Edith & her sister Ida Mary moved to central South Dakota in 1907 to try homesteading - They were both in their 20s. They lived in a tiny tarpaper shack on 160 waterless, sunbaked, and snow blasted acres for eight months, until they could "prove up" their claim. With other homesteaders they battled prairie fires, rattlesnakes and a blizzard, founded their own newspaper, opened a postoffice etc. MN Historical Society Press.

The historical accounts of Edith's experience as a woman on the unsettled frontier.

5361. Land of the Burnt Thigh, by Edith Eudora Kohl (read 24 Mar 2016) This is a 1938 book republished in 1986. It tells how the author, age 23, and her sister left St. Louis in 1908 to live on land not too far from Presho, South Dakota, to prove up on a claim, at first living in a one room shack. They opened a trading post, started a weekly newspaper, and ran a post office. The author tells of the fierce heat, the harsh winter, the lack of water, the prairie fires--one has to empathize with them in the struggle they went thru. There is not too much pleasantness and one gets the feeling that the difficulties they go through are not worthwhile. But they hang on, prove up on their land, and her sister marries and continues to live on it.. It is a 20th century pioneer story which seems like a 19th century ordeal. One cannot help but admire what seems like a struggle they could not succeed at--but they do. ( )

"Little House on the Prairie" for grown-up girls.

Edith Eudora Kohl's memoir of the two and a half years she and her sister, Ida Mary, spent homesteading in South Dakota is never less than inspiring. Dropped off at their 'cabin,' in the middle of nowhere, they had to stay because there was no transportation available to take them back to the nearest city and it was too far to walk. But they did stay, and they thrived, taking on a second homestead where they set up a general store, newspaper, and post office. To me, the earlier chapters which told of the period when the sisters were less established in their surroundings were the most interesting. Also, a standout is a later chapter about a great blizzard, which I think was maybe the highlight of the book. Miss Kohl's reminiscences tended to be more and more repetitious, the more she went on. Someone should have told her she didn't need to keep telling readers how brave and adventurous she was, because I knew it from the actions she was writing about. A little long in the telling, and short on editing, but nonetheless, highly recommended. ( )