The Wake of the Prairie Schooner

For nine summers during the 1930's and early 1940's the Padens re-explored the entire Oregon/California Trail, including its many offshoots. From Independence, Missouri then up the Platte River, across the Rockies, through the deserts to Oregon and California, the Padens leave no stone unturned.Mrs. Paden's writing style and interpretive abilities are most commendable and second to none. Quoting from over 350 diaries, letters and memoirs, the reader is taken back in time through the voices, feelings and happenstances of these early day adventurers.We read of the kinds of people encountered, the hardships, weather, disasters, graves of both emigrants and animals, the thirst, hunger, abandoned wagons, accidental shootings, cholera, mishaps with river fordings, encounters with Indians, along with the joys of births, weddings, finding grass for livestock and good water, etc.When the Padens effected these overland geographic expeditions in the 1930's and 1940's, it was during a time when there were more rural areas, and roads and highways were not as advanced as they are today. People in this time period were affable and willing to provide help in locating wagon ruts, trails, old forts and trading posts, gravesites, etc.A very lengthy, but absorbing read.