Miranda Tollifson had an easy life after she married Minnesota farmer, Anselm Tollifson. Her husband put up with her imaginary ailments and even brought in a woman to do the housework for her. Her life was so good that other farmers' wives in the area were jealous. They wouldn't associate with Miranda unless it was unavoidable. Miranda didn't care what they thought of her as long as her husband, Anselm, pampered her. All that changed. Right after the Civil War, Oregon land opened up for homesteading. There was a rush to go west and claim the free land before it was all gone. Anselm wanted to go, but he left it up to Miranda to decided if she was healthy enough to travel. She couldn't disappoint this man that had been so good to her. She told him they could sell the farm and travel four long months over rough country to the Willamette Valley in Oregon in a wagon train. When Miranda said yes to the trip that made Anselm happy, but the decision was not what she wanted. There were so many reasons why she should have said no. Leaving her nice home and her elderly parents, her preference for her pampered lifestyle, fear of the unknown over thousands of miles, and the most important worry of all, she was pregnant for the first time in her twenty year marriage.