Mail Order Bride: Redeeming The Widow: Redeemed Western Historical Mail Order Brides, #12

By Kenneth Markson

Mail Order Bride: Redeeming The Widow: A Sweet Clean Historical Mail Order Bride Western Victorian Romance (Redeemed Western Historical Mail Order Brides Book 12) is a sweet, clean, inspirational western romance novelette. 

Sarah, a pretty young mail order bride, travels with her husband on the Oregon Trail seeking a better future. She faces the tragedies and trials which lie ahead. Can she survive the journey, and will happiness be waiting for her at the end of the trail in Oregon? 

If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy the other books in Kenneth's mail order brides Redeemed series, "A Husband For Laurie," "Redeemed By Love," "The Surprise Widow," "Redeemed By The Scarred Bride," "Redeeming The Crippled Cowboy," "Redeeming The Deaf Rancher," "Redeemed By The Soldier," "Redeemed By The Illiterate Farmer," or Kenneth's mail order brides Rescued series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Markson
• Release date: May 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996554688

Kenneth Markson

While an English major at college, I wrote a column which was published weekly. I have been writing ever since. The old West and Los Angeles in the forties are eras which lend themselves to tales of romance, courage, and fast paced adventure. I particularly enjoy writing stories about the mail order brides who fearlessly took a chance and traveled West, hoping to find love and a better future. Many of the locales that I write about are places that I have either traveled through or actually lived in. I try to make my works richly accurate. My desire is to provide you with an entertaining and fun read. When I'm not writing, I enjoy spending time with my wife and two children.

Book preview

To my wife and children, always.

Chapter 1

Excitement was in the air in Independence, Missouri.  Several hundred families had been gathering to embark on a long journey of over two thousand one hundred miles to Oregon.  It was early spring, and they had been waiting patiently for a few weeks to allow the grass to grow along the Oregon Trail.

Aren't you excited, Sarah? John Edmunds asked.  I spoke with Cap Whitaker, he continued, and he said we'll be ready to go tomorrow.

John was a tall Missouri farmer of average looks, with black hair and brown eyes.  He could barely contain himself, as his eyes glanced over the camp of people readying itself for the trip.  His heart was pumping with enthusiasm at the thought of going to a rich new land.

His wife did not share his eagerness.  Sarah was a slender, pretty young woman with blonde hair and sweet blue eyes.  John had originally placed an ad for a bride who would help him on the farm and raise a family, and Sarah responded.  She came from an extremely poor family, and out of dire necessity, had become John's mail order bride.

John had married Sarah about six months earlier.  Their marriage was not a passionate one, but John treated her decently.  Sarah appreciated that.

She smiled pleasantly at her husband.  John had certainly caught what many people termed the Oregon fever, she thought to herself.  She could hardly blame him.

Given the circumstances, it wasn't difficult to catch.  The state of Missouri had been in a financial depression for several years.  The economic turmoil had shriveled the value of land and the price of crops.

Glowing accounts of fertile farmlands with abundant black soil, and a trail with many rivers that allowed easy transportation, and was without forests that blocked the way, stirred the hearts of the farmers.  Newspaper advertisements, pamphlets, and traveler guidebooks heated the frenzy.  John was just one among many.

Sarah did not share her husband's desire.  It was true that they had barely been eking out a living.  But for Sarah, the small farm afforded her the first real security that she ever had.

She would have been quite content to stay put, and keep on struggling in the hope that things would eventually get better.  She was not the type of person who was influenced by exaggerated rumors which were largely unsubstantiated.  The whole idea of a perilous journey through lands about which she knew nothing, filled her with apprehension.

The devil you knew, she reflected, was often better than