GOLD RUSH BRIDES Lyrics

Follow the typical signs, the hand-painted lines, down prairie
roads. Pass the lone church spire. Pass the talking wire from
where to who knows? There's no way to divide the beauty of the
sky from the wild western plains. Where a man could drift, in
legendary myth, by roaming over spaces. The land was free and the
price was right.
Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly.
Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family. I see
Indians that crawl through this mural that recalls our history.
Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides?
Does anybody know? Do their works survive their yellow fever
lives in the pages they wrote? The land was free, yet it cost
their lives.
In miner's lust for gold. a family's house was bought and
sold, piece by piece. A widow staked her claim on a dollar and
his name, so painfully. In letters mailed back home her Eastern
sisters they would moan as they would read accounts of madness,
childbirth, loneliness and grief.