The Kentucky Dreamer: #Tamer

**I grew up as a young girl, wrestling with my twin brother in front of the T.V. trying to get the best seat in the house to admire Daniel Boone, as played by the handsome, Fess Parker. (Don't roll your eyes, he was pretty hot)

His high adventures and gentle nature made me an easy fan, but now, the poet in me wants something a little more flowery. Some of the following is factual, some is from the dimly lit corners of my imagination.

Although Daniel Boone was not a prolific letter writer due to his limited education, there is evidence that he did write letters to his wife, Rebecca. Some say, he had his sister in law write many letters for him. It was said that he loved his wife deeply and even raised a daughter believed to have been his brothers, as his own.

This is how I imagined he would have written to Rebecca if he could have written them from his heart**

*

My Dearest Rebecca,

My thoughts are of you, as I find a much needed pause on this spectacular velvet night. The crickets and frogs have gathered to sing their lullabies, granting me peace from my long journey. We have covered so many miles on this dusty trail, that I have begun to question if there is a place of ending, or if we will drop into nothingness before we reach the western shores. I've never been lost, but there are a few times when I was bewildered for a day or two.

But as I gather my thoughts, resting and gazing into the vastness of this incredible wilderness, I am as astonished as a young boy at it's endless beauty. I am now, more acutely aware than ever, that not even this blanketing canopy of stars that spans the length of our universe, uniting us in spirit tonight, remotely compares to the beauty of your face.

Even this canopy of luminous lanterns that float effortlessly above me, shooting and darting in the sky, like winged fireflies, pale to your bewitching allure. God most certainly forsook nature the day he placed that gleam in your eye, erasing all doubts of his existence, as your heart began to beat. All the mysteries of creation, the shear masterpiece of heaven, cannot begin to contain all the mysteries of the creation, the day you were imagined into being.

Though we are miles apart, my desire and love for you have never waivered. The moments we must spend away only strengthens and enriches the tastes of ecstasy and joy we will partake in, at our glorious reunion.

I know your father believes me to be chasing folly and fantasy, but I believe overtime, he will come to see my intentions are honorable and I will gain his favor and respect. I am certain my abilities and resourcefulness will be enough to satisfy his concerns. He can rest easy with the assurance that I will do my best to provide for your needs. I swear my life to your well being and vow to provide and protect you from all danger.

Tonight, as the sun begins to melt into the horizon before me, it reminds me how small we are in the scheme of things. We are however, as powerful as it's noontime rays, in spirit and determination. We will not fail.

All my love and faithfulness

Daniel

**

My Dearest Love, Rebecca,

I am writing now to explain my long absence and to inform you that I am uninjured and safe. While out hunting and foraging for food, I was outnumbered by a scouting party of Shawnee indians and taken captive. I was held for four months and after gaining the admiration of the Shawnee chief, have recently escaped. I know you have feared for my survival and for a short time, I too wondered of my future.

I find this region to be a howling wilderness filled with the habitation of savages and wild beasts, however, I remain convinced that heaven must be a Kentucky kind of place. It is like a second paradise, a land of opportunity where I believe we as a family could easily prosper, in spite of the peril of this beautiful land.

I remain resolved to the task at hand though I am weary. The time away from you and the atrocities I have witnessed have left me brokenhearted.

I am on my way back home to you. Please consider, as I have, uprooting and starting anew with me here in the breathtaking paradise.

Yours forever, Sheltowee (my adopted name)

*

Dear Daniel,

Yes, I know that it's true that when we fell in love, I knew you would never be a farmer, content with the duties of a homesteader. But I didn’t reckon on being left with a cabin full of children to care for, nursing a newborn, living on acres that aren’t our own, and you traipsing off to fight a war. I’ll spend months not knowing where you are — whether you’re alive or dead. Don’t ask me to live like that. We need you here.

You are gone for months and even years at a time with little correspondence, leaving me to fend for myself and our children.

You know that folks love to gossip, sweetheart, and I do my best to ignore them, and teach our young to do the same. They have nearly made frontier sport, remarking on the supposed looseness of your abandoned wife, and it has nearly broken me. I am a strong woman, Daniel, but even I am unsure how much more I can take.

I am glad to know that you are well and will only consider pulling up roots if I have some assurances that I will not remain a single, married woman.

My grandmother warned me early on that I’d best learn early to toughen my heart, for there would be plenty of suffering in this world for both man and beast.

So for now I will dwell with you, lost in the letters of fireflies and flowers, dancing under canopies of stars, until you return.

You sensitive but strong wife, Becca

**

Daniel and Rebecca were married 56 years and had 10 children.

Their love survived some heavy tolls demanded from this wilderness he loved. Daniel saw six of their ten children pass away before his own death in 1820 at the age of almost eighty-six years.

Only four children would outlive their famous father.

His last words were, "I'm going now, my time has come."