The Frontier Life

Everyday life was an ongoing challenge, yet every day was another opportunity for Austin’s stalwart settlers to exhibit their skills and talents while contributing to the general welfare of all. They routinely endured the many hazards of frontier life such as successfully extracting sustenance from their rustic land, collectively fighting off marauding hostile Indian raids, risking the lives of their wives to bear children in the wilderness, not to mention experiencing plagues which wiped out entire settlements, the ever present risk of accident or injury with resulting infection, and many other life threatening events. The frontier settler’s principal activity was that of survival, with little time for non-productive undertakings.

It was most fortuitous for this prairie’s settlers that Dr. Gazley was there to deliver the babies and tend their mothers, treat the sick and injured, set their broken bones, remove bullets and stitch up knife wounds, and later to fight for their safety and apply his other capabilities for their benefit in the quest for freedom and independence.