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The thing to understand about US culture and shopping is that 

A: the country is huge, and

B: for a long time after we stole it, there weren’t many grocery stores around.

so if you were a frontier family, maybe you hunted and had a garden, even some chickens, but if you wanted flour, butter, salt, or any other groceries, it was not uncommon for that grocery store to be a multiple day trip. Traveling a month round trip to get supplies was not unheard of.

Jennie C. Forsythe, who settled in Sweet Grass County, Montana, in the 1880s, remembered that "The nearest trading point was Bozeman (that was also the nearest doctor). Father would make two trips a year and do all our trading at that time. If he didn't get something then, we did without it or made due with what we had."