Not the adventure she expected...
Nettie is not a natural leader, but she's someone who will things done. She prefers to stay busy, possibly due to her upbringing as one of only two daughters in a houseful of eight children. Nettie was sixth in line. She is generally quiet and soft-spoken, but she's started to come out of her shell since marrying her husband, Isaac, four years ago.
Nettie was moving to join her husband in the Idaho Territory. She'd inherited a dowry of mostly fine furniture pieces, courtesy of her carpenter father, but she sold most of the furnishings before moving, as it would have been impractical to haul them. She did bring along their bed, the one item she would not part with. It, and one of her chests, were both made by her father with expert craftsmanship. She has five chests all together. She was traveling with all of the items they would be taking from North Carolina to Idaho Territory, and she'd bought other necessary supplies before boarding in St. Paul.
She has a few books and journals, clothes, diapers, blankets, quilts, fabrics, cooking implements, sewing and embroidery supplies, a bit of yarn and some knitting needles, candles, a few oil lamps, medicines, etc. Her prized possession is her sewing machine, and she also has a very fine banjo that she can play with some skill. She also plays fiddle, but was not traveling with one. One chest has seeds and some food supplies (flour, sugar, beans, molasses, canned goods, non-perishables). Other chests hold her husband's sundries, including two pairs of boots (one new), gloves, a shotgun, extra knife set, rope, wire, some extra tools, beeswax, grease, a cage trap, and two steel wolf traps. Before traveling, Nettie also sewed quite a bit of cash into some of her gowns, as they'd sold their livestock and planned to purchase more once she arrived in Idaho.
Nettie was born and raised in Western North Carolina. Her father, William Thompson, was a carpenter with a thriving business up until the war, although business has picked up again in the last few years. He'd lost a foot serving in the Confederate army, so he focused on cabinetry in the last few years. Nettie's mother, Jane, was a midwife who had eight children of her own, so Nettie and her older sister, Pearl, were no strangers to pregnancy and birth. Her brothers were William, James, John, Calvin (all older), Henry, and Hiram. They lost William and John in the war.
When Nettie was seventeen, she met Isaac Arden, a fur trader from Tennessee. They fell in love and married two years later, when she was nineteen and he was twenty one. They were married three years when she became pregnant. She had daughter Hana when she was twenty three, and Isaac left shortly afterward with his best friend, Ames, to claim a homestead territory out west. Nettie had recently received word that the men had finished building their cabins near Salmon, Idaho, and they'd sent for Nettie, Hana, and Ames's wife, Rose, to join them.