They landed in America and hit the ground running into the western wilderness. Most of them didn't come to America for any golden opportunity, they were simply escaping homelands that were turning to shit because of wars, nationalism, and religious persecution.
My last immigrant ancestor was a mail order bride to Salt Lake city. The Mormons recruited young women in Northern Europe to be wives. She didn't like sharing a husband so she ran away with a monogamous young man who was passing through town. They became ranchers, establishing a homestead that's still about as far away as you can get from a McDonalds or WalMart in the 48 states.
My grandfather, who was born at the turn of the century, hated rural life. He didn't want to be a rancher, miner, or farmer so he ran off to the Big City of Cheyenne, Wyoming. (Hah, hah...) He didn't find what he was looking for there, so he joined the Army. He was an officer in the Army Air Corp until the end of World War II.
The influence of the Mormon Church in the Wild West is frequently glossed over or romanticized, depending upon who is writing the history.
One of my great grandmas wrote letters to friends and family telling them how much she loathed various Mormon neighbors and the Mormon church in general. Some of those letters were eventually returned to my grandfather's sister.
My great grandparents had a curious relationship with the church. They were sometimes called upon to settle disputes that couldn't be solved within the church itself because of vicious internal church politics, but some of them were also connections for contraband coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, and pornography. The pornography would be considered quite mild today.
My wife's Wild West history is much deeper than mine. Some of her ancestors were Native Americans and Mexicans forced south across the new border by the U.S. Army. Their grandchildren later returned as Mexican immigrants. My father-in-law was born in a farmworkers camp near a small orchard my parent's once owned, and a ranch where my grandfather kept his horses.
My grandfather didn't attend our wedding. Men in his family simply didn't marry, in his words, "Mexican girls." To his credit he got over it.
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