Prostitutes coming to the the Pearl
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March 13, 2013 |
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Melinda
Strobel |
When thinking of the pioneers who settled our
part of the west, most conjure images of Fred
Thompson, explorer and mapper, or Lewis and
Clark. You don't think often of "shady ladies,"
but their stories helped shape who we are.
"Western Women: Pioneers and Prostitutes," will
open your eyes.
The live, one-woman performance by Melinda
Stroebel, on stage at the Pearl Theater at 7
p.m. Tuesday,
March 19, will introduce you to some amazing
women, from pious nuns to brazen hussies, each
of whom left a lasting legacy in shaping the
American West.
A composite presentation, Strobel never leaves
character, though she plays many. Even in the
narration, setting each scene and locale by
which to introduce another amazing lady of a
bygone era, she evokes the amazing spirit of the
age, of the struggles of women in that era and
of the various ways they faced danger and helped
tame the wild west.
You'll meet Sister Loyola, a Belgian-born nun
who traveled to the U.S. in 1844, made an
overland journey to what is now St. Paul,
Oregon, and set up, with five other nuns, a
school for girls, teaching the refined arts of
reading, writing, sewing cooking and laundry in
a place where any sense of refinement was rare.
"... We do not fear," this brave woman said,
"for we realize that Divine Providence is
watching over us. We kill snakes and chase wild
cattle as you would brush aside a fly."
 Then
there's Charley Parkhust, a girl born in 1812
who grew up working in a livery stable and
learned to drive.
Hers weren't the sleek sedans we enjoy today,
but a rougher sort of transport; two-, four- and
even six-horse teams of often recalcitrant
animals strapped by leather and controlled by
reins to transports ranging from a simple dray
to the semi of the day, the overland stage
coach. Coming to California in 1850, she made a
name for herself driving through rain, mud and
rough country.
"Charley was a great whip," A.N. Judd said.
"When HE pulled into the old Nebraska House with
a beautifully-equipped 20-passenger Concord
coach drawn by six mustangs, it was an inspiring
scene indeed."
There's no record what Mr. Judd may have said
had he known Charley was of the gentler gender.
 Then
there's Margaret Hall, as born in Dublin in
1853, who landed on the U.S. shore in New York
with her family 20 years later.
Unable to find work, she turned to prostitution
and made her way west, landing in Murray, Idaho,
at the start of the 1884 gold rush, now known as
"Molly."
She could cuss with the best of them, then turn
around and deliver a quote from Shakespeare or
the Bible.
On her way over Thompson Pass on her way to
Idaho, in winter, she is purported to have saved
a stranded woman and child; when a smallpox
epidemic hit the camps in 1886, Molly B'Dam, as
she was by then known, organized the effort to
care for the sick, and though she died of
tuberculosis January 17, 1888, age only 34 or 35
(a question still in dispute), she's still
remembered every year during Murray's Molly
B'Damn Days.
 Bethenia
Owens married one of her father's farmhands at
14, had a baby boy, George, at 16 and divorced
her abusive husband at age 19, an event frowned
upon in an era when women had little stature and
few rights.
Instead of succumbing to the stigma, Bethenia
Owens, who later married again, though saddled a
growing child, went to school. After her
achievements in grammar school gave her passage
to normal school, the college of the day, she
parleyed her academic success to graduate school
... the only one progressive enough to admit a
woman, let alone one "fallen," and she earned
the right to attend the Eclectic Medical College
of Pennsylvania in 1874.
She earned a second medical degree in 1880 from
the University of Michigan to become the first
female doctor to treat patients in Washington
and Oregon.
George became a doctor, too, and left a legacy
of his own, thanks to his Mom, Dr. Bethenia
Owens-Adair.
Call them what you will, brand them with a
stigma gained fair or ill, the women Strobel
portrays in "Western Women: Pioneers and
Prostitutes" are amazing, and an indelible part
of who we are today.
Sponsored by the Boundary County Library and
presented by the Idaho Humanities Council,
Stroble's performance is free and open to the
public. The doors and the Pearl Cafe, 4160
Ash Street, Bonners Ferry, open at 6 p.m. |
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