Women Writers Along the Rivers
Atchison County, KS

Nannie Tiffany Alderson (1860 - 1947)

Alderson met her husband while visiting relatives in Atchison, Kansas (1877-1881). She grew up on a Southern plantation, and the free-wheeling nature of the Western town of Atchison appealed to her. For example, women could work outside the home without lowering their social status in Atchison.

After Alderson married, she and her husband, Walt, ranched in Wyoming. Alderson's memoirs were first published in 1942; they have been reissued recently in paperback and are readily avail- able: Alderson, Nannie T., and Helena Hungton Smith. A Bride Goes West. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1942. (The Atchison Public Library, Atchison, Kansas, has an autographed copy of the 1942 edition; the reissued paperback version of A Bride Goes West is available in the Women Writers Along the Rivers archives. Atchison, Kansas, is described in pages 8-15 of the auto- biography.)

Alderson returned to Atchison, Kansas, and spent her last thirty winters there with her cousin, Effie Symms. In the summers, Alderson lived on a ranch operated by her relatives near Sheridan, Wyoming.

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