Women pioneers and frontier teachers have been the subject of numerous books and articles. Generally, the portrait has been one of self-sacrifice, dedication to God, family and home, with little or no concern for personal needs or goals. Continuing with a premise that teachers in Indian Territory used religious sanctions and faced greater peril in order to find personal fulfillment, the authors looked at the papers of Meta Chestnutt Sager who left North Carolina to found a school in Indian Territory that would eventually grow to collegiate status. Meta's archive revealed a similar tendency toward evangelical entrepreneurialism that allowed for personal fulfillment and the westward expansion of Protestant education. The authors subsequently examined Meta Sager's struggle to negotiate turn of the century gender roles as she administered her college while seeking to follow Christian doctrine.