Claudia had found her place, and in gratitude to God resolved to give the fullest obedience to the ancient precept: "If any have children . . . let them learn first to show piety at home, and to requite their parents."
Famous Women Pioneers
BY
Frank Elias
Women explorers have been the helpers of men, and spurred them on towards their goals. Some such workers are here recalled.
A great deal has been said and written about the men who, in times past, opened up vast tracts of the unknown, and, by so doing, prepared new homes for their countrymen from England. Park and Livingstone, Raleigh and Flinders—the names of these and many more are remembered with gratitude wherever the English tongue is spoken.
Less often perhaps do we remember that there have been not only strong-willed and adventurous men but brave and enduring women who have gone where scarcely any white folks went before them, and who, while doing so, bore without complaint hardships no less severe than those endured by male pioneers.
To the shores of Cape Cod there came, on November 11, 1620, a little leaky ship, torn by North Atlantic gales and with sides shattered by North Atlantic rollers. Standing shivering upon her decks stood groups of men and women, plainly not sailor-folk, worn by a long voyage, and waiting to step upon a shore of which they knew no more than that it was inhabited by unmerciful savages and overlaid by dense forests. The first must be conciliated, and the second, to some extent at least, cleared away before there could be any hope of settlement.
What pictures of happy homes in the Old Country, with their green little gardens and honeysuckle creepers, rose up in the memory of those delicate women as they eyed the bleak, unfriendly shore! Yet, though the cold bit them and the unknown yawned before, they did not flinch, but waited for the solemn moment of landing.