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Recently, I found another surprise as I went through one of my mother’s boxes. It was the first sunbonnet I wore as an infant and had a handwritten note my mother had placed inside: 

    NOTE: “My Granny Hays had a bonnet, so I wanted one like it. She made this one, and when she had her bonnet, I’d go get mine and we were ready to go play outside.

    “Was never able to understand why my dad didn’t wear Grannie’s bonnet as mommy did.

    “Long before I could talk enough to say what I wanted to do, this bonnet meant ‘Let’s go out.’ She [Phyllis] didn’t always have it on straight, but it went on, then she would get a big one and take it to an adult.” 

The bonnet seemed fitting since I grew up in Oklahoma and had multiple pictures—with my father, my husband, and later of my children—taken beside the 17-foot-tall bronze sculpture commonly called The Pioneer Woman and designed by Bryant Baker. Erected in Ponca City, Oklahoma, in 1930, the total height is thirty-three feet when you add its stone base. It was constructed decades before the blog or television personality came along by that same name.

Models of a possible Pioneer Woman statue were commissioned from twelve well-known sculptors. Then, to decide which of the twelve models to use for the final statue, they used feedback and voting by the general public as the models traveled nationwide. The process took years.

While discussing the merits of one of the twelve models over another, some art critics of the day (1920s and 30s) lambasted the sunbonnets as “terrible headwear.” I still chuckle at the response to sunbonnets since their practical nature was ahead of the critics of that day. How different from today since now we recognize the importance of protecting our skin from the sun.

Below the statue is written: “In appreciation of the heroic character of the women who braved the dangers and endured the hardships incident to daily life of the pioneer and homesteader in this country.” The Pioneer Woman stands as a monument to the women who made significant contributions to the forming of our country. They started West with all earthly possessions packed on a horse or wagon.

Both my paternal grandmother Smith and maternal grandmother Hays lived in Oklahoma and had this experience of moving by wagon. However, I still can’t picture my grandmother Hays sitting in a wagon with her small sons behind her and a gun across her lap as she watched the fire her husband built in front of the wagon. He was fishing or trapping to get meat for their meals as they traveled from Tennessee to Oklahoma. I can’t even imagine the gentle grandmother I knew holding a gun. Still, I guess mothers will do many things to protect their children from harm, either the two-legged or four-legged variety.

The Pioneer Woman statue pictures a young, sun-bonneted pioneer mother, leading her son by the hand as she courageously strides forward with determination and humility on her face, hope in her heart, and a bible in her hand.

What’s that? A bible, instead of a gun in her hand, as she faced unknown danger? Yes, that’s also a bible you see in the hands of my grandmother Nora Hays in the picture with her seven children.

One famous visitor to America, French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, spent nine months crisscrossing the United States in 1831 and wrote many observations of our young country. Many politicians, philosophers, and historians have quoted him. However, you don’t often hear how impressed he was with the women he found in America. His writings reflect the same era as the Pioneer Woman.

He held the women in the United States in high regard and reasoned that nowhere would the position of women seem higher. He felt the American woman was full of confidence in her strength and, indeed, a new phenomenon in the history of the world. He thought this resulted from the interaction of Protestantism, long-standing political liberty, and democratic equality.

He praised the well-ordered home life of Americans. In his Democracy in America, he argued that the nation’s political order rested upon this firm domestic foundation.

He believed America somehow succeeded in combining two things that often caused conflict but were marvelously combined in America: the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom. He further noticed how Americans proceeded at a hectic pace throughout the workweek but strictly observed the Sabbath—in the 1830s, businesses closed so all people could worship freely.

The “hardiness” of young women especially impressed him. He found it amazing that even women raised in refined homes in the East accompanied their restless husbands in their unpredictable quest to go West. He was intrigued by the unique blending of family, faith, and freedom that predominated in the 1830s. 

This same theme was mentioned when the Pioneer Woman statue was dedicated in Ponca City when Patrick J. Hurley stated that in evaluating the Pioneer Woman’s character, you had to see that her intelligence quickly “recognized that the three great pillars of democratic government are religion, education and the home. She trusted in God and was a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer.”

If Tocqueville’s insights are accurate (stating that a healthy political environment relies on healthy households), then any genuine attempt to improve America must address the importance of rescuing and revitalizing the family. This is especially crucial as the family is the intermediary between religion and politics. Do we have the same passion as those pioneering women to do whatever it takes?

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1 ESV)