About a mile from my childhood home in Prairie Village Kansas you can still see some of the deep ruts made by the thousands of covered wagons that passed over the Kansas Plains. Pioneers heading west on the Santa Fe Trail started their journey just a short distance from my home.

Given that history pioneer imagery played an important role in the local landscape. But when I would walk past the familiar statue of a stoically heroic pioneer family gazing westward from their stony perch in the Prairie Village Shopping Center I never dreamed that there might be a yarmulke sitting under the man’s broad-brimmed hat or that the worried expression on the woman’s face might be due to the fact that the shipment of matzos for Pesach hadn’t yet arrived.

But if my elementary school’s history books neglected to mention that Jewish families were part of that great westward migration that took place in the 1800s later history books written by Jewish historians have set the record straight. Professor Jeanne Abrams wrote a book called Jewish Women Pioneering the Frontier Trail: A History in the American West while Professor Kenneth Libo discusses the Jewish westward migration in his book We Lived There Too: Pioneer Jews in the American West.

These books along with others tell a fascinating story of Jewish hope and determination combined with a generous dose of emunah. So grab your kosher pots and climb into your covered wagon; the journey is about to begin.

To read the rest of this story please buy this issue of Mishpacha or sign up for a weekly subscription.