Pat Cochran
CONGRATULATIONS!!
Email me with your address and I’ll drop your signed book in the mail 
Sorry I was late coming back ~ Garret and Maggie had me snowed in on a mountain 
Thank you to everyone who dropped by today to share their favorite outlaw legends!!
You’ll be happy to know that the delightful Miss Paty Jager has arrived in Wildflower Junction in time for her talk here tomorrow at the Social Club. She’s raring to share her knowledge and expertise in researching the Old West. In the meantime, the Fillies are escorting her around town, showing her the sights, and introducing her to everyone.
Don’t forget to drop by the Social Club for some socializin’ and maybe you’ll be the winner of the book she’s going to give to some lucky person. Never can tell.
Nothing piques my interest quite like outlaw legends, and there is something about the polite outlaw and his misguided morals that truly tugs at the heartstrings When that legend is local—even better! Black Bart (Charles E. Boles) was one of the most unusual stagecoach robbers in American history. There is no record of Bart every firing a shot in any of his 29 robberies.
On July 26, 1875 the Sonora to Milton stage in Calaveras County was robbed by a man wearing a flour sack over his head with two holes cut out for the eyes. The stage driver said he carried a double-barreled shotgun and wore a long linen duster and sacks on his boots as well, to hide his garb. His voice was resonant and deep and he only said, “Please throw down the box!” He was polite and used no foul language. These became the trademarks of Black Bart, who went on to stage 29 robberies. He never robbed the passengers—only taking Well’s Fargo strong boxes.
Why is he called the Poetic bandit? He would leave behind poems for the authorities to find while searching the area. The first poem was left tacked on a tree in 1875:
“I’ve labored long and hard for bread
for honor and for riches
But on my corns too long youve tred
You fine haired sons of Bitches
Black Bart
the PO 8
Driver, give my respects to our friend, the other driver;
but I really had a notion to hang my old disguise hat on his weather eye.
Respectfully, B.B.”
Some interesting facts: He wrote to his wife from Silver Bow, Montana in August of 1871 about a bad experience with men who worked for Wells, Fargo & Co. and swore to get back what was his…. He headed for the gold fields of California. Not much for horses he walked almost everywhere he went. Having marched 20+ miles a day with the Union army and living in the open air, California suited him nicely. Some legends have him teaching school. His wife assumed him dead when he stopped writing. Four years later he staged his first “polite” robbery. The item that led to his capture was a handkerchief accidentally left behind at his 29th robbery. Authorities traced 91 San Francisco laundries to find that the handkerchief belonged to Charles E. Bolton, a respectable mine engineer who was staying at Room 40, 37 2nd Street, San Francisco. Hume had him arrested and in his report recorded that Black Bart was, “A person of great endurance. Exhibited genuine wit under most trying circumstances (THAT is something to be admired in anyone ). Extremely proper and polite in behavior, eschews profanity.”
Bart was sentenced to six years in San Quentin Prison. He was released after serving four on account of his good behavior 
**Added Info: Black Bart’s last robbery was November 3, 1883, on the very same mountain pass as his first heist. After eight successful years as the “polite bandit”, Black Bart was fifty-four years old at the time of his capture. After his release from prison he lived in San Francisco for about a year and then disappeared. In the last letter to his wife he said he was tired of being demoralized by Wells Fargo and he wanted to get away from everyone. Wells Fargo officials traced him to a hotel in Visalia and found his valise in his room–but no Black Bart. His valise contained a can of corned beef, crackers and a hankerchief – I believe there’s a poetic messesge delivered in that
Butch Cassidy is another outlaw legend who fascinates me–I believe Elizabeth did a post on him not long ago. Doc Holiday is another favorite romantic legend that comes to mind. Did you know that both of Doc Holiday’s parents died at age 37–his mother dying of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis took Doc at the age of 36. After proclaiming he would not die in bed….he died in bed. His last words: “Now isn’t this funny…” His tombstone reads “He died in bed.”
How about the rest of y’all? Have any favorite western or outlaw legends?
Though Anne Bradstreet is known as the first woman to have had a book published in the United States, it’s most likely there were others before her, but none recognized as written by women.
English -born Anne was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, steward to the earl of Lincoln, and she grew up in the cultured surroundings of Tattershall Castle. Though theirs was a strictly religious household, her father, a Nonconformist, educated her himself, as well as having her tutored in history, several languages and literature–highly unusual for a female. More fortunate than other girls, Anne had access to the castle library. Anne married when she was sixteen. Yikes! We can hardly conceive of it, but it was common practice. Simon Bradstreet’s father had been a Puritan minister, and Simon remained in the care of the Dudleys after his father’s death.
Two years later in 1630, the entire family made the arduous journey to New England in hopes of setting up plantation colonies. With a husband and father of status in the new colonies, Anne held a visible position of status. What with climate, lack of food and primitive conditions, life was far more difficult than in jolly old England. A second bout of smallpox left Anne with paralyzed joints, though she raised eight children and ran a household. Simon often traveled to other colonies, leaving her to read, educate her children, and write poetry.
Anne’s brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, secretly copied her work and took it to England where he had “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, By a Gentlewoman of Those Parts” published. It was a tribute to her childhood and what she’d left behind. Her mature work was never published until after her death.
Cultural bias toward women was common in her time–a woman’s place was in the home. Period. Women were intellectual inferiors. Critics thought Anne stole her ideas from men, and her writing was criticized because of her gender. The public had a harsh reaction to her role as a female writer. When the book was released, the idea that she was a virtuous women had to be stressed. Her brother-in-law even wrote: “By a Gentle Women in Those Parts” on the title page to assure readers that Anne didn’t neglect her duties as a Puritan woman in order to write. He saw the need to clarify that she found time for her poetry by sacrificing sleep and using what little leisure time she had. I’m probably not the only wife/mother/author who can identify with that! We can see the anger that Bradstreet felt toward criticism in the following lines:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits;
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits.
If what I do prove well, it won’t advance;
They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance.
There were other women writers during the early years in the colonies, those who wrote poems and essays that have been preserved as part of American culture, but Anne is known as the first American female poet. It’s likely that other women’s work was published anonymously or with a male pseudonym. It’s estimated that one third of all the American novels written up to 1820 were by women authors.
It’s interesting to realize that Anne wrote in a time and a culture when a woman seeking knowledge was considered against God’s will. Her writing reveals her faith, her devotion to God, and to her husband and family, but it also shows that she was a freethinker and probably one of the first feminists. Recurring themes in her poems were love for her husband and pleas with God to watch over her children and husband. Anne developed tuberculosis and died at the age of sixty.
In looking for paintings or drawings of Anne, these two recurred. One is actually labeled as a painting of Anne Bradstreet, the other, which is often used with her biography is a Rembrandt, titled, “A Woman With A Pink.” I couldn’t find information to substantiate that this was indeed a portrait of Anne Bradstreet, though both she and the famous painter were alive during this time period. It’s certainly possible. If anyone knows, I’d love to hear.
We may have come a long way, baby, but women’s writing still gets less respect than that of our male counterparts. We are the relationship storytellers who keep love and romance alive, and it’s what makes the world go ‘round. Though our genre holds the biggest piece of the publishing pie, many still turn up their nose at fiction written by women for women. Only a few years ago, women suspense writers wrote under male pseudonyms to be published. At least we’re reviewed on the merit of our work, and not because we’re women!
Hats off to Anne Bradstreet, a forward thinking woman who paved the way for women writers! If Anne were here today, what would you like to ask her?
Want to learn more about Anne Bradstreet? Order a book from amazon!
And isn’t that ironic? I had to giggle when the Random Number Generator picked Fedora’s number on the list of comments.
She’s the perfect winner for all the fun we had today talking about hats, don’t you think?
Fedora, email me, and I’ll get your snail mail addy for a copy of my newest, KIDNAPPED BY THE COWBOY!
Thank you, everyone!
Hello again Darlings! We have a wonderful guest enroute to Wildflower Junction this Saturday. Miss Paty Jager is making her journey all the way from Oregon! That’s a far piece and I hope she won’t be too exhausted.
Miss Paty has a whole slew of dogs and horses in addition to 50 mother cows so it’s no wonder that she writes western romance. She’ll be discussing the whys and wherefores of research and how a body can stumble upon the most interesting stories during the process.
And ah know you’ll want to be on hand when she gives away a copy of her newest book. So, come hitch up your buggy and come on by. We’ll have lots of fun and that’s a promise or my name’s not Felicia Filly!
Remember a couple of weeks ago, I shared with you a bit about TJ Grier, the hero in my new book, KIDNAPPED BY THE COWBOY? Readers first met TJ in UNTAMED COWBOY, when he was a young and lanky wrangler. Readers also met ten-year-old Callie Mae Lockett, the heroine’s daughter. And now, TJ and Callie Mae are all grown up and have their own story.
If you read UNTAMED COWBOY, you’ll know that even at such a young age, Callie Mae had a real love for fashion. That love carries over into KIDNAPPED BY THE COWBOY. And as TJ follows his dream of racing his prized thoroughbred horse, it was easy to envision just how Callie Mae would’ve dressed at the track.
Including her hat.
In the nineteenth century, women wore hats as a matter of routine, but a day at the race track meant 
something special. Men and women wore their finest. In fact, at the very first Kentucky Derby in 1875, promoters visited all the women’s clubs and invited them to dress to the nines. They weren’t disappointed.
The event was held on a hot and windy day, and newspaper accounts describe how “clouds of suffocating heat” damaged “hats, ribbons, flowers, laces, silks, dainty fans and parasols.”
Mention the Kentucky Derby, and most women will think of the hats before the horses. Big, broad-brimmed hats. Hats with flowers, feathers, ribbons. Elegant and frothy hats. Or simply outrageous ones.
Along with mint juleps, they’re a tradition at the big races, but no one knows just how or why that hat tradition took root. When hats began to lag in popularity in the 1960′s, wearing them at the Derby flourished–but only by way of some friendly female competition.
Socialites spare no cost in dressing themselves up, some spending up to $1,000 or more for a custom-made hat. They want to be noticed and talked about. They want to have their picture taken.
Most of all, they want to have fun.
Designers begin with light-weight straw weave hats in all colors, soft and bold, and after that dip into their stockpile of rooster feathers (or quail, peacock or pheasant), sequins, silk flowers and puffy plumes. After that, well, the possibilities are endless.
But for those who can’t afford hundreds of dollars for a hat, a trip to the craft store and firing up their glue gun will do the trick–for a fraction of the cost.
Men, too, get caught up in the craze with high-priced suits and Panama hats, complete with feathers and other decorations.
Hmm.
Ever had a Mint Julep? Here’s a recipe:
1 3/4 oz. Kentucky bourbon
Fresh mint leaves
1 tsp. superfine sugar
1 Tb. cold water
Place the mint in a glass. Add sugar and water. Crush with the back of a bar spoon until the sugar dissolves and the fragrance of the mint is released.
Add the bourbon. Fill the glass with crushed ice. Stir. Garnish with a sprig of mint.
So, do tell. Do you wear hats? Or do you feel silly in one? Too flamboyant? Or incredibly fashionable. Would you like to see them come back? Ever had a Mint Julep?
Share your stories, and I’ll draw a winner for a copy of KIDNAPPED BY THE COWBOY!
Ancestor Poem
Your tombstone stands among the rest
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished marble stone.
It reaches out to all who care.
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist;
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood and bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot
And come to visit you.
~~~ author anonymous
* * * * * *
Questions I often ask myself a lot are – Where do I come from? Who were my people? What were they like? Do I physically resemble them?
I think we wonder a lot about these things whether we’re conscious of it or not. In some form or another we all want to know about our past and how it affects us. Genealogy is my other passion and I can spend days and weeks on end searching for pieces of the puzzle. The Internet has made it so much easier than it used to be. There are millions of genealogy sites with huge databases.
In most families there is one designated person whose job it is to poke and plod through those old records. In my family I’m the one who got stuck with the job. I don’t mind though. I love a good challenge when I have the time. And I have a deep curiosity to find out about my ancestors. I want to know what they were like.
But with a last name of Clark on my mother’s side and Smith on my father’s, it’s an unending, very frustrating search. Finding a needle in a haystack is about the gist of it. Through family members, old photos, and old Bible records I’ve researched back to my great grandfather on my mother’s side who was William Jackson Clark. He and Kathryn Goldsberry Clark had four sons. One of the sons died when he was 21. Henry had a habit of chasing other men’s wives. Rumor has it that he was killed by a jealous husband, although I don’t know that for sure. William Jackson Clark himself died at the early age of 39 but I’ve been unable to find out the cause of death. He left Kathryn to raise those four little children by herself. She never remarried and was buried in a pauper’s grave at the age of 69.
Kathryn’s father and uncles fought in the Civil War on the Southern side. I know she loved her sons with every bone in her body. She was a hard-working woman. She worked other people’s fields for a little of nothing, barely enough to scratch out a living. She was strong and tough, never knowing what it was give up.
I wonder if I’m like her. I hope so. I hope that she’s the one who instills the drive in me to sit at my computer long into the night telling my stories. I hope she’s the one who gives me my stubbornness. And I hope she’d be proud of me. I wish I could’ve known her.
Are you into genealogy? Do you have questions that burn, yearning to be answered? If so, we’re all in the same boat.
She waits at the door every night at 6:30 p.m. to go with me to my Mom’s nursing home. Heaven help me if I’m not there right at 6:30 p.m. or if I try to leave without her. She puts her plump little body between me and the door and refuses to move until I say, “okay, let’s go.” She runs outside to do her business, then jumps in the car. She’s quite admired at the nursing home and has any number of elderly friends as well as staff.
She considers Kate and Allie ruffians. I call them The Wild Indians, which Ting considers an insult to Indians. I found Allie at a rescue group adoption. I meant to adopt one dog only and was instantly drawn to Allie (the one lying down in the photo) and was about to claim her when the foster Mom said Allie had a sister, one too shy and traumatized to show well at an “adoption.” Quite impulsively, I said bring both over – they inspect the house before adopting – and I would think about it. But Kate — the shy one — walked in, took Ting’s bed and refused to leave. They knew an easy touch when they saw it.
They are beautiful Australian Shepherds but in their first three months with me made Dennis the Menace look angelic. They ate everything I own, including dining room furniture, computer cords, electric wires, shoes galore and a sofa. They dug holes under the fence, and I planted rose bushes at every hole to prevent other attempts. My yard is now lined with rose bushes. There was even that night they locked themselves in the bathroom, and I had to call the locksmith at one in the morning. Now THAT was an interesting conversation.
After three months, they suddenly became model dogs. No more chewing. No more digging. No more accidents. They finally realized, I think, that they had a forever home. No more testing necessary.
So here are my dogs. I would love to hear about your pets. And I would also like to pose a question. Can you remember any standout animals in western movies or series? About the only ones I can remember is Hondo’s dog, the dog in Little House on the Prairie and the pig in Lonesome Dove.
A dad is a person
who is loving and kind.
And often he knows
what you have on your mind.
He’s someone who listens,
suggests and defends.
A dad can be one
of your very best friends.
He’s proud of your triumphs
but when things go wrong
a dad can be patient
and helpful and strong.
In all that you do
a dad’s love plays a part.
There’s always a place for him
deep in your heart.
And each year that passes,
you’re even more glad,
more grateful and proud
just to call him your dad.
Thank you, Dad,
for listening and caring,
for giving and sharing,
but especially for just being you.
(Anonymous)
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
