FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 8, 2007
CONTACT:  Martyn Beeny, (605) 773-8161, martyn.beeny@state.sd.us

A little touch of 19^th Century South Dakota romance—perfect for Mother’s Day

PIERRE, S.D.—This Mother’s Day, give a gift of old-fashioned romance with a new book from the South Dakota State Historical Society.

An 1880s story of romance, Sunshine Always: The Courtship Letters of Alice Bower and Joseph Gossage of Dakota Territory, details, through letters and diary entries, the 16-month courtship of the founders of the Rapid City Journal. Living at either end of Dakota Territory (Bower in Vermillion and Gossage in Rapid City), the two young people met only once before their wedding.

The couple courted in their letters, and Sunshine Always contains their hopes and dreams, pleasures and fears. Gossage describes the printing trade when the newspaper office was the dynamic center of community life. Bower offers glimpses of the day-to-day chores of a young woman in early Dakota Territory.

Sunshine Always depicts a style of courtship vastly different from that we know today. In getting to know one another, they discussed serious issues of the times. Their views on politics, temperance, and parenting reveal a stricter, more formal lifestyle. Victorian-era sensibilities meant that sending a photograph to someone indicated serious romantic intentions, and using a first name as an informal greeting was considered the height of bad manners.

Paula M. Nelson, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Platteville, edited the book and provides an introduction. She is an authority on western homesteading and women’s history.

Maxwell Van Nuys, Bower’s nephew, preserved and compiled the letters for this volume. His afterword offers a brief history of the Gossages’ Rapid City Journal.

Available for $24.95 plus shipping and tax, Sunshine Always can be purchased from most bookstores, or ordered directly from the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.  Visit www.sdshspress.com or call (605) 773-6009.