Rent Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West

Synopsis

Now in paperback, the acclaimed and captivating true story of two restless society girls who left their affluent lives to "rough it" as teachers in the wilds of Colorado in 1916.

In 1916, Dorothy Wickenden's grandmother, Dorothy Woodruff, and her best friend, Rosamund Underwood, left society life in New York to become teachers in a new school—in the wilds of Northwestern Colorado. Traveling by train to Denver and then on horseback for three days, they arrived at the remote outpost of Elkhead, where their students, the children of homesteaders, came to school in rags and bare feet.

     Central to their experiences is Ferry Carpenter, the shrewd, witty, and occasionally outrageous young lawyer and cattle rancher who hired them—in part as would-be brides for the locals. Dorothy becomes engaged to a banker in Chicago on their way West, while Rosamund is courted by both Carpenter and his best friend, a handsome mining engineer and the son of one of Denver's wealthiest industrialists.

     Nearly 100 years later, Dorothy Wickenden came across the extraordinarily detailed letters these two women sent home to their families, and she reconstructed their adventure. Nothing Daunted is an intimate, quirky story about two intrepid women on a journey that would change their lives forever.

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