A terrific true story, well-researched, about the matriarch of a Wealthy Hispanic family in New Mexico and then Arizona, where they settled as ranchers, but still ran freight wagons, as the family had done on the Santa Fe Trail. Tells the history of the family, the Santa Fe Trail, and even the involvement of the Kansas City area in pre-Civil War violence (Mrs. Aguirre was from a southern, slave-holding family transplanted to the Westport, Mo. area at the end of the Santa Fe Trail. As a strong woman, Mame survived the trail, the ranching, losing her husband and a son. Tales of her travels demonstrate how women, and many others, had to travel far just to get to a railroad. Appreciative without being preachy or maudlin.