shy. He approached her slowly, half expecting her
to bolt when he said her name.
“Lucinda?”
She started before a look of relief spread over her
features and she gave a jerky nod.
“I’m Riley. Let’s go
get your things.”
“This is all I have.”
She indicated the shabby valise at her feet.
“That’s all?” Funny,
he’d been expecting his mail-order bride from Boston to arrive with a
fashionable East coast wardrobe.
“I was told I’d be supplied with whatever I needed.”
“That a fact?” He
pressed his lips together and reached for her valise. It felt almost empty. No doubt that old busybody from the
matchmaking agency had told her she was marrying a wealthy man.
“The carriage is this way.”
As they walked out of the station, he wondered how to introduce the
children in such a way that his mail order bride didn’t light out of here first
thing.
I loved writing for the Mistaken Identity Bride series. It was so fun to figure out how the grooom would pick up the wrong mail order bride.
You can get your copy of Riley here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YXZY8CQ
And check out the entire series here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YYZSHYQ
