1866 Cycler

Is anyone else feeling at a bit of a loss this week after seventeen days of Olympic competition have ended? I confess I’m an Olympic junkie—summer or winter. I enjoy most everything, but especially ice skating, snowboarding, curling and gymnastics, and volleyball. I got to thinking about the origins of so many of the sports that originated in other countries and caught on globally. Of course athletic competitions go back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but what about the years we read and write about? What about sports in the old west?

Well, there were plenty of them. Seems through the ages men—and later women—couldn’t get enough of racing and swinging and throwing and jumping, and they wanted to do it better than the next person. Like Solomon said, there’s nothing new under the sun.

1894 Golf

The earliest ice skating was done in Finland and later Denmark, but our American ancestors did their share of ice skating as well. There were even special skirts for the ladies so the blades of their skates didn’t catch their hems.

Bare knuckle boxing began in ancient Greece, and was recorded taking place in England in the early 1700s. Remember Tom Cruise in Far and Away? Boxing was a popular sport among the American settlers and spread to the western regions. Susan Cahn in Coming on Strong, Gender and Equality in 20th Century Sport notes a match between Nell Saunders and Rose Harland in 1876 at Hills Theater in NYC. They supposedly fought for a silver butter dish. This was considered the first women’s match in the United States.

The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication by John Newbery. It contains a rhymed description of base-ball and a woodcut that shows a field somewhat similar to the modern game, though in a triangular rather than diamond configuration, and with posts instead of ground-level bases. English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey.

In the mid-1850s the baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area. By 1856 local journals were referring to baseball as the national pastime. A year later sixteen area clubs formed the sport’s first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players. In 1869 the first professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was formed and went undefeated against a schedule of semipro and amateur teams. The first professional league, the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, lasted from 1871 to 1875. Baseball teams formed all over the United States.

The oldest piece of paper to bear the word croquet with a description of the modern game is the set of rules registered in November 1856 with the Stationers’ Company in London.

Croquet became popular as a social pastime for English ladies and gentleman during the 1860s. By 1867 there were 65,000 copies of the laws and regulations of the game in print. It quickly spread to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. No doubt one of the attractions was that the game could be played by both men and women.
Croquet was soon eclipsed by a new game. Tennis began in the UK in the1870s.

I included Independence Day activities in a book I’m currently finishing up, and my research turned up newspaper articles listing the events during actual Fourth of July events. Here are activities I discovered listed on the programs and in the newspaper accounts: Croquet, foot ball, base ball, skiffs (I’m guessing these are regatta-type races with dinghies), blindfold wheelbarrow races, climbing a greased pole for a $5 bill, sack races, foot races, horse races, fastest trotting mile race, slowest trotting mule race, and a fat man’s race.

1876 Ice Skating

I would add to these other competitions such as arm wrestling and driving a spike, eating and drinking contests and chasing greased pigs. We are a competitive species, aren’t we?

So are you missing the Olympics or glad it’s over so you can get to bed earlier at night?

Boxing

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.

The talking is done, the dust has cleared and we have a whole passel of winners.

Goldie Hale wins an autographed copy of FIRE EYES

Jeanne Sheats wins an autographed copy of TIME PLAINS DRIFTER

and Winners of the PDF version of A NIGHT OF MIRACLES are:

Martha E

Crystal GB

Judy

Congratulations, Ladies! Now, don’t lollygag around. Tell Miss Cheryl where to send the prizes. Contact her at cheryl@westwindsmedia.com and she’ll take care of everything.

Miss Cheryl thanks everyone who came by and made her day so special. She wishes she had prizes for every last one of you.

That’s it for now………..

In the summer of 1909, two young brothers under the age of ten set out to make their own “cowboy dreams” come true.  They rode across two states on horseback.  Alone.

 It’s a story that sounds too unbelievable to be true, but it is.

 Oklahoma had been a state not quite two years when these young long riders undertook the adventure of a lifetime.  The brothers, Bud (Louis), and Temple Abernathy rode from their Tillman County ranch in the southwest corner of the state to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Bud was nine years old, and Temple was five. 

They were the sons of a U.S. Marshal, Jack Abernathy, who had the particular talent of catching wolves and coyotes alive, earning him the nickname “Catch ’Em Alive Jack.”

Odd as it seems to us today, Jack Abernathy had unwavering faith in his two young sons’ survival skills.  Their mother had died the year before, and, as young boys will, they had developed a wanderlust listening to their father’s stories. 

Jack agreed to let them undertake the journey, Bud riding Sam Bass (Jack’s own Arabian that he used chase wolves down with) and Temple riding Geronimo, a half-Shetland pony.  There were four rules the boys had to agree to:  Never to ride more than fifty miles a day unless seeking food or shelter; never to cross a creek unless they could see the bottom of it or have a guide with them; never to carry more than five dollars at a time; and no riding on Sunday.

The jaunt into New Mexico to visit their father’s friend, governor George Curry, took them six weeks.  Along the way, they were escorted by a band of outlaws for many miles to ensure their safe passage.  The boys didn’t realize they were outlaws until later, when the men wrote to Abernathy telling him they didn’t respect him because he was a marshal.  But, in the letter, they wrote they “liked what those boys were made of.” 

One year later, they set out on the trip that made them famous.  At ten and six, the boys rode from their Cross Roads Ranch in Frederick, Oklahoma, to New York City to meet their friend, former president Theodore Roosevelt, on his return from an African safari.  They set out on April 5, 1910, riding for two months. 

Along the way, they were greeted in every major city, being feted at dinners and amusement parks, given automobile rides, and even an aeroplane ride by Wilbur Wright in Dayton, Ohio. 

Their trip to New York City went as planned, but they had to buy a new horse to replace Geronimo.  While they were there, he had gotten loose in a field of clover and nearly foundered, and had to be shipped home by train. 

They traveled on to Washington, D.C., and met with President Taft and other politicians. 

It was on this trip that the brothers decided they needed an automobile of their own.  They had fallen in love with the new mode of transportation, and they convinced their father to buy a Brush runabout.  After practicing for a few hours in New York, they headed for Oklahoma—Bud drove, and Temple was the mechanic.

They arrived safe and sound back in Oklahoma in only 23 days. 

But their adventures weren’t over.  The next year, they were challenged to ride from New York City to San Francisco.  If they could make it in 60 days, they would win $10,000.  Due to some bad weather along the 3,619-mile-long trip, they missed the deadline by only two days.  Still, they broke a record—and that record of 62 days still stands, nearly one hundred years later. 

The boys’ last cross country trip was made in 1913 driving a custom designed, two-seat motorcycle from their Cross Roads Ranch to New York City.  They returned to Oklahoma by train. 

As adults, Temple became an oilman, and Bud became a lawyer.  There is a statue that commemorates the youngest long riders ever in their hometown of Frederick, Oklahoma, on the lawn of the Tillman County Courthouse.

 Today I’ll be giving away copies of  both FIRE EYES, which is an EPIC finalist. and TIME PLAINS DRIFTER.  (FIRE EYES received a 4 star review from RT, and TIME PLAINS DRIFTER received a 4.5.)  I’ll also draw three names to win pdf copies of my short story, A NIGHT FOR MIRACLES.

What a day! Looks like everyone enjoyed chatting with Jill about what it takes for a book to be called a western. Lots of good answers!

I put the names in the fishbowl and here are the results……..

RENEE

ESTELLA

Congratulations, Ladies! Drop me an email at lbroday@windstream.net with your mailing address and I’ll forward the info on to Jill.

Hope everyone comes back tomorrow for our guest, Cheryl Pierson. This is the place to talk romance and win books! Yee-haw!

A great big “Howdy!” to everyone at Wildflower Junction. It’s great to be passin’ through again as a guest blogger. Always nice to see all of you readers and authors alike. This is a busy March for me. Not only do I have a March 2nd deadline, but a new book coming out tomorrow, too. It’s a book I’m really excited about.

 HEART OF STONE is the first book of my new Irish Angels Series and its available in two formats depending on where you shop. Not only is there a mass market edition, but it’s also available in trade paperback.

 HEART OF STONE features a hero and heroine who wouldn’t usually move in the same circles, let alone fall in love, but tell that to Laura Foster and Reverend Brand McCormick of Glory, Texas. Many of you have read my two other books set in Glory. I imagine it’s the kind of old western town we’d all like to visit or even live in. The kind of place “where everybody knows your name,” where folks come together as a community to support their own. At least in theory.

But what happens when one of their own, a woman believed to be upstanding and respectable turns out to have a past so dark that it will not only bring her down when revealed, but it will ruin the life of the man who loves her—a widowed preacher and father of two young children? Will anyone stand behind her then?  And it’s not as if her hero doesn’t have some secrets of his own–which only complicates matters.

But I don’t want to give anything more away. I’ll just say I think you’ll love these characters as much as I loved writing about them. At least I hope so.

Since I’m busy wrapping up my latest work in progress and will be looking for a new setting soon, I thought I’d take this opportunity to hear from some of you about what you consider a true “Western” historical romance. Do you prefer them strictly set in the Western United States? Do Westerns have to include heroes who are cowboys with spurs, boots and holsters before a book can be considered a Western? Are horses and stagecoaches and hold ups obligatory? Indians a must?

What about ranchers in the Pacific Northwest? What about Vaqueros in California? How about Pinkerton Detectives? Or miners in the Alaskan Gold Rush? Pioneers like Daniel Boone? I’m sure his wife wore petticoats and ol’ Daniel had a gun, but could you call his story a “western?” And what about riverboat gamblers? Remember Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara? Plenty of petticoats and pistols in that post Civil War classic. Would you leave Gone With the Wind on the shelf because it’s not a “Western?”

By the way, since the early 1800’s we’ve had plenty of cowboys here in Hawaii, only they’re called paniolos. Talk about the far West. We’re as west as you can get—but maybe writing a Hawaiian “western” would be stretching it. Or not?

If you have time, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts about settings for westerns, for historicals in general, and what you gravitate toward when you’re shopping for a good read. I’ll have two autographed copies of HEART OF STONE hot off the press to send to two lucky reader winners.

Until the Fillies let me stop by again, I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

 Aloha, Jill Marie

www.jillmarielandis.com

(To order Jill’s book, click on the cover above)

Ah do declare! We’re sure getting a passel of guests. And the Fillies are as proud as all get-out.

Woo-Hoo! Miss Cheryl Pierson will arrive at the Junction on Tuesday, March 2nd.

This’ll be her first trip to our little corner of the world. But just mark my words, it won’t be her last. That’s because of all of you wonderful ladies who welcome P&P’s guests with open arms. Bless you for that!

Miss Cheryl does love her cowboys so she’s gonna fit in here just fine. We all speak the same language.

Ah don’t rightly know what the dear lady has in mind to talk about but it should be interesting.

So, just hitch up your buggy and ride over here Tuesday.

Ah might even let you have a little nip of my homemade cider! Hee-hee!

Well, bless my soul! Look who’s coming around the bend.

Miss Jill Marie Landis, that’s who. The Fillies have spruced up the place and rolled out the red carpet for our Monday guest.

It’s always a pleasure to have Miss Jill Marie come visit. The lady has a list of published books as long as my arm. That’s a lot of sexy men she’s written stories about! And each one is better than the last, trust me.

Miss Jill Marie has a brand spanking new book out that ah’m sure you’ll want to hear about. HEART OF STONE will fix you right up with plenty of romance and get your heart all in a tizzy.

To further entice you, she’s giving away two books.

Shake your bustle and get over here come Monday!

And they are . . .

Susanne Dietz

and

Julie Steele

Please email me with your snail mail addresses, and Janet will send you out your books.

pacrooks@radiks.net

G’day. Thanks, Sheilas, for having me at your place. (Sheila, by the way, is Aussie for a young, attractive woman. That’s us, isn’t it?)

 I’m Australian and you might be wondering what someone from Down Under is doing here. It’s about as far from Texas as you can get… isn’t it? You’d be surprised… there’s a town called Texas near where I grew up in the Australian bush. Far from making us strangers, in many ways, the places we live make us cousins. Here’s why – its part of The Man From Snowy River, a poem by Australia’s great bush poet Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson.

So Clancy rode to wheel them — he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place,
And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring
With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face. Recognise Clancy?

He might be a legendary Australian stockman, but he’d be equally at home riding the range in Texas. Your Texas.

The story of the Australian outback is very similar to that of the American west. It is a vast and rugged land – as dangerous as it is beautiful. The European settlers who came looking for a new life or looking for gold fought their way into the outback with bullock drays. They lived isolated from the world battling droughts and storms, dealing with lethal snakes, shocking heat and freezing cold.

That’s the history we share – and the heroes we share…

Which brings me back to Clancy. He wasn’t always chasing brumbies (the Aussie version of wild mustangs) – he was a drover too, guiding his cattle across the vast plains.

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

I know exactly what he means – that’s me in stockwoman mode in the photograph.

I write contemporary fiction, but time hasn’t changed the outback. Nor the people in it. A car doesn’t really make it easier to fall in love with the boy next door, when properties (we don’t call them ranches) are measured in hundreds of square miles.

In my first novel, The Farmer Needs A wife – I wanted to do a contemporary take on mail order brides. My bride might arrive in the outback in a plane, not a coach, but when that plane leaves, there’s still no going back.

Another possibility for finding true love in the outback is the Bachelor and Spinster Ball. All the singles from hundreds of kilometres around get dressed in their finest clothes and come to the ball hoping to meet prospective husbands and wives. I guess that sounds familiar to you too. The modern B&S Balls often also bring in young folk from the big smoke, who are there for the country music and the partying… but anything can still happen at a black tie ball under the stars.

In both books, I tried to capture the essence of Australia – the remarkable landscape, the strength of the people who live in the outback, and the feeling of community that develops in small towns.

I felt it as I was growing up – and even when I’m on the far side of the planet… I still feel it. I’m never all that far from Clancy.

He sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.

I guess you know what I’m talking about too, don’t y’all.

Links:
www.janetgover.com
www.bookdepository.co.uk/  (free shipment to the US if you want to buy one of my books)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson  More on Australia’s great bush poet.

Janet will be giving away a copy of The Farmer Needs A Wife and The Bachelor and Spinster Ball – one each to two lucky indiviuals who stop by to leave a comment today.