An Army Doctor’s Wife on the Frontier: The Letters of Emily McCorkle Fitzgerald from Alaska and the Far West, 1874-1878

Emily FitzGerald was one of the first white women to live in Alaska, less than a decade after the U.S. purchased it from Russia. In 1874 she accompanied her husband to Sitka, where he was surgeon at an army post. These letters to her mother in Philadelphia describe the rigors of raising children and making a home on the frontier, the social life of an army wife, and the long waits for steamers to bring mail and supplies. After the FitzGeralds were transferred to Fort Lapwai in present-day Idahoin 1876, Emily witnessed the Nez Perce’ War. Her letters during this period reflect the terror and dread she shared with other families at an isolated army post under siege. She was a true pioneer woman.