In the second half of the nineteenth century in the remote farming district of Dungog in the colony of New South Wales on the Australian continent, widows faced harsh economic realities. Using civil registration records, census data, newspaper reports, statistical returns, family histories and other sources, we have, where possible, reconstructed the lives of these widows, particularly those with dependent children. This paper discusses the range of survival strategies used. It presents statistical evidence from official records, and adds vignettes of the lives of a handful of widows whose strategies can be explored more completely using additional historical sources.