To Market and Wed - Homestead National Monument of America

This painting depicts the artist’s parents off the market and to wed. The year was 1887. They forded the Big Blue River at Beatrice. Though they lived nearer to Blue Springs they chose to come on the upland trail to Beatrice, as the lowland trail to Blue Springs had many buffalo wallows along its route. A new bridge was being built across the Blue River at that time which accounted for the fording of the river.
(Personal notation.) The only tangible effects the artist can recall to fit into her mother’s reflections of that day, is the black straw hat with its large purple plumage.