Pioneers learned to adapt
To their strange demands of life;
From the moment they left home
With their wagon, children and wife.
The lone hunter of the past
Was just a man who wandered.
He returned with pelts and stories
Of campsites by the hundred.
Pioneer families planted corn
For they intended to stay.
Hostile Indians waged their war
As both sides lost loves each day.
Mother, father and each child
Had their duties to survive.
Exposed to the harsh frontier
They learned to struggle and strive.
They carved their place in history
With their lives, prayers, sweat and tools;
The builders of roads, towns, cities,
Churches, bridges, mills and schools.
By Tom Zart
Tom Zart