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AMAZING GRACE AND COURAGE - Page 2

© Mary Trotter Kion

Tonight just before beginning this article I watched events unfold on the television. As I did, a male voice rose in a beautiful baritone with the words of a very old hymn, Amazing Grace. And indeed, how sweet the sound was, just as it must have been to the ears and hearts of the pioneers as they bowed their heads at the side of a grave along the Oregon Trail perhaps in Kansas or Nebraska. As the final words of the song trailed away I could nearly feel those sorrowful travelers of long ago wipe the bitter tears from their eyes, gather the living around them, climb back on their horses or into their covered wagons and continue westward across the plains and into the future.

This was the strength of our past. It must be our strength today, and the strength of tomorrow in America.

To experience, on the Internet, the bravery of American pioneers I suggest the following sites:

Diary of Mrs. Eliza Spalding http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/htm... Missionaries Eliza Spalding and Narcissa Whitman were the first known white women to cross over South Pass towards Oregon Country.

Emigrant Diaries and Journals http://www.over-land.com/diaries.html Here are more than one hundred links to journals, diaries, and letters of pioneers who crossed the Great American Plains westward.

Don't Forget to Visit Our SUITE 101 UNIVERSITY: your place for online learning! A new course has been added and is now in progress: THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST, 1861 to 1876, written and instructed by Mary Trotter Kion. http://www.suite101.com/course.cfm/17161...

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