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When Nutter and Nancy Murphy and their family came to Shawnee, Kansas, in October 1859, the first thing they did after finding temporary lodging for the night was to hold family devotions. Daughter Lydia later remembered, "That night the family Bible rested in the center of the room. We gathered around the table, seated on boxes and improvised chairs while the usual evening family prayers were held after the reading of a chapter of Scriptures. During the 50 years of his Kansas citizenship, this morning and evening Scripture reading and prayer was not once omitted in my father's house."

For many pioneer families, Christian faith was an integral part of life. It formed the backbone of their values and sustained them through numerous hardships. When John Klein, who grew up on a Texas farm at the end of the 1800s, thought about all his mother Ida (see "Religion—Sunday and Every Day," below) did in a day to care for the family and help run the farm, he recognized, "Special strength provided by the Almighty must have made it possible for her to do all this."

Frontier farms were family farms, and the family was an economic as well as a social unit. Though most pioneers believed the woman's sphere was within the home, the shortage of manpower meant many women (and children) helped with the farm. They helped dig cellars, build cabins, plow, plant, and harvest, as well as tend to their "domestic" activities, such as cleaning, cooking, sewing, and caring for the children. To understand the lives of frontier Christian women, then, we must take a look at the toil that filled their days.

Clara Hildebrand, looking back on her own pioneer experience, described the woman's role:

"The pioneer Kansas woman shared her husband's work and interest in the garden, the orchard, the crops and animals of the farm; she worked in the garden and gathered its products. She knew just how each vineyard or tree in the young orchard was coming in. She shared in the hope for a beautiful crop as the field things sprouted and grew green and tall. Did a horse, dog or other farm animal get badly gored, cut or wounded, hers was the task to cleanse the wound and take the stitches that drew the torn edges together."

Besides outdoor responsibilities, a pioneer wife spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Sarah Hammond White explained the basics of fireplace cooking:

"We used kettles suspended from a wire across the fireplace and boiled most of our food; baking was done in an iron kettle about four inches deep and two and a half from the ground, supported by three iron legs. This baker, as it was called, was covered with an iron lid upon which coals of fire were placed, and the baker was placed on coals of fire too, and I want to say no malleable stores ever baked better biscuits."

One central Texas mother with an especially large family recalled that "breadmaking was much trouble and took so long. … We had only three [dutch ovens], each one just large enough for one loaf at a time, and there had to be 20 loaves every day because there were so many of us."

Men and boys helped gather fuel for the fire and keep the wood box filled. On the treeless plains they collected dried buffalo chips in sacks and kept them for use as fuel for cooking as well as for warm fires in winter.

Cornbread and corn mush were standard fare in the beginning, but food usually became abundant as the family farm thrived. Gardens and orchards produced vegetables and fruits that women canned or dried for use in the winter. Several times a week, women baked bread. If the family had a good cow, butter was made every other day, both for family use and to be sold in town for extra money.

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