May I tell you of my lovely Grandma? "Mattie" was her name.
She traveled to Montana at 18 and homesteaded. She built her own cabin and dug her own 50 foot well. But that's not what i wanted to tell you.
She fed EVERYONE for miles around and carried her own double barrel shotgun around. But that's not it either. She married, had 5 children and lost her husband at a young age. He had a horse ranch but she turned it into a wheat farm after his death all by herself.
But the story:
She lived with her parents and two younger siblings in the Dakota territory. She was 4 years old. During an Indian raid, her Father put the three children under the floorboards, under a rug. He gave my Grandma a cocked revolver and told her if anyone other than him opened the hatch, she was to shoot her sister age 3, in the chest and shoot her baby brother age 1, in the chest. She was to quickly turn the gun on herself and pull the trigger.
People back then were made of tough stuff!