Frontier Women

THE FIRST WOMAN SHERIFF IN TEXAS

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Phyliss Miranda sig line for P&P BluebonnetWhen we think of Texas sheriff’s we always think of strong willed, hard to the core men.  In my second installment of the Kasota Springs Romance Series for Kensington, Out of the Texas Night, I have the daughter of the town’s mayor come for a visit where she meets the love of her life. Of course he’s a lawman! While she’s there something disastrous happens to Deuce Cowan, the present sheriff, and he can no longer fulfill his duties.  Since my heroine still owns property in the county, is registered to vote there, and a deputy in Houston County she’s more than qualified  to be named the interim sheriff by her father (the mayor) and the county commissioners. So, needless to say when I read this story about Emma Daugherty Banister I realized her real life story a century ago parallels to a large degree with my make-belief plot.   So, here goes!

CemeteryEmma Daugherty Banister, the first appointed female sheriff in Texas also was likely the first female sheriff in the United States.  She was born in Forney in 1871. After the murder of her father in 1878, she stayed there for a few years and then moved to Goldthwaite to live with an uncle in order to finish school. After receiving her teaching certificate, she taught at Turkey Creek in Mills County and Needmore (currently known as Echo) in Coleman County, Texas.

On September 25, 1894, Daugherty married widower (the father of six) and former Texas Ranger John R. Banister and settled in Santa Anna. In 1914, John Banister was elected Coleman County sheriff. The Banisters moved their nine children to the first floor of the county jail in Coleman. Emma served as office deputy, and John’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Leona, served as his driver.  John could ride any horse in the land but showed little interest in mastering the “horseless” carriage.

John was well received and respected as sheriff of Coleman County, bringing standards of competence and courtesy to the position that few sheriffs in any area or era could have achieved.  On August 1, 1918, he died of a stroke.

After much discussion by the county commissioners and considering that the county election was just a few months away plus the fact that Emma Banister had served as her husband’s office deputy, the Coleman County commissioners asked her to finish his term. She accepted.

Newspapers from New York to California sensationalized the appointment, portraying her as a fearless, six-shooter-strapping matron of whom troublemakers should be wary, but the truth was probably less sensational. Much like her husband, Emma was courteous and unassuming, a steady hand and stalwart professional.  She avoided the sudden press and refused photo requests because she had no interest in publicity.  She downplayed the importance of her appointment.

headstoneThis must be true because when I tried to find a picture of her for my blog I found very few.

Emma served the final three months of her husband’s term effectively but refused to accept the county commissioners’ nomination in the next election.  As was her habit, she vacated the Coleman County Jail and sheriff’s offices quietly and moved her children back to the Banister family farm in Santa Anna.

In her later years, Emma never sought credit or recognition for her short term behind the badge, and the eventual oil boom allowed her to live comfortably, dabbling in real estate. Before her death at Brownwood Memorial Hospital on June 4, 1956, she donated a sizable collection of Indian artifacts and mementos from her husband’s long law enforcement career to the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark Museum in San Angelo. She is buried at the Santa Anna Cemetery, and a historical marker commemorating her life was placed there in 1986.

I’m afraid my heroine is a little bit more sassy than Mrs. Banister.  As I write the book, I’m excited about seeing just how different my character is from the first woman sheriff in Texas!

The Troubled Texan Good

                                                        I’ll give away a gift certificate to Amazon to one lucky reader,

                                 so they can order the first book in the Kasota Springs Series, The Troubled Texan.

Janet Tronstad: “Mail Order Sunshine Bride”

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Tronstad_Janet-close_crop (2)I’m delighted to be back at P & P with another one of my mail-order bride stories.  Usually when I visit we talk about something related to these brides of the Old West (my favorite historical setting and I’m guessing it’s yours, too).

Today I am going to ask a question that has bedeviled women throughout history – from servant girls in the 1800’s to today’s ultra-modern internet dater.  Regardless of the time in history, scores of women are always asking — ‘What does a man want in a wife anyway?’

I’ll wager that nowhere have women asked that question with more desperation than the mail-order brides in the late 1800’s. In the western territories, men outnumbered women by as much as nine to one. In the east, thousands of women wanted to get married and were unable to find mates. Today a single life is a good life, but in those days it wouldn’t have been fun to be ‘on the shelf’ as they said.  A spinster had no status and, often, limited social options. For her livelihood, she usually either depended on relatives (sometimes being an unpaid servant to them) or lived a life of hard work and poverty.

It was no wonder that publications like the “The Matrimonial News,” a San Francisco paper, were flooded with personal ads from women as well as men seeking marriage.

For my brides, I’ve created a fictitious publication, Mrs. Murphy’s Matrimonial Catalogue, that will mirror these newspapers.

JTronstad_MailOrderSunshineBride_(1)In my upcoming novella, “Mail-Order Sunshine Bride,” my widowed heroine, Nellie O’Reilly, tries to figure out what it is that men want in a wife before she sends an ad to Mrs. Murphy for publication.  Nellie’s late husband, not a particularly kind man, always said she had little enough beauty, but she did have a non-demanding personality and that was what men wanted anyway. So Nellie advertises that she has a ‘sunshine personality.’

Unbeknownst to Nellie, the night before she and her young son arrive in the Montana territory, the storekeeper who had pledged to marry her reads her letter aloud to a dozen men at a poker game.  He gathered so much interest in his “Sunshine Bride” that he was offered a wager by another man for the right to marry her. The storekeeper lost the bet.

When Nellie steps off the train the next morning, the question of who she is to marry is so problematic that the sheriff takes her into protective custody until it can be resolved. Thus begins a rousing tale.

There are many things a man or a woman could find attractive in a mate.  But if you were going to answer the question right now, what would you say you would most look for in a marriage partner?

My ‘Mail-Order Sunshine Bride’ will be part of an indie anthology published in late June. When it is available, I will give a free e-copy of that anthology to someone who comments on this post.

For updates on this and other historical mail-order bride stories I will be writing in the future (I’m planning another Christmas one, ‘Mail-Order Santa Bride’), please like me on my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Janet-Tronstad-Dry-Creek-author/183817431655670

In the meantime, let’s talk!

The Harvey Girls

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Cynthia

CH-LOGO21

Cynthia is giving away a copy of An unconventional Lady

to one lucky responder.

(Sorry, due to postage and customs, giveaway is for US only.)

*Due to technical difficulties on Saturday, we invited Cynthia to extend her stay at the Junction through Monday. So you still have time to get in the drawing for her fabulous new book. YeeHaw!

Scottish immigrant, Fred Harvey, was disgusted by the service and food preparation by restaurants along the Santa Fe railroad and decided to make a difference. He opened his first location in Kansas and restaurant service along the railroad would never be the same. Harvey was known for hiring local contractors to make the hotels fit their surroundings.

 

Harvey advertised in Eastern and Mid-western newspapers and magazines for single moral women between the ages of seventeen and thirty to be waitresses in his Harvey Houses. Over one hundred thousand women worked in his employ until the mid-1950s. While the women were told what to wear, what to do, how to wear their hair, and not to marry during their six-month contract, these brave women loved their independence. Over half of them chose to stay out west and help settle the country after their contracts were up, earning them the name “Women Who Tamed the West”.untitled

 

The women had to be of good moral character, have at least an eighth grade education, display good manner and be neat and articulate to work in his restaurants. In return for employment, the Harvey Girls would agree to a six-month contract, agree not to marry, and abide by all company rules during the term of employment. If hired, they were given a rail pass to get to their chosen destination. Harvey Girls were the women who brought further respectability to the work of waitressing. They left the protection and poverty of home for the opportunity to travel and earn their own way in life, while experiencing a bit of adventure.

 

untitled 2I chose to write a series of four books, spread out over the time span of the Fred Harvey Company to enlighten readers as to these brave, hard-working women. In An Unconventional Lady, the story takes place at the El Tovar Hotel on the rim of the Grand Canyon. This hotel is still running today with its waitresses still dressed in the familiar uniform of Harvey girls.

 

www.cynthiahickey.com

Multi-published and Best-Selling author Cynthia Hickey had three cozy mysteries and two novellas published through Barbour Publishing. Her first mystery, Fudge-Laced Felonies, won first place in the inspirational category of the Great Expectations contest in 2007. Her third cozy, Chocolate-Covered Crime, received a four-star review from Romantic Times. All three cozies have been re-released as ebooks through the MacGregor Literary Agency, along with a new cozy series, all of which stay in the top 50 of Amazon’s ebooks for their genre. She has several historical romances releasing in 2013 and 2014 through Harlequin’s Heartsong Presents. She is active on FB, twitter, and Goodreads. She lives in Arizona with her husband, one of their seven children, two dogs and two cats. She has five grandchildren who keep her busy and tell everyone they know that “Nana is a writer”.

An Unconventional Lady cover

The Last American Suffragette

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Miss Febb might have been a lesser known suffragette in 1920, but she soon became one of the most important women in the battle. After more than seventy years of fighting for women”s right to vote, ratification of the 19th Amendment hinged on Tennessee. The Amendment needed 36 states to ratify, and Tennessee was that state. Except, according to all the polls taken, it appeared as though the vote in Tennessee would end in a deadlock. While the Amendment had easily gone through the Senate, it had stalled in the House of Representatives.

miss febb

On the morning of August 18, 1920, a young man, Harry Burn, arrived for the momentous vote. He wore a red rose, signifying his opposition to the Amendment. More importantly, he also carried a letter from his mother, Phoebe Ensminger Burn, known to her family and friends as Miss Febb.  She had a very direct message for her son:

Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt. I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.”

Mr. Burn was 24. The youngest man in the senate. He listened to his mother and bore the wrath of his peers. But Mr. Burns was no fool. In defending his sudden change of heart, he stated:

 I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow, and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.

Had Miss Febb not written her letter, who knows how much longer the battle would have raged.

Like all historical undertakings, the suffragette movement was not without controversy. There were plenty of women who believed that politics were best left to men. The famed society ladies of Boston”s Beacon Hill didn”t believe their fellow women should sully themselves with politics. Religion and the suffragette movement clashed, with both men and women citing Biblical references to deny women the vote. The group also split over the inclusion African American women.

Twice during the movement”s history, competing factions splintered into separate groups. While one side favored extreme tactics, the other side adopted a more moderate approach. Led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragettes took a hiatus during the Civil War. During World War I, the more radical arm of the movement remained active and endured hostility from all sides.  Women who protested before the White House were imprisoned, and some were even force-fed when they incited a hunger strike.

susan

As the years progressed, the friendship between Anthony and Stanton became strained, with Stanton  favoring a more militant approach. The two maintained a great respect for each other and despite their differences Stanton, who died first, requested a photo of Anthony on her coffin.

My fourth book, tentatively scheduled for early 2015, features a suffragette. Last evening I wrote the epilogue for her. My heroine arrives for the first official vote after the 19th Amendment is ratified. She”s in her 60″s and arrives early to find a long line already before the poling place. There”s more, but you”ll have to wait for the book!

It”s humbling to realize we”ve only had the vote for less than 100 years. While my grandmother could vote, my great-grandmother lived during a time when women were not considered sufficiently intelligent to participate in elections.  Hard to imagine, isn”t it?!

Available now!

The Marshal’s Ready-Made Family

The marshalGentlemen don”t court feisty straight shooters like JoBeth McCoy. Just as she”s resigned to a lifetime alone, a misunderstanding forces the spunky telegraph operator into a marriage of convenience. Wedding the town”s handsome new marshal offers JoBeth a chance at motherhood, caring for the orphaned little girl she”s come to love.

Garrett Cain will lose guardianship of his niece, Cora, if he stays single, but he knows no woman could accept the secrets he”s hidden about his past. The lawman can”t jeopardize Cora”s future by admitting the truth. Yet when unexpected danger in the small town threatens to expose Garrett”s long-buried secret, only a leap of faith can turn a makeshift union into a real family.

Coming in August:

The Cattleman Meets His Match

Galahad in a Stetson

Cowboy John Elder needs a replacement crew of cattle hands to drive his longhorns to Kansas—he just never figured they”d be wearing petticoats. Traveling with Moira O”Mara and the orphan girls in her care is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Yet despite Moira”s declaration of independence, the feisty beauty evokes John”s every masculine instinct to protect, defend…marry?

Moira is grateful for John”s help when he rescues her—and she can”t deny that his calm, in-control manner proves comforting. But she is determined not to let anything get in the way of her plans to search for her long-lost brother at journey”s end. However, can John show her a new future—one perfect for them to share?

LEGEND OF THE LADY DETECTIVE by Kathleen Y’Barbo

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 Logo--kathleenybarbo.comWhen I set out to write a heroine equal to the task of catching the charming villain Will Tucker in Sadie’s Secrets, there was no doubt Sadie Callum, the well-bred Louisiana-born daughter of sugar cane planter, would be a Pinkerton agent. After all, what other nineteenth century organization allowed women not only to populate their ranks well before they could vote, but also made great use of their unique talents?

 Early on, Alan Pinkerton respected the ability of a woman to go where a man might not be allowed. Thus, he made sure that he always had a few well-trained ladies in his employ for those difficult cases where a feminine touch was needed.

Kathleen 1

 Pinkerton agents—both male and female–were well trained and well paid. Their expertise in surveillance was beyond comparison. Allan Pinkerton was an early proponent of using female agents, determining that often it was the lady who was least suspected of being a detective.

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 One famous lady Pinkerton was the widow, Kate Warne, thought to be the clean-shaven person standing behind Mr. Pinkerton in the photograph from the Library of Congress archives. Kate Warne, a woman who it is claimed walked into the Pinkerton offices seeking a secretarial job only to leave as a detective, is one of the more memorable Pinkertons, and definitely the first female agent.Kathleen 3

 Among Mrs. Warne’s many accomplishments was the detection of a plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Not only did she learn of the plot, but she also saved the president’s life by helping to smuggle him into Washington DC for his inauguration disguised as her invalid brother. Later, during the Civil War, it has been alleged that Mrs. Warne was quite adept at fitting in on both sides of the lines and brought back valuable intelligence to the Pinkerton offices. Quite the accomplishment considering women were not yet accepted as valuable members of any other crime fighting organization.lKathleen

 And although Sadie Callum is only a fictional detective, I believe Alan Pinkerton would heartily approve of her methods of bringing Will Tucker to justice once and for all. Take a peek at Sadie’s Secret, the third book in The Secret Lives of Will Tucker series, and find out just how she manages such a feat.

Post a comment and be entered into a drawing for a print copy of Sadie’s Secret!

 

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About Sadie’s Secret (releasing February 1, 2014 from Harvest House Publishers): 

Louisiana, 1890—Sarah Louise “Sadie” Callum is a master of disguise, mostly due to her training as a Pinkerton agent but also from evading overprotective brothers as she grew up. When she takes on a new assignment with international connections, she has no idea her new cover will lead her on the adventure of a lifetime.        

Undercover agent William Jefferson Tucker is not looking for marriage—pretend or otherwise—but his past is a secret, his twin brother has stolen his present, and his future is in the hands of the lovely Sadie Callum. Without her connections to the world of upper-crust New Orleans and Newport, Jefferson might never find a way to clear his name and solve the art forgery case that has eluded him for years. Only God can help these two secret agents find a way to solve their case and uncover the truth about what is going on in their hearts.

Read the first chapter of Sadie’s Secret here: 

 About Kathleen Y’Barbo:

Bestselling author Kathleen Y’Barbo is a multiple Carol Award and RITA nominee of forty-five novels with almost two million copies of her books in print in the US and abroad. A tenth-generation Texan and certified family law paralegal, she has been nominated for a Career Achievement Award as well a Reader’s Choice Award and several Top Picks by Romantic Times magazine.

A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Romance Writers of America, and a former member of the Texas Bar Association Paralegal Division, she is currently a proud military wife and an expatriate Texan cheering on her beloved Texas Aggies from north of the Red River. To find out more about Kathleen or connect with her through social media, check out her website at www.kathleenybarbo.com.

 

 

‘Tis the Season….For Giving!

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linda-sig.jpgDuring the holiday season more than any other it seems we’re besieged with pleas to help. Any amount will do. I don’t know about you, but my mailbox overflows with requests. So many in fact, I don’t know where to donate my money, time and energy.

 

christmas-card-vintage-tree-momFrom Biblical times to the present people have always given of themselves to the poor and downtrodden. When we think of present day philanthropists, the names Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mother Teresa, Oprah, and a whole lot of others spring to mind. But they’re not all. The stories that touch my heart are the ones where a person in line at the grocery store tells the clerk he wants to pay for the next five or ten customers’ food bill. Or the man in a restaurant who picks up the tab for the next table. Or the person in line at the fast food place who pays for the next car’s bill. Or the child who donates all her birthday presents to the less fortunate. Generosity is everywhere and income plays little part. It’s big and small, rich or poor.

 

Settlers on the frontier never failed to give alms to the poor no matter that they had very little themselves. They had a generous spirit and a desire to pay forward what others had done for them.

 

I think of the old Texas ranchers…Dan Waggoner, Burk Burkburnett, Daniel Webster (80 John) Wallace who made sure to spread their good fortune to others. They helped their neighbors and took good care of their ranch hands and their families.

 

Molly b'DamAnd a prostitute/brothel madam, Martha Hall aka Molly b’Dam, who lived in Murray, Idaho. During a blizzard she took off her heavy fur coat and gave it to a mother and child because they had none then bought them a cabin in which to live. She nursed sick gold miners and gave to the poor. When smallpox swept through the town in 1886, she cleared out the hotels and filled them with the sick. Then she rolled up her sleeves, working tirelessly until she could no longer stand. She barely ate, not even stopping to change clothes. A year later she came down with consumption (Tuberculous), a death sentence at that time. The women of Murray kept a 24 hour vigil by her bedside. When she died on January 1888 at the age of 35, miners left their diggings and sluice boxes became silent. Thousands of people came from all over to pay tribute to the bold, beautiful woman with a generous heart. A Presbyterian minister delivered the eulogy and not a dry eye could be found.

 

Every August the folks of Murray hold a two-day celebration in honor of the woman who showed exactly what true benevolence looked like.

 

Jane AddamsThen I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Jane Addams of Chicago, Illinois. She along with Ellen Gates Starr founded a settlement house in 1889. Hull House became world famous for helping countless immigrants who needed someone to show them how to live and thrive in the U.S. It became a safe haven for those immigrants who were taught English and given all the skills to become vital, contributing citizens in their new country. They closed it in 2012 and it’s now a museum that celebrates the life of these two pioneer social workers. They were truly women of vision.

 

These people are only a drop in the bucket. There were thousands of others in the 1800’s who gave generously of their time and money no matter their social status or wealth. Everyone of them was important.

 

So as you prepare for this holiday season I hope you have giving of some kind in your heart…a smile, a laugh or a moment of your time for a lonely man or woman.

 

Wishing you all peace on earth, good will to men now and always!

May each of you find a full heart that comes from the warmth of giving.

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

You can't make this stuff up–Mary Fields–A Great American Character

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Trouble in Texas and Me

AND A GIVEAWAY OF MY VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS RELEASE…IF YOU READ THROUGH AND FIND OUT HOW!!!

We create characters for our books and we try so hard to make them fresh. Make them fun and interesting. Make them jump off the page. Sometimes we maybe go too far, make them too outrageous. Or maybe we hold back. Maybe we feel like, because we write fiction, our stories have to make sense.

And then we read about someone who really lived and realize the west was full of real characters. I think the west was for the strong. If you were tough enough you could be anything you wanted to be. And a case in point is the woman I want talk about today.

Mary Field
Mary Fields

Mary Fields

A friend, Cathy Richmond, is always on the lookout for fun stuff she knows I”d be interested in and for some reason that seems to mainly amount to her sending me links to odd occurances concerning GOATS.

But this time she sent me a link to information about Mary Fields. Also known as Black Mary, Stagecoach Mary and she was called White Crow by Native Americans because they said she acted like a white woman even with her black skin.

This woman is truly an almost unbelievable character and if she wasn”t REAL, if an author made her up for a book, people would scoff. But Mary Fields really lived.

Born a slave in Tennessee in 1832 she was raised with her master”s daughter, Dolly, and learned to read. She was freed in 1865. Her lifelong friend Dolly had become a nun and asked Mary to join her at the convent. Mary worked with the nuns and considered casino online them her family but she never became one of them, that might be because Mary liked to drink whiskey and roll her own cigars. She was a crack shot and she also had excellent survival skills learned during the hardest days of the Civil War. She could grow a garden, hunt for food and she knew herbal medicine.

Dolly was given a new job as Mother Superior in Montana. Mary remained behind, not wanting any part of the wild west but later, when Dolly became ill, Mary headed for Montana to care for her friend. In 1885, at age 53, Mary became a woman of the west and found the perfect life for herself.

Many considered her a great addition to the convent but her rough manners also drew criticism. There were several complains and after an incident with a male subordinate that “ending in gunplay” she had to leave her beloved Sisters.

Her first job was to open a restaurant but Mary was a poor business woman. Too softhearted for her own good, she would feed anyone who was hungry whether they could pay or not. She went broke within a year.

It turned out that Wells Fargo was hiring. She got the job by hitching up a six horse team faster than any of the younger men who were applying. At the age of 60 Mary Fields became the first black woman and only the second woman to be hired as a stagecoach driver. She was given a treacherous route from Great Falls to Fort Benton, Montana delivering the mail. Mary delivered the mail along that route for nine years until the age of 69. She never missed a day of work.

Mary Field buggyShe became famous for her mule named Moses, the gun she carried, a pet eagle and the buffalo hide dress she”d made herself. She also delivered the mail to a young Gary Cooper who grew up in a home along her route and he wrote an article about Stagecoach Mary for Ebony Magazine in 1955.

Mary retired in 1901 and died in 1914 at age 82. One of the great characters of the west.

 AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!

Alaska Brides CollectionI just got my authors copies of Alaska Brides Collection. I have one book in this five book collection. It”s Golden Days, a formerly released book, my very first contracted book so it is very dear to my heart.

My publisher has gathered five romances set in Alaska into one book and made such a beautiful edition of it. This picture doesn”t do it justice. Foil lettering on the cover, deckled edges on the pages, that means kind of lacy, very pretty, and folded over covers on the front and back. A really lovely gift book. And today I”m having the first ever give-away. Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing…or

Click to buy Alaska Brides Collection HERE

WASHING CLOTHES IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS

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WASH DAY

Were you up before dawn to start the day’s wash? Neither was I, but let’s take awash tub - rub board
look back at the good old days. Had you lived in a log cabin at the turn of the
nineteenth century, you wouldn’t have had electricity to power the work. 

Wash day 2But after 1797, you might have had a scrub board to help you with the elbow grease. It’s said a man invented it, but I have an idea he got the idea from a woman who wasn’t interested in beating those rocks against each other in a cold stream.   

The first machine was made in 1851. But, of course, it was still hand operated, so the poor woman had to do all the work. (No wonder people wore their clothes until they smelled so bad they had to change them.)   

                        In 1874, a man wanted to give his wife a special present for her birthday so he created a machine that cleaned away the dirt. I admit in those days a washing machine would have been a lot more exciting gift than another flannel nightgown.

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The first electrical washing machine was invented in 1908 by the Hurley Machine Company. It was a drum type washer with a galvanized tub and was patented in 1910. Finally, the women who were lucky enough to afford the machine had an easier way of doing the laundry.  Thank goodness for electricity. The Frontier life sounds exciting in the cowboy romances, but it’s hard for me to imagine life without all my electric appliances. 

Still, a hunky cowboy would come in mighty handy. And speaking of hunky cowboys, my book, TRUMPED UP CHARGES, is still available. Please check it out. It’s available in digital and paperback and regular or large print.                           

Breath-stealing suspense. Heartwarming Romance

trumped-up cover

Reticules: A Woman’s Necessity

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Linda New SigFrom the beginning of time women needed a place to put personal things. And whether you call it a chanery, chatelaine, pocket, reticule, handbag or purse it became something a women couldn’t do without.

 

crocheted reticuleThe English called reticules “indispensables.” The French called them “ridicules” and mocked women who carried them.

 

An interesting thing is how very small they were in the beginning in the 1700’s. That was because way back then women rarely carried anything. If she went shopping a maid accompanied her and paid for all the purchases. A woman didn’t talk about money and heaven forbid she certainly didn’t HANDLE it.

 

So, visiting cards, a handkerchief, small bottle of perfume, or the ever-present smelling salts (because you never knew when you were about to keel over) were about all she needed to keep with her.

 

They were made of all sorts of things—silk, velvet, brocade, leather, straw, old doilies, handkerchiefs. You name it and it could be made into a reticule. And then there were the knitted and crocheted ones. Some had adornment and some were plain Jane.

Velvet Reticulebeaded reticuleFabric Reticle 

Usually reticules had a drawstring closure but not always. The two reticules below are mine and both have a chain handle.

Linda's Gold Sequined Purse                Linda's Reticule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my research, I ran across a notation about women of courting age spending large amounts of time embroidering their name and date on their reticule to show a potential husband her domestic skill. As though that would’ve certainly sealed the deal. Too funny.

Today’s purses are all shapes and sizes and made out of anything you can imagine. Some are inexpensive and some would require me taking out a loan to buy.

 

And Lord at the things we carry in them!

Just don’t ever ask me to crochet or knit one. This girl is not very domestic.

 

What about you? What kind of purse do you favor?

What It’s Like to Love a REAL Cowboy by Jean Brashear

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(See note below for info on a giveaway!)

Hello, Jean Brashear here.  I’m a fifth-generation Texan who grew up in a family of ranchers, and one of my most treasured possessions is five pages of reminiscences by my great-grandmother, Nannie Jowell, who was born in 1860. I’m part of a just-released boxed set collection of five full-length novels called LOVE ME SOME COWBOY, and all of us adore our fictional heroes—but here is a slice of what it was like to love a REAL cowboy…the first sentence says it all.;) 

“While we lived in Palo Pinto County, I met Jerry Jowell who was interested in cattle and was never interested in anything else. 

We married January 10, 1883 and moved to his place near Strawn.  The house was a big log one with a hall between the rooms and the kitchen and dining room were built of lumber on the north.  There was a porch on the south.  There were two of the big rooms built of logs.  We kept cattle and farmed a little.  That was all the farming that we ever did.  We raised grain and corn.  We moved to the town of Strawn, and Jerry gathered a bunch of his cattle and drove them to Kansas City.  He left in May and was gone about three months.  The cattle turned out fine.  As a rule they generally got good prices them days. 

When Jerry got back, he went on west to Midland to dig wells so the cattle could have water.  They used windmills, but when the wind didn’t blow they were run by horsepower.  He ran his cattle on the open range.  Everybody’s cattle ran together.  His brand was JT at first and mine was O Tail Q.  We didn’t brand the old cows—just branded the calves in our own brand.  After finding water for the cattle, Jerry gathered up the cattle and took them out between Midland and Carlsbad.  I don’t remember how many calves we branded a year.  I was too busy taking care of my kids and doing the cooking. 

When Jerry got water for the cattle in the spring of 1886, we moved to Midland which was just a small place in the road.  The Texas Pacific Railroad had just gone through.  There was just one store.  Soon the nesters started coming in and kept coming in until we had to drive our cattle out from there to range—generally to the Pecos country.  It took all spring and summer to get the cattle out there. 

From then until 1900, when we came up here, we had ranches at different places.  We had to move to get grass and water for our cattle.  We had just common cattle and finally graded them up.  At first we had many that were long horned. We lost so many that year that we moved up here.  I don’t know how many there were.  We moved to the M-Bar Ranch with our cattle until we got more water and then moved to a location between the JAL Ranch and Muleshoe. 

We lived in a tent all this time, mind you.  We were looking for water.  We had to put the cattle where there was water until we could get water somewhere else.  We had a large tent.  We cooked and eat out on the prairie.  We burned mesquite roots and cow-chips.  I had nothing to do with the fuel part.  Mr. Jowell and the cowboys tended to that.  We had cow-chip ashes in the coffee—but I guess they were purified after being burned.  We got our supplies out of Midland which was about seventy miles.  They got supplies from Pecos when they were working cattle in the valley. 

Then we moved to Monument Springs.  There was an old rock house—no telling when it was built.  There were springs there.  It had been used as a camping place of Indians when they were on their raids, before I was there, of course.  The corrals were even made of rough rocks.  We lived in the old rock house.  It was just one great big room.  I cooked and ate in one end of it and slept in the other.  It had two doors and one window.  Our furniture was mostly soap boxes.  Sometimes we had chairs and sometimes we didn’t.  We had wooden bedsteads, feather beds and mattresses.  We generally had plenty to sleep on when we had a place to put it.  The cowboys slept on the ground.  We had a common cookstove—not a range.  We used coal oil lanterns for lighting purposes. 

At Midland when Nannie and Charlie, my children, were small, I used to put them on an old mule to let them hunt bird nests in the mesquite so I would not have to watch them so close to keep snakes from biting them—rattlesnakes and sidewinders.  Later when we moved to Martin, I put Roy, the youngest boy, on old Jen to protect him, too.  Old Jen was a dandy.  She raised all the kids.  That’s a fact.  Nobody but them and me about the place—I would go bridle old Jen and put the kids on her so I could go about my work and they would be safe.  They never fell off though sometimes I was afraid they would because when that old mule saw a snake in her path, she always stopped suddenly, and then turned around and trotted off in the opposite direction. 

Nights when we were alone I didn’t sleep much.  I was afraid a snake might come crawling in and bite one of the children. 

When we were living in that tent near the sand hills, Mrs. Vaughn, whose husband worked with mine, was living in another tent not far from mine.  I often visited her and her children. 

One day I looked out and saw two bulls fighting.  It was not an unusual sight, but it scared me because they kept fighting toward my tent.  I took my kids and left for Mrs. Vaughn’s tent.  From there we watched those bulls fight.  They fought and fought and finally ran into my tent and tore it up badly.  They broke and tore up everything in the tent.  I feared most for my cookstove.  I just knew it would be ruined so I couldn’t fix it to cook on.  It was knocked down and scattered about, but we found that nothing was broken.  We put it together and I cooked supper on it.” 

I love cowboys, as we all do…but I feel incredibly privileged to come from women with grit like this!

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USA Today bestselling Texas romance author Jean Brashear’s family home now resides in the Ranching Heritage Center at  Texas Tech.

She once couldn’t wait to see her small Texas hometown in her rearview mirror…and she now appreciates the irony that she has grown to love cowboys, country music and those eccentric characters who bring small towns to life!

Visit her website at www.jeanbrashear.com

 

Jean and four other authors have joined together to present a collection of five full-length novels featurning rugged cowboys.  The collection is titled Love Me Some Cowboy and is being offered for a steal of a deal – only 99 cents!  And for one lucky commenter today, Jean is offering a choice of EITHER a coupon good for obtining a copy of one of her ebooks or a physical copy of one book from her most recent Harlequin trilogy.

LOVE  ME  SOME  COWBOY

In Nothing But Trouble by USAToday Bestselling Author Lisa Mondello, city girl Melanie Summers must spend an  entire month alone in the Wyoming wilderness with sexy rodeo cowboy, Stoney Buxton, without getting into trouble.  Possible?   Not a chance in the world! 

 USAToday Bestselling Author Jean Brashear adds Lone Star flavor with Texas Secrets.  Boone Gallagher returns to the only home he’s ever known only to find it’s been willed to a sexy stranger who’s intent on leaving.  He must keep her there for thirty days or it will be lost to them both. 

Love romantic reunion stories?  Then USAToday Bestselling author Barbara McMahon has the perfect book for you!  Crazy About a Cowboy brings you Sam and Lisa Haller, who divorced for all the wrong reasons.  Now Sam wants his ex-wife back for all the right ones. 

Once Upon a Cowboy by USAToday Bestselling author Day Leclaire introduces Cami, a lovable, greenhorn spitfire determined to become a cowboy, despite the objections of her sexy rancher boss. 

And last, but far from least, Waldenbooks bestselling author Ginger Chambers offers a heartwarming treat with Love, Texas, in which Cassie Edwards returns to the hometown she’d forsaken to negotiate the sale of land belonging to the Taylor family. Hard-working rancher Will Taylor, once her girlhood crush, is all man now and fighting hard to save his heritage. When attraction flares, will true love triumph?

Petticoats & Pistols