The newly-formed Kansas Territory seemed to hold great possibilities and excitement to many people in the eastern U.S. Among those were Joseph and Molly Malone along with their good friends, Frank and Laura Stephenson and their children. As the people attempted to form a state, violence erupted between the new territory and her pro-slavery neighbor, Missouri. It was a difficult life, fraught with hardships which often forced people to move back East. Joseph and Molly, who had come from wealthy families, were committed to building their new lives and raising their children without the social encumbrances they had left behind. Surviving the years of "Bleeding Kansas" while the new state was formed, proved only to be the beginning. By the time Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861 as a free state, several southern states had already succeeded. The citizens of Kansas were once more embroiled in violence; this time on a much larger scale.