What are the motifs in Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier by Joanna Stratton?

Triumph over hardship is a recurring idea. Author Joanna L. Stratton needs but to state the facts to characterize the frontier life as extraordinarily difficult, dangerous, and uncertain. From a rickety stagecoach ride through the wilderness, to wolves and coyotes, to blizzards, droughts, loneliness, starvation, unchecked disease, the Civil War, Indians, and pro-slavery marauders, Kansas is oftentimes depicted as a dangerous and deadly place.