How the West Was Won

When he emigrated to North Dakota Daddy came to help fill needed quota Of young, strong men of honest worth For untamed land at its new birth. He met my mother, strong as he, Raised seven kids including me. He broke wild mustangs to the halter And from cold or heat would never falter. The settlers in this brand new land Weren’t looking for the wild cow-hand, The drifter who’d collect his pay, Then casually be on his way. Some would then join an outlaw band, Before the law came to the land. Though their kind earned infamous glory, Men like my dad were the real story. North Dakota had only been a state, Ten years when Daddy tested fate. He left Eastern standards and aesthetics, Armed only with his strong work ethics. He and his kind would build the schools, And churches and towns and follow rules. It took big men to build the west. I claim my dad one of the best. He homesteaded in nineteen hundred one And that is how the west was won.