Women of the Land

Museums can tell us a lot about the people who came before us. It is in museums we find material things, owned, used, and even crafted by the women and men of earlier times. Historians are beginning to focus on the contributions that women have made to the settling of the Southwest and to shaping the economy in the cultures of that region. These women stitched and baked, dried food, canned, churned, raised their children, but they also plowed and planted, soden-reaped, and even roped and branded, anything to keep hearth and home together. Sometimes they sold eggs, cheese, and butter, traded or bartered labor, even went to town to take a job. Over the years, these women of the land have maintained time-honored traditions, but they've also led in changing their communities. Authority on rural women and Professor of History

Dr. Joan Jensen introduces us to some women of the land who have played a pioneering role in their families and communities. This is a typical metropolitan newsroom. Here reporters, editors, and type-setters, all-paid employees work to get the news out to the local community. But in a small northern New Mexico town, the process is vastly different. In the tiny village of Cuba, northwest of Santa Fe, a group of rural women have been putting out a community newspaper for over 29 years. They don't get paid and they have

no bosses. They're all volunteers, but this small group of dedicated women has gained national attention in other publications and on network TV. From NBC News, this is today. The women who put out the Cuban news don't think of themselves as a newspaper woman. None of them have journalistic training. Only one can type. In 1963, the women of the Panista Ha Homemakers Club grew tired of bake sales to raise money for their community projects. Some they decided to publish a newspaper, one that would carry the local news to their community and to people elsewhere in the military service or those working in some distant city. Since that time, the ladies of the club have been putting out their monthly newspaper regularly, come rain her shine. Well, almost always. Once the typist got snowed in and couldn't come in from the mountains, they still published that edition, although it was a few days late that month. The Cuba news is as historic

as the old hotel where the paper is put together. I don't know why they named me as an editor, but they did. We carried on. First, at one rundown building, and seconded another worn out building, and then in a building with absolutely no heat. My son brought an oil blower that he used in heating things. As that would run, why it would chase us all out because of the smell from the oil burning. Then when that cleared out, we'd go back into the cold building again without a floor in it. We'd work a while on the paper, and then we'd have to clear out again, go somewhere and get warm. Then a club member who was a very active member, Mrs. Annie Parsons, suggested that they start working on the paper at her home. They moved everything over there. For several years, the paper was put together at her home.

Mrs. Parsons passed away a few years ago, and I suggested that they start working on the paper here. In the meantime, I had closed the hotel part of this building, and I told the club members that they would be perfectly free to use a room here. There would be no charge, whatever. That has gone on since then, I would say, I don't know, seven or eight or nine years, something like that. The ladies who published the Cuban news also get letters, and according to the current editor, they're not always favorable. There's always someone complaining, but mostly they are pleased that right in. Like its big city cousins, the Cuban news sells ads to cover its cost. I need to collect for a last month's ad in the Cuban news and see what kind of an ad you want for the current month. But like so many other things in this small mountain town, there's a more personal touch to the process. Because the Cuban news is a community paper,

the ladies do their best to meet the needs of the area. We don't deal with national or international things too much. We have too much right here. We have the farmers, the livestock people, mining, timber industry, and things pertaining to those and our schools and our churches. We carry articles on those things. And I think this is one thing that keeps the paper going. It makes it so popular. There are drawbacks to an all-volunteer operation. Even though the Cuban news is only a monthly, deadlines are a problem. People are supposed to get their stuff in by the deadline, but they don't. And they bring stuff here to the hotel. They leave it at one of the merchants, or they take it to one of the other stores. And we pick it up there and it comes in forms like this or little

notes or nothing. They just say, you write something about which gets you to be kind of a pain. And then we type it and we glue it in. Peggy makes the ads. Kathy might get the ads. Georgia Acre calls the people and reminds them first. Somehow I don't know what comes together. The paste up is sent by bus to the city of Farmington for printing. The paste up heads north one night and comes back the next. With the help of the bus drivers, the operation runs as smoothly as if the printing were done just down the street. When the finished papers return from Farmington, the volunteer set up shop a half a block away in the home of a club member. There they stick on the labels that carry the news to interested readers all over the country. Then the ladies of the

club go back to their other jobs, their ranches, their husbands and children until next month when they'll start all over again. And it's a process that's likely to continue for a good long while. Or I'm only 85 and I have an idea that it will still be going after I go to the great beyond. The orno and outside oven seen in many parts in New Mexico is the source of the tasty fresh Indian bread that New Mexicans and visitors enjoy so much. South of Albuquerque at his letter Poeblow, Margaret Hojola still bakes her bread in this time honored tradition. They say it's about almost 300 years old and when the Spaniards found us, it's a time

that the church was built by the Spaniards. That's what my grandma grandpa used to say because they died when they were over 100 years old. Both of them were grandpa and my grandma. So they used to tell us how the Spaniards came and found us and how they used to force them to go into that religion. But we have our own traditions. Baking bread is one of Margaret Hojola's traditions, her ties to the past. She still stalks the orno behind her atobi home to bake bread for tribal ceremonies and other festive occasions. I use that maybe once out of a month. Just when we have to bake in quantities, we use our home. So much bread goes in there, especially in a big one. Holes almost about 50

lose and we can bake 50 lose at one time. The fire is going when we start making our bread because the bread has to rise, whatever, maybe putting the pies together and the sweet bread together. So in the meantime, that hornet is going on full force and we just know when it's ready, it gets real white. When you first start it turns black and then when it gets real hot, well, it starts getting white and that's a time well. By that time the bread is rising and everything is made. So we just rake that fire out from the oven and put our bread in as much as we can. Margaret has worked with pottery and weaving and is currently devoting much of her time to creating the intricate and beautiful clothing used by the women and men for the poeblos

many ceremonials. Before her husband's death, Margaret made many of the traditional costumes he wore as the governor of the poeblow. She says that keeping the traditions alive is a difficult task. Right now we try to encourage our children to talk their language and take part in their dances but lately we've been losing our languages now to our children aren't talking their language anymore like they used to but we encourage them to take part in whatever we're supposed to do and keep on the tradition because if they don't keep it up, we're going to lose our tradition. Well Margaret does what she can to pass along the culture of her tribe. She has broken with tradition. She is a charter member of and leader in the North American Indian Women's

Association which works to promote the interests of Indian women. We have a preamble. It says we North American Indian women with quite dignity and pride in her with a racial heritage unite with a determination to promote through unity at purpose the general well-being of Indian people. Margaret does what rural women often do so well. She is passing on her traditional culture but also willing to do what it takes to survive in a modern world and maintain her independence. I've tried to keep myself busy all the time and not to think that I'm aging, that I'm up there now and that I live comfortable. I've got everything I want in the home and I go after everything that I can meaning I don't have to depend on my kids. I still do

everything for myself. Like most New Mexico towns the village of Vato just south of Las Cruces is racially integrated but this small Macia Valley community didn't start out that way. In the 1920s a group of African American pioneers settled here along the banks of the Rio Grand. They came to farm and to build a town where they could control their own destiny. The settlement flourished and by the 1930s it boasted two Baptist churches that were filled every Sunday morning and every year on June 19th the entire community turned out to celebrate a emancipation day with a barbecue. Gussie Mae became part of this tight-knit community when she moved to Vato in the 1930s. Over the years she has proven to be a community leader in every sense of the word. Gussie Mae's knack for bringing people together often led to the solution of various community problems.

When there was a concern in the town about the lack of schooling for black children Gussie Mae organized an ice cream social for the entire community and invited the school superintendent. After she discussed the matter with him at the social the superintendent announced that the new school was to be open to everyone. Almost 60 years later the Vato community, the Baptist church and her family are still the cornerstones of her life. To give up a certain type of life to live a Christian life we can't bother with joy. Since I was 15 years old which have been a long long time and I never failed to go to church. I go other places and do other things maybe but I didn't fail to go to church. I like it. I love it. It's a part of me. I was in large church in California. There were so many people 2000 and all that kind of people in church. But maybe you'd be there I never see you. You know what I mean? I don't like that. I like people and just

too many people for me to watch in other words I can't see them all. I get a small church I think see them all. I know what's happening. Gussie Mae was born in Pittsburgh, Texas in 1905 and moved to Vato with her parents in the 1930s. Gussie left home to work in Los Angeles but often came back to Vato to visit her family. On one of those trips she met Lester Brady, Farmer, Deputy Sheriff and a widower with eight children. Lester was one of the Vato pioneers who came from the Mississippi as a cotton picker. He worked 12 years to save enough money to buy his own farm and was a community leader when Gussie decided he was the man for her. They married and were together for 47 years. Well we knew about it all the time because he was always telling us about it and then we knew about coming back as a force. You know we was getting around. So we thought a lot of her. We didn't, my mother was passed in now 33 and so he had all of us eight children

to raise by himself and we done pretty good at it. So when he said he wanted to get mad well we couldn't you know stop his pleasure because it's just time for us to move on. So we were glad that he got mad and had somebody to be here with him because well my two brothers was gone getting ready to go to the army. Then my baby sister, she's getting ready to move out so he's been by herself anyway. So we loved the way she's real nice. Always has been just like she's. Family and community are still a big part of Gussie's life. Every year members of the Boyer clan, the largest black family in New Mexico hold a reunion, drawing family members from all across the country. Though Gussie is not a boyer, her sister married into the family and as one of the oldest residents in the community, she's still an honored guest. Like so much of life in this small community, the three day get together is centered in one of the local Baptist churches when the reunion is held in Vado. Several members

of her family have tried to convince Gussie to leave Vado and her sister recently asked her to return to California. But Gussie replied it was too crowded in California and the wide open spaces of southern New Mexico will always be her home. Since the days of Anasazi water has been the lifeblood of agriculture in New Mexico, the Pueblo Indians were the first to tap into the powerful rivers that crisscross the state, diverting the life giving water to their fields. The early Spaniards followed their lead and for centuries the Rio Grande and other rivers have been the lifeline of small, Hispanic farms. Tanita and Valentina Archuleta have farmed along the San Juan River in the northwest part of the state since their marriage in 1945. Tanita was born on a New Mexico farm in the 1920s, but unlike the rest of her family, including

her twin sister, Tanita couldn't work in the fields because she had contracted polio. Still, she grew up with an appreciation for the land and fell in love with a man who shared her dream of working the land. That dream was put on hold after Valentina was captured by the Japanese at Bhutan and became a prisoner of war. Her faith kept her going until he returned, and they settled on their farm near Blanco. Like most rural women, Tanita found that running a farm is a partnership. I worked with my husband out in the farm day in and day out. He ran one tractor and I ran the other. And I would, of course, when the kids and the girls got a little older of course they took care of the younger boys. Of course, I spent a lot of time out in the field with him because my husband was a prisoner of war from the Japanese and he came home. He was, he'd never been healthy after he got home. So that triggered me more to

help him out in the farm more than I would have otherwise. Valentina believes in self-sufficiency and she and her husband still grow everything they eat except coffee and sugar. I grow all my vegetables, my berries and of course my flowers, whatever I have in my garden, I can. I never buy any vegetables in the stores of any kind. I can all, all I have in my garden. That's together with fruit, with berries, grapes and everything that's around here. I never have much leisure time other than my whole, my garden and my fruit trees. Every year her garden produces more than enough vegetables for her to can for the entire

year. And because the weather in northern New Mexico can be fickle, she cans enough fruit for five years when they have a good crop. Her skills as a homemaker, as well as her work on the farm, won her a place as an exchange homemaker to Panama. There she showed other Hispanic women how to garden, can and prepare food. And to the surprise of the Panamanians, language wasn't a problem. They'd be peeping around the corners to see me, to get a glance of me when I was coming and says, here comes a gringa, here comes a gringa. And it was really amazing for me because I was, they thought that I was only talking English and they were not going to understand me. But when the, when the first thing I did when I get out, I'd greet them and say hello in Spanish and boy you shouldn't see their faces light up because I did, they did understand me and I understood, of course I understood them.

But Tonita couldn't wait to get back to Blanco, her family, her garden and her flowers. Tonita looks after her flowers with the same loving care she used to raise her children and help her husband, but it hasn't always been easy. I somehow has been coming through the kitchen, I was making lunch, so I'm coming through the kitchen with the pruners on his hand and I just wondered what he was going to do when he got out here. Well, I was busy in the kitchen. I didn't, I couldn't get out to see what he was doing. So when I came out here, there was a pile of brush, whatever, here on the sidewalk and my, my bush was completely almost. If I wouldn't have come at the time that I came, I think he would have just cut it completely. Boy, I tell you that man or mine is, is something. For women like Tonita, Archileta, survival depends on adapting the traditional ways of her culture to a modern world. New Mexico has always been a place where cultures meet

and blend and women have been able to select from each what they need to survive. Pioneer women have always been good at that, adapting and making do, but there was nothing in the life of Mercedes-Lorenza to prepare her for the dramatic changes and that has made her a different kind of pioneer. Mercedes grew up on a ranch in Columbia, South America. Her widowed mother continued to live on the ranch after her father died, only two years after Mercedes was born. Mercedes was brought up in a typical upper-class life, learning proper etiquette and fine needlework at an all-girls Catholic school. When I was going up where it was very, very strict, they were very protective, were not allowed to go out by themselves. We attended schools for girls, boys attended school for boys, and we just simply did not interact as a sad, the only interaction with males would be with family members or close

friends, but no parties or anything, and school activities were separate also. So that was totally different from the States. Also that women are considered the keepers of the family honor, and if a girl did not behave herself in a very proper, lady-like manner, she would bring the son or the family, and it would be disgraceful to the entire family. With plenty of servants and vicaros, Mercedes didn't even work around the house, let a loan outside on the ranch. But that all began to change when a young American engineer was introduced to the young Colombian woman. Her American tutor courted her properly, sending her flowers for two months before their first date, and then never meeting her

loan. When Mercedes arrived in the United States as a young bride in the 1950s, her biggest challenge was learning about American life, and how to run a middle-class household without servants. Well, it was a little confusing because I did not speak English, and there was none of the people around spoke Spanish. So that caused some confusion because I did not understand. Especially the fact that I had to do all their housework and cooking and cleaning, and I didn't know how. And it wasn't just the matter of reading instructions or getting a cookbook, it's just because I couldn't read English, and so it was very difficult. My husband helped me a lot, he was very patient, and he knew how I had been on his own for a while, so he knew how to do some things. He taught me to make fried chicken and baked

potatoes and oatmeal, and how to put clothes in a washing machine, and he helped a lot. Mercedes did more than just learn the basics of running a household. She became such a good cook that she won the New Mexico beef cookoff in 1988, and then coached her daughter to the top beef cooking prize the next year. And her homemaking skills don't end in the kitchen. Mercedes is an accomplished seamstress and has won more than her share of awards at the State Fair. She also has strong opinions about the role of the family in her adopted country. I feel that this integration of the family, it's a big tragedy, that I see a lot of the young people that are just living for the moment with no plans for the future not being aware of anything, but their own needs of the moment. And that is, I don't think

that that's good. I feel that women had lost a lot of their dignity in their search for freedom and equality. We had lost our dignity and self respect, but I see a lot of the women doing things that I just rather died than lived that way. And I believe that women are very influential in society. And when we lost our, well, I should say, morality at the country lost morality, because we do have a tremendous power, even though it's been very subtle. Mary Ross Moore of Cofax County has had a life very different from that of Mercedes Lorenzo, and yet she too had a lot to learn when she married Rancher Landon Moore.

Today, 37 years after Landon's death, Mary and her daughter Alice still run the 35,000 acre ranch south of Raton. Active ranching has been common for many women of New Mexico and still is today. Wherever the survival of the family business has been at stake, women have learned to do it all. Mary Ross Moore was raised in the wide open spaces of Cofax County in Northeastern New Mexico, where cattle ranches are measured in sections, not acres. Mary grew up in the coal camps that once dotted the rugged maces and mountains of that area. And even as a young girl, she wanted to help the struggling families that worked the mines. We lived in a mining camp and went to school there, and we would, at recess, why we would go out in the yard, and there was a lot of rocks there, so we would

build a hospital, and of course I was the nurse. And we took the fish bone out of the halibut state, and we used that as a thermometer. And so I played nurse all the time, I guess I was in school, and that's the reason why I continued until I did graduate. Mary finished her nurse's training to return to the coal camps of Cofax County, but she was still learning skills that would help her throughout her life. I didn't know how to drive, but Miss Bruce said that she would loan me her car to come home to sugary over the weekend. And she showed me how to shift, but that's all I knew, and I drove very slow all the way home, but I made it up to sugary and went up the hill

to where we lived. And my folks liked to had a fit because I never, I didn't know how to drive, but I drove there and went back, and I got along all right, but that's my first lesson in driving. Mary was soon to put her new skills behind the wheel to good use. She became a county health nurse, driving the rough, rutted roads of the area to carry the latest in health care to more than 45 schools and to isolated families who were not always willing to listen. I was there, and we was getting dinner, and the father came in and said he had to go to town to get some black lake vaccine. And I thought, well, this is my chance. And so I said, oh, you don't need to go and get any vaccine. Yes, I do, because if I don't

those calves will die with black lake. And I then asked him, I said, well, about what about your children? Don't you think they'll die without being vaccinated for smallpox? Well, go ahead and vaccinate. So I got the two girls vaccinated for smallpox. Mary was to learn a lot more about cattle. She married Landon Moore, a third-generation rancher whose grandparents had homesteaded in the shadow of Eagletail Mountain. When they left Tennessee, they came as far as Dodge. And from Dodge City, Kansas, they came by oxen here to New Mexico. And Landon's mother was only three years old. They built a home back to this home to start out with, and it was three rooms. And it was a doby. When Mr. Moore would leave, why the Indians would come here. They were always afraid of

the Indians. But as long as they gave the Indians some tobacco, the Indians never bothered any of the family. But their route, you see, was from Oklahoma through here to Tows. And that was one of the biggest things that they had to put up with was the Indians coming through here. But they never did bother them. Mary took to ranch life like a duck to water, but found that education was just beginning. Working side by side with Landon, she quickly began to acquire the skills that she would need as a rancher's wife. We had a very good marriage. She was kind and always wanted me to go with him. And I went with him. And a lot of times he would come in, and I had bread mixed up. And so we just put it in the refrigerator, go on and go with him, and come back and make the bread

after we come back. But I always went with him, and I never regretted going with him all the time that we were together. Like many rural women, Mary discovered that her early training hadn't prepared her for everything she needed to know about running a household. You know one of the nice things that I had, we raised pigs. And when I would try to cook and fix things that didn't turn out very good, I'd take it out and feed it to the pigs. And then I'd start over again. And so I fed the pigs pretty good when I first started to cook. When Landon died in 1955, Mary and her daughter Alice found themselves with their hands full. But Landon had laid the groundwork for them to carry on. I was a senior in high school when he passed away. And there was, I guess, we just found

out how much we didn't know. We'd be in a senior while you think you know everything. Just find out how little you know, and we've been trying every sense. He always had me do all the orders as a feed and go and bar in the money. And I wrote the checks and I kept the books. And everybody thought I guess it was kind of funny that he never did go. But that's what he taught me to do. So when he passed away, well, it wasn't hard for either one of us because he taught us well. Mary likes to describe the ranch work as being inside and outside the gate. Inside the gate in the house is where she usually works. Outside the gate on the range is where her

daughter Alice is in charge. But at 87, Mary still makes a good hand helping out with the yearly roundup and pitching in at branding time. Although Mary and Alice do much of the work themselves, they've always needed extra hands and often hire men to help them with their large cow calf and quarter horse operation. Mary admits some men have trouble taking orders from a woman. When we first started, why men didn't like to work for women. And so I said, well, it belongs to us. So we're the ones going to have to, we didn't know what else to do, only run it. And so Alice has been running it ever since. Mary and Alice find themselves very busy with the daily operation of the ranch, but there are plenty of momentos around to remind both women of their place in the unique history of the area. But Mary doesn't dwell in the past, and she doesn't regret how she's spent

her life helping people and carrying on the work her husband started. I can't imagine me doing anything else since I was married. I had planned on, you know, going ahead and doing nursing. But after we were married, I, uh, specialed a lot of the ranchers, people around that were sick and wanted me to. But, uh, I have no regrets for being here on the ranch all these years. I've been very happy and had a very happy married life. And, and I've always done what I wanted to do and go wherever I wanted to go. And didn't have to ask anybody. Like Indian women who even make pottery and Hispanic women who crochet an embroider, they call it culture. Anglo women have also made a contribution to the beauty of pioneer

life. Quilt making is an art that has been passed on from mothers to daughters for generations, a way to make something both beautiful and practical. Eight eleven learned to quilt at eleven. And eighty years later, she's still at it. Eight eleven was born in East Texas and moved with her family to the West Texas frontier just after the turn of the century. At an early age, she learned the value of a well-made quilt. We would sit there and we'd listen to all ghost stories and things they had in our ideas, no televisions, telephones, no cars, and they had to do something for entertainment. So we would hear those old ghost stories then when we had to go off in the back room and go to bed. There's about three or four of us had to turn crosswise in the bed to sleep and maybe our feet sticking out from morning so the quilts is all made small in those days. They didn't have much to make them out of and I said then if I ever made quilts

by the way, there's going to be big enough to tuck in over people's feet. Even at ninety-five, Ada still lives on the windswept farm that she and her husband tiny homesteaded in nineteen thirty-five. The house she now lives in was built over the dugout that was her original home. Raised our family here and we had a folding table and we had to sit on the bed to eat off the folding table and we had folding beds. We had two beds in each room. Later, we built two more rooms onto the dugout and had two folding beds in each one of those. So it made it pretty nice. I remember one time before we got the ceiling in the dugout and we just had the pasteboard cartons for a ceiling. The sand had blown so much and we had a piano over in the corner and the sand had got in under the shingles and waited that pasteboard down and one day that broke and talk about it.

There's nearly a ton of dirt fell right down over that piano. That was a mess. Windstorms are not the only challenges that nature threw at Ada, but like other rural women, Ada did what had to be done. I killed seventeen rattlers right around this place. I learned to use the gun. I don't mean I'm an expert but I could use it and one time there's a coyote between here and the lot and I had chickens then. I decided Mr. Coyote didn't need to bother me so I just took the gun and I got him. I took it and tied it to the car and drug it up to the corner, hung it on the post. Somebody says, what do you do that for? I said, I want him to know for sure that I killed that coyote. They might think I was just telling them. Ada also learned to do just about everything else that was needed of pioneer women in those days and that included working in the fields as well as the home. Finally they bought a tractor and that was real nice to have a tractor and of course you can plow

more rows at a time and after they got the tractor I said, well I've done just about everything that was to do on a farm. I'd run a gold devil, I'd hold and pick cotton and headed mace and done just about everything but I said I believe I'll draw a line now and I'm just through with trying to do farm work so I quit at that. That allowed Ada to spend more time with her first love, quilting and over the years she has created a lot of quilts somewhere between seven and eight hundred and worn out several thimbles in the process. Ada still drives to visit friends attend club meetings and do her own shopping like many rural women who have done it all, Ada is proud of her independence.

I don't owe anybody anything and they don't owe me anything and I'm really not afraid. I feel like I'm about as safe as I would be in town. I don't have to pay for a dumpster to haul off the trash, I don't have to pay for water, I don't have to pay a house rent and nobody bothers me and I don't bother anybody else so it seems like it's pretty nice just as long as I can wait on myself. I sure don't want to be incapacitated till somebody has to wait on me but if it does I'll try to accept what I can't change and I think one thing in life is to try to like what you have to do instead of wanting to do what you like. The local community does its part to help Ada maintain her independence. The mail carrier does more than deliver the mail to Ada's isolated farm. She also checks in on Ada almost every day.

Ada still spends several hours every day working at her quilt frame. Over the years she's found people more than willing to buy or barter for her beautiful creations. Today she still sometimes sells quilts to pay her bills but she also gives many a way to people who need them and to those who appreciate their beauty. Quilting has been a big part of her life, like her love for the land and her faith. Good Lord, it's taken care of that, he's always been right by my side so I think it's just great to live the life I have and if I can go on and wait on myself another few years I'm going to keep trying. Museums have always held a fascination for those who want to know more about their past. And certainly museums will remain a traditional way to preserve the history of our culture and way of life.

But more and more people are discovering the living history still going on around us. And as a new generation of historians begins to document the contributions of women they'll find that history is still being written by the women of the land. Funding for the American Frontier is provided by the independent Order of Foresters, the family

fraternity whose members enjoy a full fraternal social life, benefits and security. She was born Margaret Tobin of Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of a ditch digger for the gas works. She dreamed of greater things in the life of a laborers daughter. It would be tough, but she would become one of the best known women on the American Frontier. Years after her death, Margaret Tobin would become celebrated as the unseicable Molly Brown. I'm Charlie Jones and this is Murdo Nelson. Charlie in 1886, Maggie, as she was called, almost all her life, followed her half-sister and brother to Lentville, Colorado. She'd accomplished her first goal, leaving Hannibal, Missouri and heading west. It was while working as a clerk in Daniel's Fisher and Smith's Drygood store on here as

an avenue in Lentville that she first met James Joseph Brown, manager of the Louisville Mine. And after a continued courtship, they were married. JJ, as he was usually called, prospered as a mine superintendent, but he really struck it rich in 1894 when he found gold, not silver, in the little Johnny mine. Gold was in great demand after the collapse of the silver market, and the grateful owners gave him a one-eighth interest in the mine. The little Johnny began to pay fantastic dividends, and with this money, the Browns left their clapboard home in Lentville, and moved to Denver, where they bought this $30,000 brown stone with granite trim house at 1340 Pennsylvania Avenue. This residence soon became known as the House of the Lions, because Mrs. Brown decorated the outside with four carved lions, two of which remained today. After they'd moved into this beautiful new home, Maggie became restless. She was no longer satisfied with being just a wife and a mother.

She wanted to be a woman of society, a real lady, and she approached this task as she did everything in her life with great energy. But then for times, reported a few years later that perhaps no woman in society has ever spent more time or money being civilized than Mrs. Brown. One thing you could see about Maggie is that she was tenacious. She hired tutors to teach her English, French, singing, and eloquition and deportment, and she began to travel extensively around the world, but invitations to her parties, though well attended, were almost always ignored by the elite. Maggie's love of clothing became legendary. She also developed a taste for expensive furs and jewels. She enjoyed dressing to the nines and parading past the windows of the massive Brownstone Denver Club in order to impress the distinguished members. Once when helping with the Catholic fair, Maggie came up with the idea that having some Indians set up their TPs on the Capitol lawn would add to the publicity of the event. The inimitable Mrs. Brown located some peaceful and agreeable Cheyennes, but as soon as they

made camp the irate legislatures, threw them off the grounds. Not to be undone by the politicians. Mrs. Brown invited the Cheyennes to pitch their tents on her front lawn and also on her backyard, and they tethered their ponies in the elegant co-chast. As news of this spread across town, droves of horseless curages descended on Pennsylvania Street to see what the impossible Mrs. Brown was up to now. It was just about this time that she began encouraging everyone to call her Molly, and she didn't think that Maggie was elegant enough, but it never stuck, and no one ever called her Molly Brown until after her death. Although she was not accepted by the majority of Denver society, which she started traveling in the east, she was quickly accepted by the Astres, Quittneys, and Vanderbilts into the upper crust of New York as well as Newport Road Island. In Europe, she was called the Uncrown Queen of Smart Parisian Society, but it still wrinkled her that Denver's old guard was not impressed. When its leaders crossed her trail in the capitals of Europe, they bowed coolly and moved on.

But her life changed dramatically on April 14th of 1912. She was a passenger on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. That night at 20 minutes to midnight, the ship hit an iceberg. Most reports indicated that there was no danger, but the captain lowered the lifeboats as a precautionary measure. Panic said him, when the Titanic began listing, and it was discovered that there was not enough room for everyone in the lifeboats. The women and children were given first priority, and Maggie found herself in a lifeboat with 25 women and only three men. She quickly volunteered to handle an or and found herself surrounded by cold, frightened and hysterical people, so she threw a weight against the or and shouted, let's sing. Maggie began singing loudly, and others joined in as they slowly pulled away from the stricken vessel. Cornermaster Hitchin had taken command of the lifeboat, but when he discovered that they were without food, water, or compass, he declared that all was lost. Maggie told him to shut up and row.

They were picked up about three hours later by the SS Carpathia, and Maggie threw her energy into nursing the sick and comforting her fellow passengers. Maggie was also concerned about the immigrant women on board who had lost their husbands. Through her knowledge of French and German and a smattering of other languages, she helped guide them into friendly hands and raised $7,000 to aid these destitute victims. When the Carpathia, Dr. New York, reporters streamed on board to talk to the survivors. Many credited Maggie's courage and leadership with the saving of their lives. When asked how she had managed the ordeal, she replied, typical brown luck, I'm unsinkable. After that, she became known to all as the unsinkable Mrs. Brown. The Titanic tragedy made Maggie a national celebrity. It was a role she was born to play. When she returned to Denver, she was greeted by reporters, well-wishers, and curiosity seekers. Telegrams and notes poured in from all over the world, complementing her on a bravery. Then came the accolade for which she had struggled for so many years.

The doors of Denver society swung wide open. For the unsinkable Mrs. Brown, those tall dreams that had run through her head for so many years before had finally reached their fulfillment. Not the American Frontier. Thank you. You

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