Kaitlene Dee

America Newton – Successful Western Businesswoman and a Giveaway!

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This week, we’re so happy to welcome Tina Dee! She’s been here many times and her posts are always so interesting. Plus, we love her to death. 

In 1869, gold was discovered by an African American rancher and former slave, Fred Coleman in a creek on his property, which started Julian, California’s gold rush. The town became a tent city, practically overnight, with men and families moving in to stake their claims and strike it rich—or make money off those who hoped to. Quickly, this small gold mining town, located in the Cuyamaca mountains, rivaled the city of San Diego in number of residents. It also boasted up to eleven saloons, and only one small jail house featuring two small cells in the middle of town, no office, just the two cells, no frills.

During this rough and rowdy time, one woman, in particular, stood out. Her name was America Newton (1835 – 1917). An African American pioneer, she was one of the earliest Africa American settlers in the area and helped to found the former mining town of Julian. Formerly from Kansas, where she worked for James Cole, America came to California in 1872 with her daughter and ran a laundry service for miners and residents of Julian, though she could neither read nor write.

America, a former slave, operated her laundry business servicing Julian’s population during its gold rush days. She became of the first African American woman to operate a business in the area.

Water for the laundry was obtained by carrying buckets of water from a nearby creek. She heated her irons by the fireplace, which she kept burning by chopping and carrying her own wood. James Cole supplied her with a horse and buggy, which she drove around town to deliver the clean clothes to residents and gold miners. It’s said that she was right hospitable to those who picked up their laundry from her cabin, serving them a drink and a bit of local gossip, no extra charge. Folks enjoyed her friendly and talkative nature.

The Cole family helped America file to own a homestead of 80 acres outside of Julian. They also built her a cabin next to their home. America lived in Julian for 50 years. It’s said that she had a hearing problem and used an ear trumpet to hear.

She had moved to a small, wild, western gold mining town in the mountains, so very far from where she had gained her freedom. As a former slave, widow, and single mother—and with a little help from her friends—she rose to become an entrepreneur in a time when being a woman, and one with black skin, made it hard to just exist. But not only had she existed, she thrived in the Wild West and was successful in her business venture. And, she made people feel good, not just in the fresh, clean clothes they wore, but because she could make them laugh while living a tough life under harsh conditions.

I think about America Newton often. She has the gumption a lot of my heroines are made of.

Just for fun: Please share about someone who has inspired you (family member, friend, or someone from your life, or from history). A winner will be chosen by one of the Petticoats & Pistols Fillies to receive a pretty coffee tumbler with lid (approximately $20 value).

Thank you all for joining me today! It’s always a treat to spend time with Petticoats & Pistols readers. I’ve made two stories free today and tomorrow. One from each of my pen names, each with a heroine I believe has that same gumption America Newton had:  

Kaitlene Dee: Falling for Tallulah

Tina Dee: Keeper of my Heart

Kaitlene Dee, aka Tina Dee, spends time daydreaming about western romances with spunky heroines who insist on having their own stories written, and the swoony cowboys who love them. She often rescues stray dogs and can’t wait to give a forever home to her next dog or two…or five. Kaitlene enjoys gardening, traveling, writing, watercolor painting, and hanging out with reader friends in her Facebook readers group or with her newsletter readers. She’s an avid coffee drinker—and don’t even think about getting between her and a bear claw pastry. Follow her for updates on upcoming releases on Amazon or for many upcoming freebies, giveaways, and fun on her newsletter, here: Join Kaitlene & Tina Dee’s Newsletter

Kaitlene Dee Tells About Traveling Food, Covered Wagons, and Romance!

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Get ready for a fun time. This week, the Fillies are entertaining Kaitlene Dee aka Tina Dee and she’ll talk about covered wagons, the food they prepared on the trail, and some romance. She mentions a giveaway so don’t miss that.

In my new story, Grace, which is part of the Prairie Roses Collection, nineteen-year-old Grace loses her best friend and inherits her three-year-old daughter, Emma. It was her friend’s dying wish that Grace would raise Emma because the little girl is without any other family.

Adam begrudgingly comes to the rescue of Grace and Emma with a marriage of convenience proposal—and together, they set out to help an elderly couple of sisters move their tea shop business from one town to another in a covered wagon to carry the sisters’ precious bone china and heirloom cabinet. They head from northern California to southern California. What should only take two to three weeks travel time turns out to be a much longer trip, ripe with danger and disaster. In all this, Grace and Adam find out how much they must trust in God as He guides them into discovering that they truly need one another.

Personally, I love outdoor cooking, and writing this story was fun with all the cooking that goes on in it. I enjoyed researching foods pioneers packed and ate for their journeys. Guidebooks made suggestions to hopeful travelers on things to pack in their provisions.

But most interesting to me, was the spices. Some were used for medicinal purposes, as well as for flavoring. Some curatives that were packed were: Cinnamon bark for the relief of diarrhea and nausea and to aid against digestive issues, cloves for its antiseptic and anti-parasitic properties, and nutmeg or mace, which were used for tonics. (FoodTimeline.org –an awesome and fun resource! They refer to Randolph B. Marcy’s A Handbook for Overland Expeditions, a valuable resource manual for those traveling west).

Some folks also packed potable meat (cooked meat packed tightly into a jar, then covered with some sort of fat such as butter, lard, or maybe tallow and then sealed), and portable soups, desiccated dried or canned vegetables, powdered pumpkin, and dried fruits. These were a surprise to me since, prior to research, I pretty much thought their only options were beans, cornmeal mush, biscuits, bacon, flour, milk if they had a cow, and eggs.

On their journey, Adam used oxen to pull the covered wagon because they were strong, dependable, and able to do well on less abundant food sources. It was fun researching about wagons as well. I didn’t know the wagons carried a pail of pitch under the wagon bed. But discussing covered wagons is for a future post.

The story of Grace is a Christian marriage of convenience, pioneer romance set in the western frontier and is part of the multi-author Prairie Roses Collection. All books in the series are stand-alone stories and can be read in any order. Not all of the stories are set on the Oregon Trail, some travel across state or from one state to another, but all of the stories are romances that occur while on their covered wagon journeys. They are in Kindle Unlimited and are also available for ebook purchase on Amazon.

Next spring, I’ll be contributing two more stories to the Prairie Rose Collection. The stories will be ripe with adventure, romance, and food and I’ll make sure they satisfy your Old West reading cravings.

What kind of food would you pack to bring on a journey like this? Anything special?

Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for an ebook copy of GRACE

Kaitlene Dee lives on the west coast, enjoys outings along the coast and in the nearby mountains, hiking, supporting dog rescues and outdoor cooking and camping. She also writes contemporary western Christian romances as Tina Dee. Kaitlene and Tina’s books can be found on Amazon.

Please feel invited to join my newsletter at and receive a free story: Kaitlene & Tina Dee’s Newsletter

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Kaitlene Dee: Apples and Gold in California

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The Fillies welcome Kaitlene Dee to our little neck of the woods. She has some fascinating history of an old mining town that she built a story around. Scroll down for her giveaway.

Thank you for having me. I have always been fascinated with small towns, especially ones with a place in history and one such town is Julian, California, which is an official California Historical Landmark. This small mountain town was the only place in San Diego County to have its own gold rush in the late 1860s, early 1870s.

Julian started as a small mining camp that was set up virtually overnight, shortly after Fred Coleman discovered placer gold at a creek in the area in 1869. Many miners rushed to stake their claim at the creek. The summer of 1872 would’ve seen the miner population grow to about 300, the tented mining camp had grown into a bustling town of 50 houses, 4 stores, a couple of restaurants, a schoolhouse, and nearly a dozen saloons.

Later, when the placer gold dried up, the town still survived because of hard rock mines that continued on and yielded nearly $5 million dollars in gold ore.

Julian’s climate also made it ideal for growing orchards, specifically apples. Mr. James T. Madison first brought apple trees to Julian in the early 1870s. Eventually, ranchers moved cattle onto the rolling hills and ranched in the mountain area.

Today, Julian is known for its apple pie festival in the fall (and the aroma of baked apple pie fills the air throughout the town), as well as the numerous cozy, romantic bed & breakfast inns dotting the outskirts of the town.

Currently, a couple of the hard rock mines can still be toured, and the town boasts the fascinating Julian Pioneer Museum with many incredible pieces from history.

Is it obvious that I absolutely love this town? What I haven’t touched on is how amazing the people who made Julian were—and they made it rich in history. These founders and citizens are the true treasure of Julian. For instance, Julian’s first mayor, was in trouble with the residents after a dance at the town hall. During the dimly lit evening dance, the babies were all sleeping in a very dark room, where the mayor went in and switched all the babies around, so the families of the town didn’t discover, until the next morning, that they’d each brought home the wrong baby. Silly mayor!

There is too little space here to share more about them, but they have inspired my heart to write an entire series called the Brides of Willow Creek series (currently, 8 of 10 novels are either written in rough draft or heavily plotted). Originally, the series was to be called the Brides of Julian Creek, but I had to change the name with my new penname for historicals (vs the contemporary westerns I write). The first book, Josina, will release in December 2022 (though the pre-order will have a temporary release date of 3/2023).

As the first book in Brides of Willow Creek series, Josina is about a young lady who is helping friends run their store while the owner’s wife is bedridden. A miner places an order for a rocker cradle for his placer mining work and she mistakenly orders a baby cradle. The encounter between them, when she goes to right the wrong, is hilarious and full of growing romantic tension.

Josina has only a sister, who is currently serving time at a women’s prison for cattle rustling, which has left Josina to fend for herself. When help arrives from the store owner’s family, Josina sets off for adventure and to make things right with the customer, Henry. He turns out to be a handsome grump with an old prospector sidekick who befriends Josina and seems bent on helping her find the adventure her heart’s looking for by way of matchmaking her to the handsome but cranky Henry.

A lighthearted, Christian mail-order bride romance set in gold mining town of Willow Creek, Josina is part of the Brides of Willow Creek series. All books in this historical Christian romance series are stand-alone novels and can be read in any order.

For a chance to win a signed paperback of Josina, please leave a comment

on the trope you love best in historical fiction.

Order your copy of Josina and read how a gold miner discovers a treasure worth more than her weight in gold—the zany lady with her blonde curls and uncontainable adventurous spirit! Pre-order your copy of Josina, available at the special pre-order price of 99 cents for a very limited time only! Order HERE

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Kaitlene Dee lives on the west coast, not far from Julian CA, and writes contemporary Christian romances as Tina Dee. Kaitlene and Tina’s books can be found on Amazon.

Please join my newsletter at: Kaitlene & Tina Dee’s Newsletter

As a thank you, you’ll receive a sampler containing the first couple of chapters for the first 4 books in the series—yes, it’s just a teaser but I hope it will whet your whistle to give my new series a chance for a place in your reading stack.