The Bassett Women

This is a great addition to my Browns Park residents collection. The Bassets are an interesting family and the story is well told. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the area and people that made it famous.

Good story

A well researched and written book with a photo section, this story of independent tough, but beautiful women, in the American West was a great read. I got interested in Jose Morris after seeing her homestead cabin in Dinosaur National Monument. She homesteaded the site when she was 40 and stayed for almost 50 years. Married five times in an age when one divorce was a scandal, she was a smart, bawdy gal who did not need a man but enjoyed their company - until she didn't. Then it was hit the road Jack! Her sister "Queen" Ann Morris was elegant, bad tempered and a sometimes cattle rustler. They lived in a man's world better and more successfully than most men, a skill they learned from their mother. There are a wide range of supporting characters in this epic American West story that would make a great movie. A most fascinating tale, I'm keeping my copy of this out-of-print book for library shelf.

I discovered Josie Bassett when I took the windshield tour at the Dinosaur Monument outside of Vernal, Utah. Her tiny self-built cabin was one of the stops on the tour. The marker said something about her living here--without running water or electricity--until she died in the early 1960s from a broken hip. The accident happened when she went out to feed her horse. He shifted his hip and accidentally knocked her over. She was in her early 90s! Reading this I knew I had to find out more about her, so when I got home, I made a B-line to the library and found this book. They should make a movie out of it, it is so good! Afraid it will one-day go out of print, I decided to buy.

I am a direct descendant of Mary Eliza's sister Hannah, and in the opening of the book, the author (regrettably) implies that Mary Eliza and her sister were raised in a situation in which mystery surrounded their parents' deaths. There was no mystery at all. When Mary Eliza was a toddler, her mother Hannah died in childbirth in January 1861, bringing another daughter into the world: also named Hannah. Their father, Ewell, widowed and with two young girls at the opening shot of the Civil War in April of that year, left the two girls in the care of his in-laws, the Millers, and went to war, where he died from a leg wound in Virginia. His name was Ewell Chamberlain and he is buried in Virginia. The mystery, if there is one, is why Mary Eliza was given to George Miller (mistakenly recorded by the author as "Judge" Miller) rather than to William Chamberlain and his wife, who were Ewell's parents. I realize this book was written in the 1980s when information was not as forthcoming, but I thought I'd set the record straight.

This was a wonderful biography of a fascinating woman from a fascinating pioneer family. Her cabin still exists in Dinosaur National Monument in Northern Utah and Wyoming and can be visited by anyone in the park.

An interesting saga of an early eastern Utah family and its strong women.

Very good book! I am very familiar with the Brown's Park area and enjoy the rich history. Grace McClure takes you there in this book!