The book, 'The Life An Ordinary Woman' is story about the life of Anne Ellis from early childhood to adulthood. She reveals much about life in the early days of Central Colorado during the nineteenth-century. Much of her life was marked by poverty and a harrowing hand-to-mouth existence, far from what most envision life to have been like in this era.
             The traditional view of the family in the nineteenth-century was one of the perfect middle-class families living in a small community. The man was the breadwinner for the household and went off to work everyday to provide for his family. The woman worked in the home, taking care of the chores, the cooking and tending to the children. Most women were subservient to their husbands and were rarely heard from in society. They were considered property and only did as they were told. The children were treated very much the same as the women. They were to be seen but never heard.
             The existence of life on the mining frontier was similar, yet very different, in many ways to what we view as tradition family lives. The circumstances made women extraordinarily dependent on men for physical comfort and safety. Husbands moved their families with them, or sent for them, as they moved from one mining camp to another.
             Anne's family moved many time during her lifetime, following her father and later her stepfather and her husbands as they sought work in the mines. There were many times when the entire family packed up and moved with only a hope for the future. The first significant move in her life was by ox-cart over the Great Plains to settle in Bonanza, Colorado
             One of the differences between traditional family and the families in the mining frontier, the women were required to contribute to the household financially. They were obliged to maintain the family dwelling and take care of the children. Women also earned additional income by doing laundry, cooking or ot...