Julia's Last Hope is a story sent in a lumbertown in western Canada. Things are going well for John and Julia Harrigan until the sudden news of the mill closing rocks their secure world. Julia's dreams for her family seem to be crumbling around her until she decides to fight to save the home and town she loves.

A New York lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with a pioneer Bohemian girl.

When three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad by harsh pioneer life, the task of saving them falls to the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy. Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she soon realizes just how daunting the journey will be, and employs a low-life drifter, George Briggs to join her.

Monson shares the stories of twelve women who heard the call to settle the west and came from all points of the globe to begin their journey. As a slave, Clara watched helpless as her husband and children were sold, only to be reunited with her youngest daughter six decades later. Charlotte hid her gender to escape a life of poverty and became the greatest stagecoach driver that ever lived. A Native American, Gertrude fought to give her people a voice...

Drawing on journal entries, letters, and song lyrics to evoke the courage and spirit of female pioneers, a collection of portraits traces the lives of such individuals as Amelia Stewart Knight, Miriam Colt, and Clara Brown.