Did you have a good time with Miss Linda? Ah know I sure did.

And now for the drawing…ah put all the names in a big ol’ Stetson and my mule Jasper reached in and pulled out a winner with his teeth……..

LORETTA

Ah’m dancin’ a jig for you, Loretta! Woo-Hoo!

Now, all you have to do to claim your prize is send Miss Linda an email at linda@lindalaroque.com. She’ll get the e-copy of “My Heart Will Find Yours” right off to you quicker than you can say howdy.

Miss Linda says to tell you she had a great time and looks forward to coming back again.

Until next time……..

My time travel romance, My Heart Will Find Yours, is set in 1880s Waco, Texas. Located on the Brazos River, in its early history, Waco was known as Six-Shooter Junction. Trail drives herded their cattle across the Brazos in Waco and the cowboys usually spent time in the bawdy houses of the Reservation or Two Street as the red-light district was known. Drinking in the multitude of saloons and card games sometimes led to fights, often involving the use of firearms.

When the suspension bridge opened in 1870, and the railroad arrived in 1871, business in Waco thrived. Trail drives repeatedly lost cattle when herding their livestock across the Brazos. It wasn’t uncommon for a man to be caught in the undertow and drown. Cattle bosses were willing to pay the 50 cents per animal to get their cattle across safely.

In her book, A Spirit So Rare, Patricia Ward Wallace broaches the topic of how women forged a path in the early history of Waco. Her chapter on prostitutes is titled Women of Controversy. Since prostitution plays a minor role in my western time travel romance, I’d like to borrow her title and share some of what I learned.

The first noted record of prostitution in Waco is documented in an 1876 city directory. Matilda Davis of 76 N. Fourth St. is listed as a madam with 10 occupants in her house. The women listed their occupation as actress. Waco had no playhouse at the time. In 1879, the city issued the first license for a bawdy house for an annual fee of $200 and a good behavior bond of $500.

Waco officials legalized prostitution within the Reservation in 1889 making Waco the first town in Texas and the second in the United States to condone a controlled red-light district. Madams paid a yearly fee of $12.50 for each bedroom and $10.00 for each bawd. Prostitutes paid an additional $10.00 license fee and paid the city physician $2.00 twice a month for a medical exam. This guaranteed they didn’t ply their trade outside their designated territory and were disease free. The city prohibited drinking within the area. Fines for violators ranged between $50 and $100. With the large number of prostitutes it’s easy to see the city benefited from trade within the Reservation.

Prostitutes were prohibited from being seen on the streets outside the Reservation yet they were allowed to trade with local businesses. No more than two at a time could travel via a city hack to the stores. Usually tradesmen sent clerks to the curb with merchandise. Some store owners required the prostitutes to stop at the back door.

Life was hard for these working girls. Violence abounded in the bordellos as did drug and alcohol use and abuse. Though licensed, the police had little to do with the establishments. The madams disciplined the women in their houses and maintained order among their clientele. On occasion the police were called when robberies or assaults occurred.

Waco’s most famous madam was Mollie Adams. She had worked in another house but in 1890 opened her own three-room operation. By 1893 she had a seven-room establishment. In 1910 she’d obtained enough wealth to commission a house to be built by the same firm that built the First Baptist Church of Waco and the building now the Dr. Pepper Museum. Her home at 408 N. Second St., had indoor plumbing, electric fixtures, two parlors, a dance hall, and a bell system wired to every room. Her portrait, included here, hung over the fireplace. Though wealthy at this point in her life, she died in an indigent home in 1944. Lorna Lane, the madam in Madison Cooper’s epic novel, Sironia, is supposedly modeled after Mollie Adams.

In 1917, the US Government ordered cities with military bases to shut down red light districts to protect the health of America’s soldiers. Not wanting to lose Camp MacArthur and its 36,000 troops, the city shut down the Reservation in August of 1917. It is rumored some bawdy houses managed to continue business through the 1920s.

References: Wallace, P. W., A Spirit So Rare, pp. 148-156. http://wacohistoryproject.org/Places/reservation.htm

Photo: Courtesy of Texas Collection, Baylor University, Waco, Texas

Thank you the Petticoat and Pistols ladies for having me as your guest today. Readers, I love comments. Leave me one and “Felicia Filly” will draw a winner for an e-copy of My Heart Will Find Yours. Visit my website at www.lindalaroque.com to read the first chapters of my books. I give away an ebook every month on my blog at http://www.lindalaroqueauthor.blogspot/

Happy Reading and Writing!

Linda 

I know.   I’m not supposed to be here today. Margaret Brownley is. But we traded days this month, and I’m ever so happy that we did.

I can shamelessly promote my new book which hits the stands and the e-world at the end of the August. In ten days or so.

“The Lawman” has a special place in my heart. It will be my first western in nearly fifteen years. And it was westerns that started me writing.   I was a perfectly happy public relations practitioner when strangers started haunting my every thought.   I sat down and started writing.   It was a tale of the Civil War in Texas.   I’ve always been fascinated with the influence of the war on the west, the emotional wounds that so many men carried with them.   This story’s roots is also based on that conflict.

Westerns have always been my first love. But when the western genre started to fade (my personal opinion is that they were so popular, publishers started to flood the market and flooding the market has never been good) I turned to Scotland. There were similarities between the two. Strong women. Strong, rugged men, usually wronged in some way and fighting for justice.

I went from Scotland to World War II to early America and finally  to contemporary suspense, but all that time, western tales nagged at me, one character in particular.  She’s been waiting for this story for a decade.

Her name is Samantha, and she was raised in a mining town in Colorado during the height of the gold craze. Her father was killed for his claim, and her mother cooked and washed clothes to support Samantha and herself. She eventually ran a boarding house, but then she died of pneumonia and, at eleven, Samantha was orphaned.

She appeared to me when I visited an old ghost mining town in Colorado. Most of it had burned down, but there were still a few ramshackle buildings. I could picture the thousands of hopeful men who risked everything for a nugget of gold.   A dozen languages were spoken. Men came from every continent with great hopes and little else.  Each camp had two or three or even five newspapers, not to mention the always present soiled doves. Vigilante justice ruled.  I loved prowling though books about the mining towns and the people who lived there.

These towns grew and most then died as their hopeful populations went to the next find.   A few developed into towns that exist today but not many. 

But what was to happen to Samantha? She had no family left, not even distant ones. There was no respectable woman to take her. But three men — an outlaw, a gambler and a mule skinner – had all loved Samantha’s mother and swore to her that  they would care for her daughter.

And they did. The outlaw taught her to shoot and take care of herself, the gambler taught her to win, and the mule skinner taught her about animals and doctoring. But no one, other than books, taught her anything about love.

The gold ran out. A fire consumed most of the town. Everyone left. Or almost everyone. Samantha and her three “godfathers” stayed. It was a safe place for the outlaw. The gambler could travel easily to other mining towns, and the irascible mule skinner loved the mountains, and the isolation.

 Samantha was happy. She loved the mountains, the animals, the books the gambler brought. And yet an ache was beginning to grow, a yearning she didn’t really understand.

Until a marshal, intent on hanging one of godfathers, rode into town and Sam was all that stood between him and a badly wounded man who’d been like a father to her.  Worse, he wasn’t there entirely out of duty. Convinced the outlaw had killed someone very important to him, he’d been hunting the outlaw relentlessly for ten years.   He was, in fact, the reason they’d stayed in the abandoned town.

I don’t think there’s any conflict as powerful as that of conflicting loyalties. Deep down gut-wrenching loyalties. How does one choose between two children? Or between a lover and father? How do you choose which will live and which will die?

The book is a Harlequin Blaze, a little more sensual than I usually write but not as sexy as most Blazes. It’s also shorter, but it still has a rather large cast of characters I hope you come to love as I did.

And did I mention I was nervous?

That I, a normally well adjusted, easy-going Pollyanna, become a raving maniac when one of my books is published.

“The Lawman” is book number 65, or close to it, and I still become a trembling wreck whenever a new one comes out.  So please make allowances for unusual behavior during the next four weeks.

                                                          ___

And my winner for my last contest is Cindy Woolard.  Cindy, please email me at papotter@aol.com

Hello little darlin’s,

Miss Linda LaRoque will pay us a visit come Saturday and the Fillies would like for you all to help us make her welcome. If I’m not mistaken, this’ll be her first time to visit the Junction.

Miss Linda has in mind to talk about bawdy houses and the women of controversy in Waco, Texas. Ah’m sure the dear lady has a lot of information to share. Sounds interesting to me.

She’ll also tell us about her book called MY HEART WILL FIND YOURS. Looks like a winner! Bet you’ll want to hear all about it. Miss Linda is going to give away an e-copy to one lucky person who leaves a comment.

Don’t forget now you hear.

Get over to the Junction on Saturday and put your name in the hat to win. Help us roll out the red carpet and make Miss Linda’s visit one she’ll remember.

I went to a Civil War Museum in Battle Lake, Minnesota a couple of weeks ago.

A little museum with a hand lettered sign out front that said Civil War Museum. I went mainly to find fodder for a blog post.
It ranks as one of the most interesting places I’ve ever been.

I can only dream that I can convey just a bit of how much I enjoyed it.

I’m putting up about a tenth of the pictures I took.

I hope to do another blog post about the other things in this museum, the NON-Civil War related things.

The picture above is of the museum, located in an old hotel called Prospect House. I stole this picture off the Prospect House Facebook Page.

Go to Facebook and search for Prospect House & Civil War Museum to read more.

Less than half the house was open to the public. There is more to find.

Mr. Jay Johnson, who owns and runs the museum, commented that he knew some of it was just plain TRASH they hadn’t thrown out.

But one hundred year old TRASH is really fascinating.

Here is Jay Johnson. He made our tour so fascinating. He’s not a historian. He’s not sure what to do with all this stuff.

But he knows it’s very rare and cool and he’s trying to treat it with respect and share it with the world.

It’s his home. He moved there to care for his mother in her declining years and now this huge house is all his.

As he began going through the house, while his mom was still living, he realized NO ONE had EVER thrown anything away in this large hotel (well, large for the small town it is in).

In among so much cool stuff, he found a treasure trove of possessions belonging to his grandfather, James ‘Cap’ Colehour, a captain in the Civil War.

That’s his picture above holding his Spencer Rifle, given to him during the war. Below are two sleeves from a Union uniform. Cap Colehour was wounded on two separate occasions. Both times he survived, healed and went back to the fighting.

Cap saved both sleeves and brought them home with him.

And Mr. Johnson found them in the house. They’re in a glass case in the museum along with pictures and letters.

This is a close-up of the picture of one of the two sleeves. The white mark is a bullet hole. There is one in the other sleeve, too.

This is the letter, written by the doctor who treated Cap BOTH TIMES. Different battles, same doctor.

If you look really closely at the picture above, there is a hand written note on the letter from the doctor  from Cap saying,

Blood from wound acc’d (acquired?) at Muscle Shoals, March 25, 1864.

There was so much more. I could write about this forever. There were newspaper clippings everywhere. I could still be there reading.

A huge part of the charm of this was Jay Johnson talking about his family history. He was so clearly interested in it and overwhelmed by it. The museum is a work in progress. I told him he needed to get an intern from a college. He needed a traveling exhibit. He needed a website with a DONATE buttom on it.

He’d just nod and say, “Yep, those are all great ideas. I need to do that.” The man is busy just going through things.

The closed off hotel is stuffed with things he’s only begun to discover. Jay said he found a stash of letters from his great grandfather home, plus other family who were in the war.

Can you imagine the wealth of information those letters contain?
Just one large room was full of the Civil War things he’d found. Only a part of the house is open and the other rooms are full of old furniture and other yet-to-be-discovered things.

This link will take you to the Prospect House facebook page with a nice detailed story of Cap Colehour.
http://ja-jp.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=134487949918190

If you’d like to talk to Jay Johnson or help support Prospect House and Civil War Museum, contact Jay at: Prospect House, 403 Lake Ave. N., Battle Lake, MN 56515

We were fishing on a lake near the museum, which is how I ended up there.

I can’t think about my time in that museum with out grinning. Fun, cool, different, fascinating.

Mary Connealy

Thanks to everybody who took my wagon train adventure again with me. I sure appreciated your comments and interest and I sure hope y’all get a chance to go along with Jeff and his crew some summer.

I drew Patricia Barraclough’s name out of the Stetson, so Patraicia, e-mail me at tanhanson@aol.com and I’ll get a pdf. copy of my novella, Hearts Crossing Ranch, from White Rose Publishing, off to you.

Thanks again, fillies and friends!

Two weeks ago I and my hubby T.L., brother-in-law Timmy and sis Roberta (l-r in the pic above) had the experience of a lifetime, taking a wagon train around the Tetons with an amazing group, Teton Wagon Train and Horse Adventures headed by wagonmaster Jeff Warburton out of Jackson, Wyoming. He’s a true cowboy and a gentleman and will be a guest here in Wildflower Junction in the near future.

We’re still in 7^th Heaven about our adventure. To celebrate, I’ll send a pdf. copy of my fictional wagon train adventure Hearts Crossing Ranch to one commenter today after a name-draw. So come on down, ya hear?

Yep. We spent four days circling the Tetons through the Caribou-Targhee National Forest bordering Yellowstone bear country. We didn’t see any bear despite everybody’s secret longing.   Likely the thundering horses and our noisy group skeered ‘em away.

 We got our start in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with a bus-load full of cityslickers from Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, Illinois, us Californians..as well as Bermuda, Japan, and Brighton, England!  There were about forty of us ranging in age from five to—eighty one! 

First stop on the bus taking us to the wagons were photo-ops of the Grand lady herself..followed by her neighbor Mount Moran reflected perfectly in a oxbow lake.

These scenes were practically perfection in itself..but all breath stopped when we reached The Wagons.

 After a delicious lunch—there’s nothing quite like chuck wagon cooking in the open mountain air—Jeff called, “let the wagons roll” and we were off to our camp for the night.

Pulling them were magnificent draft horses, Percherons and Belgians. They are named in teams, such as Lady and Tramp, Gun and Smoke, Sandy and Sage, Jack and Jill. The first name is always the horse on the left. These glorious beasts are capable of pulling up to 4,000 pounds as a team, and they love to work. In winter, they lead sleighs to the elk refuge outside Jackson.                                                              

While the wagons do have rubber tires and padded benches, the gravel roads are nothing like a modern freeway. As driver  Marisa told us the first day, I get paid extra to hit as many rocks and potholes as I can. Most times our route was called the “cowboy rollercoaster.” 

I’ll always hear Kathy (below on the right) saying, as she drove the wagons,  “Lady, Tramp, step up.” Jeff’s daughter Jessica is on the left. Jessica leads trail rides.

Jeff’s family owns and runs the business and the ranch, and his son Michael, with me below, is an important member of the crew.

Most of the other wranglers are college students who work the ten adventures run each summer.  Foreman Nathan and Camille got married last spring in a Western-themed wedding…Chuck cooks Celeste and Carrie kept us fed. Each adventure starts on a Monday and ends on Thursday, each new trip reversing the course. The crew members take turns two-by-two remaining with the horses for the weekend until the next adventure starts.

This week, sadly, is the last week for 2010. These young people are amazing, multi-talented, multi-taskers who knew each and everybody’s name within ten minutes.  The crew members typically work two or three summers before leaving for internships, graduation, or marriage.  Jeff himself was a a crew wrangler himself as a youngster, met wife Cindy here, and was able to purchase the ranch and the wagon train adventure business a few years later.                                                               

I think everybody’s favorite “crew member” was Buddy, probably the cutest dog ever. He accompanied every trail ride after following the draft horses from camp to camp…he romped in every stream and lake, caught mice, and totally stole everybody’s heart. BTW, he’s probably the first dog ever not to snarf down bacon. He loves the wagon adventures sooooo much that, Jeff says, Buddy’s pretty disgusted to become a backyard dog after the summertime.

Our tents were comfy—all sleeping essentials are provided–, and there was nothing so fine as a cup of Arbuckle’s to warm us up on a chilly evening.  After supper—cowboy potatoes, Indian frybread, and raspberry butter are among our favorites—we gathered around the campfire for Jeff’s tall tales, historical accounts of the Old West, guitar strumming, cowboy poetry and songs, S’mores,  and terrific skits the natures of which I can’t reveal. I don’t wanna spoil the surprise for those of you who might find yourself traveling along with Jeff and the crew in future.  Suffice it to say legends, history, drama, mountain men, melodrama and gunfire played enormous parts in the entertainment. Delish Dutch oven desserts such as peach cobbler and cherry chocolate cake were dished up each night and served to the ladies first.

One of the nicest parts of the meals was Jeff leading us in a blessing first. Nobody had to join in…but seems like everybody did.

Paper is burned in the campfire and only one Styrofoam cup is allotted per day, as everything brought in  the wilderness must be taken out.  We wrote our names on the cups and hung them between meals on a cup line.

                                                                                            I totally loved this paper napkin holder.

Everywhere surrounding us, the Wyoming landscape was full of lakes, greenery and blooming wildflowers.  Nights after the camp quieted down were almost beyond description: the stars are endless, multi-layered, sparkling on forever and ever amen. What a sight.                                                   

But the most fun of all was riding horses!  Folks either rode, hiked, or wagonned it to the next camp each day.   My favorite mount was Copper.

In camp, I threw hatchets, never once hitting my target, and roped Corndog., the pretend cow.  Now, even though the proof is on a video camera, I can’t show you today as we haven’t mastered lifting a “still” off of the video. Jeff taught me all about the “honda” and the “spoke” of a lariat, and I nailed Corndog on my third try. Honest.                              

(My kids were not as impressed when they realized I was afoot and not riding a bucking bronco while roping Corndog, but myself, I am mighty awed.)

Our last day, the Pony Express rode through camp and brought us all mail. 

Me and mine, well, we had the time of our life.  

As Jeff said when we left, “There’s always be a campfire burnin’ for ya here in Wyomin.”

Yep. I’m feeling the warmth right now.

Sigh.

I thought it’d be fun to look back at some of the occupations of the 1800′s and even earlier. Some sound very weird to us but I’m sure back then they weren’t any different from computer technician, an astronaut, a day trader, or a stock broker.

And while everything had a name, settlers on the frontier tended to call things normal terms everyone could understand. Like simply a stage coach driver instead of a whip. People started moving away from the stiff technical terms, opting for less flowery language. Most folks back in the early days didn’t have time to waste on words that bent the tongue. They were too busy trying to survive.

Some jobs carried simple names that you know right off what the person did. Like:

Tanner - one who tans and cures animal hides (still around today but not real common)
Spurrer – one who made spurs
Saddler - one who made, repaired, or sold saddles and other furnishings for horses
Sawyer – one who sawed trees or wood by hand at a lumber mill or lumbering operation
Teamster – one who drove a horse, mule or ox-drawn freight wagon; a modern day truck driver  

Matchgirl – a girl who sold matches

A lot of these others you probably already know but maybe you’ll find a few surprises.

Lormer – a maker of horsegear
Boardwright – carpenter; one who made tables and chairs and the like
Bone Picker – someone who traveled around collecting rags and bones
Pettifogger – shyster lawyer
Peripatetic Artist – one who went from town to town painting portraits or panoramas on walls of homes and taverns
Cordwainer – one who made shoes – different from a cobbler who just repairs them
Farrier - a blacksmith who specializes in shoeing horses – called same today as back then
Cooper – someone who made or repaired wooden barrels, tubs or the like
Chandler – a candlemaker – had a steady business before gas and electric lights
Lamplighter – someone appointed to light streetlamps at dusk and extinguish them at dawn
Runner - someone who solicited business for a hotel, boardinghouse, steamship and the like

Whitesmith – tinsmith or worker of iron who finished or polished an item
Tinker – someone who made tinware
Wheelwright – one who made or repaired wheels for wagons, carriages or coaches
Snow Warden – someone appointed in one of the northern states to keep snow flattened and evenly distributed over roads for sleds and sleighs
Drummer – traveling salesman

In the old West, some of these jobs tended to overlap at times. For instance, a blacksmith often made spurs and/or tinware and the like in addition to forging horseshoes, plows, farm implements, tools, etc. He might also shoe horses and be the owner of the livery or stables.

All of this makes me wonder which of today’s occupations will vanish in the next 50 or 100 years. And what new occupations will take their place? It’ll be interesting to see. They’ll most likely have increased space travel; maybe take passengers back and forth to the moon, mars, or another of the planets. Wonder what those passengers will be called? Simply space travelers or something trendier?

What is the strangest profession (modern or otherwise) that you’ve heard?

www.LindaBroday.com

Give Me A Texas Ranger click on link to order from Amazon

The most famous gunfight in the history of the West took place on October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.  Anyone who’s seen the movies/TV series, or read any of the uncounted books knows that the winners were legendary gunman Wyatt Earp, his brothers Morgan and Virgil, and their friend, a shady, alcoholic dentist known as Doc Holliday.  But who were the losers?  Did they deserve to die as they did?  Let’s take a closer look.

Ike and Billy Clanton were two of three brothers from a small ranching family.  Ike, the elder, wasn’t the brightest light in the candelabra.  Known as a loudmouth who liked to drink and gamble, he was also a hard worker.  Younger brother Billy was still in his teens.

Tom and Frank McLaury, also small ranchers, were known to be honest and respectable.  They’d made good money selling cattle to the army, but were planning to move away because of the growing Apache problems.  Their only fault, it appears, was being good friends with the Clantons.

A complicated trail of events led up to the gunfight. It started when some stolen government mules were found on the McLaury ranch. Tom and Frank were away at the time and it was later proven that a friend had left them there.  Tom and Frank were never charged but the Earps publicly branded them as thieves.  Other incidents and accusations followed, fueling the bad blood. 

On the night of October 25, Tom McLaury and Ike Clanton rode into Tombstone.  Ike planned to buy supplies for his ranch and find a card game.  Tom was there to settle his accounts prior to moving away.  In the saloon, Ike ran into Doc Holliday, drunk and spoiling for a fight.  Doc began baiting Ike and challenged him to a gunfight.  He was soon joined by Wyatt Earp (photo) and his two brothers.  The slow-witted Ike fought back with the only weapon he had, his mouth.  He shouted that he and his friends would come looking for the Earps and Holliday, and they would have to fight.

Fade to the next day.  After more blustering and baiting, Frank McLaury and young Billy Clanton rode into town, unaware of what had happened.  When Frank was told, he tried to calm things down and get Ike and his brother out of town, but it was too late.  Like a giant clock, fate moved the players toward the final confrontation.  Here’s how the two sides stacked up.

Carrying guns was patently illegal in town.  But Morgan and Virgil Earp were both peace officers.  They’d deputized Wyatt and Doc Holliday, so all were legally armed.  All of them had pistols, and Doc also carried a deadly sawed-off shotgun.

Billy Clanton had a pistol and had been told he could keep it because he and Ike were leaving town.  Frank McLaury also had a pistol, which he was about to turn over to Sheriff John Behan.  Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury were unarmed.

The Earps and Doc walked onto the scene with their guns drawn.  Ike put up his hands and Tom opened his vest, both declaring they weren’t armed.  But the Earps and Doc opened fire.  Frank and Billy fired back in self defense.

When the shooting ended thirty seconds later, Frank McLaury was dead.  Tom and Billy were mortally wounded.  Virgil Earp had been shot in the leg; Morgan had a bad shoulder wound, and Doc was winged.  Ironically, the only member of the “Clanton Gang” to escape unscathed was Ike, who knocked Wyatt Earp off balance and fled.

There’s a lot more to this story.  I’ve cut some wide corners for the sake of brevity.  If you have any corrections or anything to add, I’d welcome your comments.  Did Wyatt Earp deserve all his “fame and glory?”  What do you think?

Wasn’t Miss Renee something? Ah sure had a good time talking about heroes.

Ah put all the names in big ol’ pot and stirred them around…….

Anon1001

Anita Mae Draper

Stephanie Buckner

Ah’m doing the happy dance for you! Yeehaw and pass the dumplings! Each of you won a copy of DANGEROUS ALLIES plus HOMECOMING HERO. A real bonanza.

Drop Miss Renee a note with your mailing particulars and tell her how you want the books autographed. You can reach her at renee@reneeryan.com. She’ll be getting the books right out to you.

Miss Renee thanks everyone who followed the trail to the Junction this weekend and kept her company.

Until next time….the Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.