Agnes (Aggie) Pratt from Rachel Fordham’s A LIFE ONCE DREAMED has consented to this interview.
Thank you so very much for doing this. You were very brave to leave the city you have grown up in, your friends, and your family. Now you live in the frontier town of Penance South Dakota. You have grown from a shy and timid individual to being an independent backbone of the town.
EC: Do you think people can reinvent their life—did you?
Agnes Pratt: With time and experience I have come to believe that everyone is able to change. It’s not always easy but a city girl can learn the ways of the country, a quiet person can find a voice and even deeply held bias can be overcome.
EC: Was it hard to move across the country from a city to a frontier town?
AP: It was very hard. Many nights I cried myself to sleep as I struggled to fit into a world so different from my own. I truly believed there was no other way so I stuck with it and then one day I woke up and realized that Penance had become home and that I truly belonged.
EC: Teaching in the 1880s puts a hardship on women who want a family-please comment.
AP: I can’t speak for all teachers but the contract I signed specified that when/if I married I would have to give up my position. I love teaching and the children but I know what I signed my name to. I’ll always love the children in my classroom but I do long at times for a child of my own that I do not have to say goodbye to at the end of the day.
EC: How would you describe yourself?
AP: When I was younger I was shy and timid but since moving west I’ve become bold and found qualities about myself I didn’t know existed. I suppose survival forces us to face our fears and confront who we are. I am loyal, hardworking and even though it may not always show I am someone who loves deeply.
EC: How would you describe James?
AP: James is a good man, better than he knows. When he was young I always knew he would grow up and do big things. I never thought those big things would be in Penance, but he’s here now and he’s making things better. His father was pompous but James was always destined to be a better man than his father. When I think of James I think of clay, unmolded but bound to be shaped into something brilliant.
EC: What role does Hannah play in your life?
AP: I adore Hannah. She is a dear friend, steady when I am wavering, friendly and kind. Our ages are not so different but she is wise, far wiser than I am. In many ways she is my family here. We share no blood but we are family in the deepest of ways.
EC: How would you describe Penance, South Dakota?
AP: On first glance, Penance is a rough and unrefined town but when you look closer you see how beautiful it is here. It’s a town full of wayward souls but together we are building a home in the wilderness and having fun while we do it. It’s not the civilized Buffalo, I left behind but the longer I am here the more convinced I am that the rules ad pomp I left behind were not as important as I was led to believe. Penance feels like a home.
EC: Do you agree with James that it is hard to grasp the future when the past is so unsettled?
AP: Sometimes the past cannot be settled even if one wishes it to be. I know he struggles and longs for answers but I am not sure I can give him the answers he wants. He may have to accept that the past will always be marred with questions. I wish I could ease his unrest and my own but I am not sure that is truly for the best.
EC: You had to make many sacrifices for Freddie yet you have the attitude, “I see what I am gaining, not what I am giving up?-Please comment…
AP: When I met Freddie something changed inside of me. I have heard talk of the bonds of blood but I now know that motherly affection does not come merely by birthing a child. What I feel for Freddie is deep and real and powerful enough that whatever loving Freddie requires of me it is pittance in comparison to what he has given me by filling my heart with such deep love.
EC: What are your dreams and future goals?
AP: Home and family, are what I dream of. I’ve wandered across this vast country. I’ve lived in the fashionable city and the rugged country. I’ve taught a classroom of children and labored through illness. I’m not old but my life has been full and diverse and now I long to hold the hand of children that call me mother and make vows to a man that will be faithful to me all the days of my life. Simple dreams are what I long for. My winter seasons have been long but now I long for spring.
THANK YOU!!
