Less than a century after the united States of America came into existence, around or just after the terrible civil war was fought (and lost as much as won), my great-grandparents were born.
It was an age in which Indians still terrorized much of what would become the contiguous United States (yes, they were prone to attack, murder, take and steal whenever and whatever they liked, and the response by the white, black and oriental man was also brutal, but effective).
An era long before most modern means of conveyance from automobiles to planes existed, cross-country travel by anything other than horse, carriage, stage-coach, an occasional steamship, clipper ship or the still growing network of train tracks and locomotives, or on foot, was the only way to go.