I’m constantly amazed at the larger-than-life men and women who settled in Texas and helped the state become a strong symbol of extraordinary strength and courage.

It’s fair to say that Margaret Heffernan didn’t have an easy life. But she didn’t stand around wringing her hands either. She took the bull by the horns and made things happen when adversity came calling.

Margaret was five years old when she arrived on the first ship bringing Irish colonists to Texas in 1829. Her family settled on the wild prairies around San Patricio. Her father died in an Indian attack a few years after they put down roots. Then came the Texas Revolution. Margaret’s mother gathered up her children and fled the advancing armies in search of safety. It’s believed they sought refuge in the fort at Goliad. When the Mexican army won the battle of Goliad, it’s rumored they escaped the massacre by speaking Spanish so fluently that the officers believed them to be native Mexicans.

After the Texas war for independence, the Heffernan family returned to San Patricio where nineteen year old Margaret met Harrison Dunbar and they were married. Shortly after the birth of a daughter, Harrison Dunbar was killed in a pistol duel on the streets of Victoria.

Margaret found herself a widow and single parent at the age of twenty.

A year later, she married again, this time to Milton Hardy and they settled down to ranch on the 2,912 acres of land they owned. Margaret gave birth to a son and three daughters, one of whom died in infancy. Again tragedy struck her marital life and her second husband succumbed of the dreaded cholera. She also lost her young son in the same epidemic.

Margaret’s younger brother came to help her run the ranch until she married for a third time four years later to Alexander Borland. Alexander was one of the richest ranchers in South Texas. She bore this husband four children-three sons and a daughter-to enlarge her brood to seven.

In 1860, Alexander and Margaret Borland owned 8,000 head of cattle. It’s at this time they began to hear about trail drives from Texas to Missouri and beyond. They dreamed of taking a herd to northern markets. But Alexander died in a yellow fever epidemic before they could realize their dream.

Despite Margaret’s best efforts, she was unable to halt the terrible toll yellow fever took on her family. Before it was over, in addition to her third husband, she lost three daughters, a son, and an infant grandson. Only three of her seven children remained alive.

After the devastating loss, she threw herself into the running of the ranch and managing the huge herd of livestock.

But, a great blizzard swept down upon the plains during the winter of 1871-1872 and tens of thousands of Texas cattle froze to death.

When early spring rolled around, Margaret weighed her options and decided to drive 1,000 head of cattle that survived up the Chisholm Trail. The Kansas market was paying $23.80 per head compared to $8.00 in San Antonio.

With no one at home to care for her three remaining children and her six year old granddaughter, she decided they’d go with her. Margaret was 49 years old. It took them two months to reach Wichita, Kansas. Margaret and the children took a room at a boardinghouse. Word quickly spread through town of the amazing feat she’d accomplished. The newspaper wrote articles about her saying she had “pluck and business tact far superior to many male trail drivers.” One article remarked that she had “become endeared to many in town on account of her lady-like character.”

Before Margaret was able to sell her cattle, she took ill. On July 5, 1873, Margaret Borland died.

Speculation had it that she died from “brain congestion” and “trail driving fever.” Doesn’t that sound like it came from a man? And one who was probably jealous of what she did.

The woman who’d once managed over 10,000 head of cattle, and did it quite expertly, became a legend up and down the Chisholm Trail. She overcame despite adversity to be revered for her many accomplishments.

Have you read any western romances that feature a woman rancher and trail driver? Pam Crooks’s UNTAMED COWBOY comes to mind.

When we think about prostitution in the West, several images come to mind. The good-hearted saloon girl like Miss Kitty is one archetype, although in Gun Smoke there was never any suggestion she might head upstairs for anything except a nap. Then there are the prostitutes in the Gem saloon of Deadwood. These girls are obviously the drudges of the business, they have little self-esteem and their pimp treats them badly. There were also the famous “houses of ill-repute” which could be small cottage businesses or operated in large mansions. From saloons to bordellos, cat houses to cribs, there were always women in the mining camps, towns and cities willing to sell their bodies to survive.

Madams owned lucrative businesses and were even known to support local charitable causes. Of course, this life was harsh and the women recruited into it had no other choices. There were few opportunities for employment in the Victorian era, and single women often found themselves forced into prostitution to survive.

There is also the ugly underbelly of prostitution, the addiction to drugs such as laudanum and alcohol. Many of the women had been abused as children or by their husbands. The oldest profession wasn’t exactly taken up as an option, generally when there was just no other choice women became prostitutes to survive.

In many frontier towns, there was a gulf between respectable and disreputable women.  Victorian society generally accepted the belief that women were physically and intellectually inferior to men, but morally superior.  Good women were also considered sexually indifferent, and prostitutes were assumed to be overly sexed. They were accused of tempting men – who could not control their sexual urges.

The good girl/bad girl divide in society meant that prostitutes were excluded from respectable boarding houses and hotels. They were also often forbidden to attend the theater, dances and social events if “decent women” would be in attendance. Many towns segregated prostitutes into specific areas, often referred to as “bawdy” or “red light” districts.

There were women who became wealthy and later invested in other businesses and even some who married. But, the life of a prostitute in the West was neither glamorous nor easy.

I’ve seen Regency set historical romances that feature “courtesans”, but I don’t believe I’ve ever read a Western that features a prostitute in the role of the heroine. I know there must be some out there, so I’m hoping this blog post will generate some titles. Can you suggest a book?

A lifelong love of American history led Deborah Schneider from teaching high school to writing novels. She won the Molly award for “Most Unsinkable Heroine” from the Heart of Denver chapter of RWA. Her first book, “Beneath A Silver Moon” was a finalist in the New Historical Voice Contest and was published in 2001. Her newest book, “Promise Me” is now available. Deborah is employed by one of the busiest library systems in the US and she’s the RWA Librarian of the Year. She lives in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.  Visit Deborah’s website at: www.debschneider.com

Not only did the movie Marathon Man instill in me great appreciation for a decent dentist, but also my uncle Albert, my godfather. He started me well on my way to proper oral hygiene when I was five. He had a gentle touch, but I was always in a cold sweat whenever we went to his house for Thanksgiving.  I was certain he had a secret dental chair and appropriate torture devices hidden in the pool house. 

Well, that said, we all know everybody’s favorite huckleberry Doc Holliday was a dentist, but it was a baby girl, born Lucy Beaman Hobbs on March 14, 1833, in Constable, New York, who changed dental history.

 At a time when a woman’s chief role was that of wife/mother/homemaker, Lucy’s only other choices were schoolmarm or nurse, proper but “spinsterish” occupations. But even as a little girl, Lucy Beaman Hobbs longed for the unexpected.

 However, she caved a little bit, spending ten years in a Michigan classroom. But she always held tight to her dream of pursuing medical science. 

Solely on the basis of her gender, the Eclectic College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio rejected her in 1859. Nevertheless, one of the school’s professors gave her private lessons, and at his suggestion, she turned her interest to dentistry. 

Again due to her gender, she could only pursue her dental studies as a private pupil. Fortunately, the dean of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery also took her under his wing. Later, she apprenticed herself to a graduate of the school. Again denied admission to the dental college –because of her gender — she started her own practice in Cincinnati in the spring of 1861 when she was 28. 

She later moved her practice to Bellevue, Iowa (1862) and thence to McGregor, Iowa (1862-1865). In time, she came to be known by what sounds a bit like a Native American soubriquet: “the woman who pulls teeth.” 

Interestingly, the Iowa State Dental Society accepted Lucy as a member in July 1865. Affirming that she had proven herself a worthy equal to male colleagues, the Society sent her as a delegate to the American Dental Association convention in Chicago that year. In November 1865,  four years into her own dental practice, she was at last admitted to the senior class of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. 

Due to her expertise and to support from a small but devoted group of admirers, she earned her degree only a few months later, on February 21, 1866. Thus Lucy Hobbs thus became the first woman in the U.S. –and likely the world– to earn a doctorate in dentistry. 

While practicing in Chicago, she met Civil War veteran James M. Taylor, and married the railway maintenance worker in April 1867. Under his wife’s guidance, James too became a dentist. 

Late in 1867, the Doctors Taylor moved to the western town of Lawrence, Kansas, where they soon built a successful practice, focusing on women and children. Most patients referred to the highly-regarded dentist as “Dr Lucy.” She and James did not have children of their own, and after his death in 1886, she retired from most of her professional duties. However, she remained active in civic and political causes, most importantly the woman’s suffrage movement. 

Peers and citizens alike hailed her as a pioneer in opening the doors for more women in dentistry. By 1900, almost one thousand women were taking part in the profession. 

During her career in Kansas, Dr. Taylor wrote, “I am a New Yorker by birth, but I love my adopted country — the West. To it belongs the credit of making it possible for women to be recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men.” 

This courageous, determined woman died in Lawrence on October 3, 1910 at the age of 77. In her obituary, she was recognized as “one of the most striking figures of Lawrence [who] occupied a position of honor and ability, and for years she occupied a place high in the ranks of her profession.”

 Since I am by nature a weenie, I can hardly describe my admiration for the strong pioneering women who came before,   whose struggles and challenges have made a better world for me, for my daughter—and my son, too. During their childhood, my kids had a female dentist, a female pediatrician, and our pets were cared for by a female veterinarian. Pretty cool, no? 

I don’t dare ask for comments today about your dental experiences, but I’d sure love to hear about the strong women   you admire, and why.

There were so many “firsts” in our country in the 1800’s. Some came about quietly and some to great fanfare. The one I’m going to talk about today didn’t get a lot of attention except in the Wyoming Territory twenty years before they achieved statehood.

Eliza Stewart was born in 1833 in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. She was the eldest of eight children. Her father was Scots Irish and when her mother died in childbirth, Eliza took on the role of raising her seven siblings. Dispite all of her responsibilities, Eliza continued to attend school. She was an excellent student. She graduated from the Washington Female Seminary as valedictorian. Upon graduation she began teaching school. Eight years later, she decided to go West. She arrived in Laramie, Wyoming just as the town was about to open its first public school. Seeing as how Eliza held such glowing credentials, they quickly hired the unmarried woman as their first teacher. The first classes began in February 1869.

(That same year Wyoming granted women the right to vote and hold office.)

But, Eliza didn’t stay single very much longer. She met Stephen Boyd and fell in love. In March 1870, a few months before they were married, Eliza, at the age of 36, received a summons to serve on the grand jury.

I couldn’t find any information about the kinds of cases they heard, but it is known that they were highly praised for their work. And more importantly, it opened the door for other women to do things that before were limited to men.

I’m sure Eliza was thrilled to have blazed the trail. That was quite an honor.

Here’s a sculpted bust of Eliza that’s on display in Laramie.

She didn’t stop there though. Two months after her marriage, Eliza helped organize the Wyoming Literary and Library Association. She was instrumental in establishing the first library in Laramie.

And in August 1873, she became the first woman to be nominated to run for the Territorial legislature. However, she withdrew her name from the ballot. I’m not sure that anyone knows the reason why. Eliza did remain interested in politics though and got involved in the Women’s Temperance movement a few years later. In fact, she served several terms as the organization’s secretary and traveled to the party’s national convention in Indiana in 1888.

Meanwhile, she and her husband opened a “notions” shop in downtown Laramie. They sold boots, shoes, sewing machines, and a variety of household goods.

Also, Eliza and Stephen had three children, one of whom died in infancy.

Eliza slipped on a patch of ice during the winter of 1912 and broke her hip. The pioneer who had lived such a vital interesting life died a week later at the age of 79.

Because of her and women like her, the frontier West became a more civilized, much better place. She reminds me of the strong heroines we like to portray in our books. And here, readers think we craft these characters from somewhere in our brains!

Does your family history have people who seem larger than life? Can you imagine them leaving their mark on the Old West?

I can’t decide if the topic of this blog is interesting or just plain gross. My nose wrinkles when I think about it. I get itchy. My neck prickles. I don’t get this old Victorian practice at all, and it strikes me as too weird to explain.

This fascination started during a chat with my mother-in-law. We were looking at some of her treasures, things that have been in her family for a long time. One of those items was something I couldn’t identity. 

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it’s called,” she answered. “But women used it to save hair they pulled from their brushes.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Why would they save it?”  (Anything that comes out of my hairbrush goes in the trash or down the toilet.)  

Neither of us knew, so I did some googling and discovered Victorian hair receivers, “ratts” and the lost art of hair jewelry. 

In Victorian times, just about every woman had a hair receiver on her dressing table. She also had a lot of hair. After brushing it, she’d cull the broken strands from the brush and put them in the container.  Hair receivers were typically made of porcelain, glass, wood or celluloid. They sat in plain sight and were generally quite pretty.  They’re most easily identified by the finger-sized hold in their lids, designed to allow a woman to push through the hair.

Hair receivers kept a dressing table clean and free from loose strands, but what do you do with the hair? Commonly, the collected hair was used to make pin cushions. The wad could be quite dense, and the oil on the hair had a lubricating effect on the pins. The hair could also be used to make small pillows.  The soft texture gave it an advantage over pin feathers, which could be prickly.

The collected hair had another common use. A woman’s hair was considered “her crowning glory.” As a result, Victorian women had elaborate hairstyles. To get the fullness and volume, they used “ratts” (sometimes spelled rats).  A ratt was made by stuffing a hairnet with hair, sewing it shut and inserting it into the elaborate coif.  A ratt, roughly the size of a potato, gave a Victorian woman her trademark “Big Hair.”

A lot of us probably have a lock of hair in a scrap book. I’ve got a snip from my oldest son’s first haircut. In Victorian times, this sentimental practice went far beyond a snip or two in a locket.  “Hair art” might have been the “scrapbooking” of its day.  It was considered a suitable occupation for young ladies and gave rise to a variety of interesting creations.

Mourning brooches were common. With high infant mortality rates and the devastation of the Civil War, death was very much present. Jewelry made from the hair of a lost loved one was seen as a fitting memorial. Friends and family members often exchanged sentimental tokens. The hair used in hair art didn’t typically come from hair receivers. It was carefully selected for color and texture and had to be straight to get the desired effect. Hair jewelry is deserves a blog of its own. 

So what do you think? Are hair receivers gross or useful?  I’m still on the fence, but I’m in awe of women who made such good use of something I’d have thrown away.

Horace “Haw” Tabor may not have been long on talent or ambition, but he made up for it with sheer dumb luck.  1878 found the 48-year-old Tabor running a store in Leadville, Colorado, while his loyal wife Augusta kept a boarding house.  Storekeepers at the time had the option of providing a “grubstake” for miners on their way to the wilds for a shot at fortune.  In return, the storekeeper was entitled to one-third of any riches the miners discovered.

That spring, Tabor grubstaked a pair of sorry-looking miners named August Rische and George Hook.  They didn’t seem to know much about prospecting, but the two of them wandered into the hills and, by pure chance, dug into a vein of pure silver.  Their Little Pittsburgh Mine yielded $20,000 a week.  Haw Tabor’s $60 investment earned him $2 million in the first year alone without getting his hands dirty.  In short order he became mayor of boomtown Leadville and lieutenant governor of Colorado.  Augusta, unable to adjust to her husband’s meteoric rise, became more and more reclusive.

Enter Baby Doe.  Born Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt, and newly divorced from her slacker husband, Harvey Doe, she was blue-eyed, blond, spunky and irresistible.  In 1879 she met the newly Rich Haw Tabor.  Despite their 26-year age difference the two fell in love.  Over the next few years, as Tabor’s relationship with Augusta became more distant, his liaison with Baby Doe became increasingly public.  In 1881, Tabor quietly obtained a backwoods divorce from his wife (without bothering to inform her).  At some point he and Baby Doe were quietly married.

Eventually word of the secret divorce reached Augusta Tabor.  She hauled her ex husband into court and received a million dollar settlement.

 In 1883 Tabor was appointed to fill a 30-day vacancy as U.S. Senator from Colorado.  He and Baby Doe took advantage of the chance to stage a lavish Washington wedding, attended by no less a person than President Chester A. Arthur.  Soon, however, the gossip caught up with them.  The priest who’d performed the ceremony declared the marriage illegal because both parties had been divorced.  But since they’d already married each other earlier, it didn’t make any difference.  The wedding had been pure theatre.

That was the end of Tabor’s political career.  Although he and Baby Doe lived well for a time, and he attempted to run for governor and senator, public opinion had turned against him.

            In 1893 the final blow came when the federal government announced that it was going to stop buying silver for its currency and convert to the gold standard.  The crash ruined Tabor.  Everything he had was sold, but nothing he could do was enough to support Baby Doe and their two daughters.  In 1899 he died of appendicitis in the single room he shared with his family.  Shortly before his death, he reportedly told his wife to “hang onto the Matchless Mine.”

 Baby Doe spent the remaining thirty-five years of her life in a cabin outside the Matchless Mine in Leadville.  Still beautiful, she could have easily remarried.  She chose instead to “hold onto the Matchless.”

 In Early March, 1935, her frozen body was discovered on the floor of her cabin.  Deserted by her two daughters, she had passed into legend.  Her life has been the subject of two books, a Hollywood movie, two operas, a screen play, a one-woman show and countless other books and articles.

 The only connection this story has to my March 2010 book, THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE, is that they both take place in Colorado.  But I wanted to give you the first look at my cover.  More about the story next month!  Or if you’d like a sneak preview, you can check it out on my web site: 

http://www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

We hear a lot about the Cattle Barons, the men who made their fortune raising the beef that people back East and west in California loved. Behind many of the men were strong women who helped forge the economy right along with them. I’ll introduce you to a few:

Aubony Stuart – Along with her husband Granville, they had an unlikely, but nearly-perfect marriage during the time when Indian-white hostility was at its peak. A full-blooded Shoshone, Aubony settled easily into her mixed marriage. She and Granville had nine children and later they adopted and raised two children of his dead brother James.

Eula Kendrick – She lived and dressed stylishly even on the frontier. A friend once commented that “her trim, erect figure sets off to perfection frocks which are always the last word in smartness and elegance.” But she wasn’t just a pretty face and fashion plate. She kept her husband’s books before she shared his retirement at the Sheridan, Wyoming, home they called Trail’s End.

Elizabeth Iliff – Sold Singer sewing machines when her husband John met her trudging along a country road. She was the perfect wife for a cattleman, handling every crisis as it arose. When he died at 48, her first thought was to telegraph his ranch foreman to double the guard on the herds before rustlers could move in.
Nellie Wibaux – had a flair that matched the one of her husband Pierre. Even though their first home was a log cabin with a sod roof, for Thanksgiving they prepared turkey, plum pudding, and mince pie. She hovered over the stove in an evening gown. He drank champagne with a flour sack over his stiff shirt and swallow-tailed coat.

Agusta Kohrs – ran the domestic half of her husband Conrad’s domain in decisive Teutonic style. She started by firing the cook and taking over his duties. Later, with the staff trained to her satisfaction, she made tours to Europe and annual visits to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which she attended the last time in 1942 (the year I was born) at the age of 93.

Mary Ann Goodnight – We know about the Goodnight cattle trail, but we don’t often hear about his wife. She was as tough and patient as her husband. She waited until age 31 to marry, when Charlie had established his Colorado spread. Later she helped him get through his financial crash. Eventually, she presided over their Palo Dura spread, where she was the only white woman for hundreds of miles around.

I’ve taken this information from the Time-Life The Old West series, The Cowboys. Photographs of these women show many of them to be quite lovely.

The old West was hard on many women, but it also proved to be an avenue to wealth and a better way of life, even though it took a lot of work.

Lena Nelson Dooley

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Releasing in September:

Wild West Christmas (with Kathleen Y’Barbo, Vickie McDonough, and Darlene Franklin)

Christmas Love at Lake Tahoe (with Jeanie Smith Cash, Jean Kincaid, and Jeri Odell)

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History is full to the brim with strong courageous women who helped settle this country and none is more colorful or more endearing than Jane Long.

Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long was born in July 1798 in Maryland. She was the tenth child of Capt. William and Anne Wilkinson. Her father died the following year and her mother thirteen years later, leaving Jane an orphan at 14. An older sister who lived near Natchez, Mississippi took her in.

It was in Natchez that Jane met the love of her life, Dr. James Long. He was a physician who had served as a surgeon under Gen. Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. After a whirlwind courtship, they married. Jane was a mere 16 years old. A year later they welcomed a daughter.

James Long purchased a plantation near Vicksburg but he became restless. Talk swirled that Texas was eager to declare its independence from Spain. James was chosen to lead an expedition to Nacogdoches, Texas. Jane was expecting another child so was left behind. Twelve days after giving birth, she set out to join her husband with her two daughters and a young black maid.

Jane was the first of many white women to brave the Texas frontier. But two months after arriving in Nacogdoches, she was forced to flee when Spanish troops from San Antonio marched for the frontier outpost. She, her children and her maid returned to Natchez until it was safe again to rejoin her husband. While there, her baby daughter died and was buried in Mississippi.

When she again returned to Texas, it was to Fort Las Casas on Bolivar Point, a peninsula opposite Galveston Island. It’s said she and James dined with the pirate, Jean Laffite. In later years she talked much about it.

James Long left on an excursion that was to have only taken a month. Pregnant again, Jane stubbornly waited for her husband even when all the other people in the fort left. She resisted all pleas for her to leave with the last of the fort’s occupants saying that her husband left her there and there she’d stay until he returned. She had no way of knowing that the Spanish had captured James and taken him to Mexico where he was killed.

So all alone in an ice-covered tent with only her five year old daughter and young maid, Jane gave birth to her third daughter. This child was the first Anglo-American known to have been born on Texas soil. Folks from all over the country referred to Jane as the Mother of Texas and the title stuck.

That winter was extremely bitter. The food supply dwindled. Jane and her small band survived by chopping fish and ducks out of Galveston Bay. To keep away the cannibalistic Karankawa Indian’s in the area, she fired an old cannon daily and flew her red petticoat on the flagpole to make it appear that troops still occupied the fort. The ruse worked, for they left her alone.

It was mid-summer before Jane learned of her husband’s fate. The long wait was over. Jane was a widow at 24 years old. She finally abandoned the fort when a friend of James’s came to deliver the news. Desperate for more information and seek justice for his death, she rode a horse alone to San Antonio to speak with Governor Jose Felix Trespalacios. But after ten months with no satisfaction, she gave up the quest. Eight months later, the baby who had earned Jane the title of Mother of Texas died.

Jane received a league and a labor of land as one of Stephen F. Austin’s colonists and settled down to farming. Finding it difficult to make a living on the farm, she opened up a boarding house near the town of Brazoria in 1832 and ran it for several years.

In 1837 the widow who was 39 years old secured a tract of land two miles from Richmond, Texas. With one black man to work the farm until it began to pay, she operated a hotel in town. Jane bought and sold land, raised cattle, and grew tobacco and cotton. Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Jane had one of the most valuable plantations in Texas. She was intensely loyal to the Southern cause and refused to wear any clothing not made in the South. Her own dresses were made of cotton that had been grown, spun, woven, and dyed on her own plantation. And in her spare time, she made garments for the Confederate soldiers.

Somewhere along the line, she developed a fondness for smoking, filling a pipe with home-grown tobacco. In later years, she enjoyed rocking in her favorite chair, puffing on that pipe, and reflecting on her past with friends and family.

Jane Long was fiercely independent. Throughout her long and active life, she was courted by some of Texas’ leading men such as Ben Milam, William Travis, Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, and Mirabeau Lamar. She turned them all down. She’d had but one love in her life and everyone else paled in comparison.

On December 30, 1880, Jane passed away at the age of 82 at her plantation. She lies buried in a little cemetery in Richmond, Texas. On her tombstone is the inscription “Mrs. Jane H. Long, The Mother of Texas.”

Doesn’t Jane sound like a heroine in one of today’s romance novels? She’s certainly an embodiment of the frontier spirit.

I’m giving away a copy of The Cowboy Who Came Calling to one commenter.

Good morning! I’m honored to be here today at Petticoats and Pistols. This is such a great group of women and writers–I’m thrilled to be here.

As most of you know, Brenda Novak’s Charity Auction concluded recently. The reason I bring it up is that I happened to stumble upon a jewel that I found interesting and took an active role in the bidding (so much fun)! I love true-life stories that are told quickly, just a few pages each. To my delight I ended up winning, Frontier Teachers, Stories of Heroic women of the Old West, written by Chris Enss.

I haven’t read all the accounts yet but I have read some and skimmed the whole133 pages. It’s a must for all who write teachers of the West. Tucked in the back is a table of rules for teachers of 1872. It’s hysterical, in a charming, sort of innocent way. I’d like to paraphrase a few of the “stipulations” of the teaching profession of that day….

Teachers were required each day to fill their lamps and clean chimneys, bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal—a reasonable requirement if the teacher was well off enough to afford it. After the ten-hour a day job, one was allowed their remaining time (how much you ask?) to read the Bible or other good book. Women teachers were dismissed if they married, while men were given one evening each week for courting, or, if they were a church going fellow, two—Double standard? You think? Your integrity and honesty were scrutinized if you smoked, used liquor in ANY form, frequented pool or public halls, or—get this—got shaved in a barber shop! What in Pete’s name?

Now, here is, I think, some good advice: Each teacher was advised to put away a large chunk of their pay—that is after buying a scuttle of coal five days a week to heat the school room—for their declining years so as not to be a burden. Sounds like a forerunner to social security—and we all know how that ends.

And finally, if you faithfully followed these rules and the Board of Education approved you, you might be eligible for a twenty-five cent a week raise.

Before finding this list, I held teachers in very high esteem. Without them, and their generosity and dedication to their vocation, it would have taken much longer for the West to arrive academically. But now, knowing more fully what their day-to-day routine was like, I’m truly in awe. Such enthusiasm and commitment are what heroes are made of, as the title of the book suggests.  

Do you have any western teaching stories to share? Or are there any teachers in your family history?

In celebration of my debut release, Where the Wind Blows, a Lonesome Dove meets Little House on the Prairie story, I’m giving away a copy to someone who leaves me a comment.

Also, please visit my website at www.carolinefyffe.com to see how to enter my contest, Under a Western Sky, for your chance to win an overnight stay in a bunkhouse. Come on, it’ll be fun! And, while you’re there, take a minute to sign up for my announcement-only newsletter. On the last day of every month I will be giving away a free book!  

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The Old West is filled with legends but none is more colorful than Poker Alice. Her real name was Alice Ivers and she born of privilege in 1851. She attended an elite boarding school for young women until her family moved to Leadville, Colorado. There Alice met Frank Duffield, a mining engineer, and they were married.

Gambling was prevalent in the rough mining camps and Frank Duffield did his share. Alice often accompanied him to keep from staying home alone. Alice quickly learned she had an ability to read cards and took up poker and faro. When Frank died in a mining accident, Alice decided to put to use what she’d learned. Left alone with no means of support she turned to poker as a way to earn a nice living. It was certainly more respectable than prostitution.

Alice stood at 5′4″ with blue eyes and lush brown hair and decked out in her fashionable dresses she was quite a sight for lonely miners. It was rare to find a “lady” in a saloon that wasn’t of the “soiled dove” caliber so they flocked to her. They quickly bestowed the nickname Poker Alice on her and she was in much demand. It’s rumored that she once broke the bank at the Gold Dust Gambling House in New Mexico where she won $6,000 in one night.

Sometime during this period she began smoking large black cigars. Some said it was quite a sight to see her in frilly dresses with a big cigar sticking from her mouth. Alice also took to carrying a .38 revolver and wasn’t a bit squeamish to use it. Her reputation grew and so did her pocketbook.

However, she was deeply religious and never gambled on Sundays. The lady did have her scruples it seems.

Alice traveled all over Colorado, New Mexico and South Dakota playing and sometimes dealing the game she loved. But it was in Deadwood, South Dakota that she met Warren Tubbs. They married shortly after and homesteaded a ranch near Sturgis, South Dakota. Loving the quiet ranch life, Alice cut back on the time spent in gambling houses. She and Warren had seven children and it was one of the happiest times of her life.

But it wasn’t to last. Alice’s poker luck didn’t extend to husbands. Warren contracted tuberculosis and died of pneumonia in the winter of 1910. Again, Alice had to turn to poker to earn a living.

She hired a man by the name of George Huckert to take care of the ranch. He fell head over heels in love with Alice and asked her to marry him several times. Finally Alice relented saying that it was cheaper to marry George than pay him all the back wages she owed him. The  ink was barely dry on the marriage license before George died in 1913, leaving Alice once more a widow.

This time when Alice returned to the gambling halls she wanted to do more than be a patron. She purchased her own place and named the saloon “Poker’s Palace.” There she provided everything a lonely man required–liquor, gambling, and working girls. One night a drunken soldier went on a rampage in the saloon, breaking furniture and threatening the customers. Alice promptly took out her .38 and shot the man dead. She was arrested of course and thrown into jail, but at the trial she was acquitted on grounds of self-defense and released.

She lost her saloon though. Authorities shut her down and it seemed to take a lot of the fight out of Alice. A little while passed and Alice was now in her 70’s. Her beauty had faded and she began dressing in men’s clothing. She continued to run a house of ill-repute in Sturgis and was arrested many times for drunkenness and charged with being a madam. Finally, after repeated convictions she was sentenced to prison. Alice was 75. Taking her advanced years in account, the governor of South Dakota pardoned her. She died of complications from gall bladder surgery in 1930 and was buried in Sturgis, presumably beside Warren Tubbs.

According to the Legends of America website, Alice was said to have won more than $250,000 at the gaming tables during her lifetime and she never once cheated. One of her favorite sayings was: “Praise the Lord and place your bets. I’ll take your money with no regrets.”

Doesn’t this sound like a character in a romance book? Poker Alice was colorful and independent. She lived life on her own terms. When the chips were down, she didn’t ask for a handout; she went back to work.

Have you read any books or watched western movies where the heroine was unconventional, maybe working in a saloon or even owning one? Miss Kitty definitely springs to mind, but there are others. Our own Charlene Sands’ heroine in BODINE’S BOUNTY sang in a saloon.

www.LindaBroday.com

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