Go west, young man . . .

Myth is the public dream, and dream is the private myth. - Joseph Campbell
HEADING WEST ON A WAGON TRAIN
There is a great deal of mythology connected to "moving West." Any of us whose ancestors lives in states east of where we currently reside knows this at some level. Did your ancestors come west in a covered wagon?
Do you know much about who they were, what they were like? We may have seen old black and white photos of those forebearers, but none of us was alive to meet those relatives that are further up in the family tree. We might visualize a sturdy great-great grandmother or grandfather bucking the odds and eventually making it to the farm or ranch where you know your roots to be.
Did your female forebearer have a number of children, some of whom did not live to see adulthood? Was your male forebearer old before his time from the backbreaking work of making a home on the range? What about their brothers and sisters? Did any of them come west, also? Most of our forebearers families were large, and many lives in the same area until one or more came west on a wagon train.
That changed everything for us who came later. We must honor their journeys