National Women's History Month - Colorado Women

 Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Buffalo Peaks in Colorado
from Wikipedia

March is National Women's History Month. As most of you know, I am fascinated by and have researched a lot about the early women in this county, especially those who were part of the westward expansion west of the Mississippi River. This is in no way a discount to those women who came to this country in the 1600s and 1700s. All women and men who had the courage to make something of their lives and create what we now have deserve to be remembered.

Here is a brief look at some of those early women in Colorado.

1. Martha Maxwell - Naturalist: Martha Ann Maxwell was born in Pennsylvania in 1831. She married widower James Maxwell, who had four children, in 1853. The couple moved to Colorado following the gold rush of 1859. It was while here that Martha began killing and stuffing her own animals. Her work was so lifelike, and her practice of posing them in their natural habitat was unique. Prior to her death in 1881, she wrote the book: "On the Plains and Among the Peaks or How Mrs. Maxwell Made Her Natural History Collection."

Martha Maxwell
Wikipedia

2. Mary Florence Lathrop - Newspaper Reporter, Lawyer: Born in Pennsylvania in 1865, she began her first career as a reporter in Philadelphia. She traveled the world as a reported, and after contracting tuberculous, she moved to Denver, Colorado. There, she attended the University of Denver, where she studied law and graduated in 1896. Her scores for the bar exam remained the highest for the Colorado Bar until 1941. She argued cases in front of the Colorado and US Supreme Courts. She was one of the first two women to be admitted to the American Bar Association in 1917.

Florence Mary Lathrop
Wikipedia

3. Dr. Rose Kidd Beere - Physician: Dr. Beere was born in Indiana in 1859. Her father was a military man stationed in the West after the War Between the States. She married Edmund Burke Beere, an attorney in Las Cruces, NM, in 1883 and had three sons. After the death of her husband, Dr. Beere moved to Chicago, where she studied medicine at Women's Medical College at Northwestern University in Chicago. She graduated in 1892 and moved to Durango, CO., where she practiced prior to moving to Denver. During the Spanish-American War, she went to Manilla with the Red Cross as a nurse since they wouldn't let her go as a doctor. She had told her father since he had no sons to serve in the military, she would go as the family representative in that conflict.

Dr. Rose Kidd Beere
from Find a Grave

4. Marie Guiraud - Rancher: Born in France in 1830, she moved to Colorado via Louisanna, Ohio, and Kansas in 1862. She and her husband homesteaded in Park County, Colorado, in addition to Adolphe running a store in a nearby town. After Adolphe's death in 1875, Marie grew the 640 acres into one of the earliest ranches in Park County. In her obituary in the Fairplay Flume, on June 11, 1909, they wrote the following: "After her husband's death, with a large family of little children and heavy financial reverses, she struggled on and not only kept their property together but prospered well, added to their possessions and accumulated and estate very nearly as great, if not equal, of the largest estate ever built up in Park County."

Image from Find A Grave

For those who would like to know  more, see the links below:

Extra information on Martha Maxwell

Additional information on Mary Florence Lathrop

Obituary of Rose Kidd Beere & Dr. Rose Kidd Beere

Guiraud Fairplay Obituary & Historic Significance of the Ranch & Buffalo Peaks Ranch

Until Next Time

Doris McCraw

Angela Raines - Amazon

Doris A. McCraw - Amazon

 

A FASCINATION WITH WOMEN DOCTORS

In both "Josie's Dream" and "Chasing A Chance" I mention women doctors. It is not necessarily the medical aspect I am interested in, although that is fascinating, but the stories of the women and their time in history. So in honor of National Women's History month, I'm sharing my fascination and some research on women doctors.

The medical school, The Keokuk School of Physicians and Surgeons, was a real college. It has also been called the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Keokuk. It began in La Porte, Indiana in 1846 before moving to Madison, Wisconsin in 1847 then to Rock Island, Illinois in 1848. The school had a year long session in Davenport, Iowa before its permanent home in Keokuk in 1850. As part of the University of Iowa it was technically co-ed from the beginning.  

Josephine, the Josie of "Josie's Dream", was a graduate of the Keokuk school as was the real life doctor Harriet Leonard of Manitou Springs, Colorado. Dr. Leonard was the proprietor of the Bath house, an unusual position for a woman. Her ad in the July 1878 local paper read: Mrs. H. A. Leonard M.D. ELECTRICIAN. Special attention given to nervous and chronic diseases. Office in the Mineral Bath House, Manitou.  Although many women physicians were homeopaths, the medical treatment of choice during that time, Harriet was an allopath. Dr. Harriet Leonard

The other woman physician mentions is Dr. Alida Avery. Dr. Avery arrived in Colorado in 1874 after leaving Vassar College where she had been on staff for six years. In fact she was one of the early members of that faculty. Much has been written about this early Colorado physician, her work on women's suffrage, and her years at Vassar. Dr. Alida Avery

One of my enduring passions is researching the early Colorado Women Physicians and documenting their lives. When possible, I try to include these women or their stories in my fiction and well as non-fiction writing. So as you read "Josie's Dream" or the mention of Josie in "Chasing A Chance", know that it comes from a place of love and fascination with these early pioneering doctors of Colorado.


Doris Gardner-McCraw -

Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History

Member of National League of American Pen Women,

Women Writing the West,

Pikes Peak Posse of the Westerners

Angela Raines - author: Where Love & History Meet

For a list of Angela Raines Books: Here 

Photo and Poem: Click Here 

Angela Raines FaceBook: Click Here

THE WOMAN IN HISTORY EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

Post by Author Angela Raines



One of the early women in Colorado history is Maria Teresa 'Teresita' Sandoval. This amazing women was born in 1811 in Taos, in what is now the state of New Mexico. She married at seventeen and had four children, Juana, Cruzita, Jose and Rufena, with her husband Manuel Suaso. In the 1830's she moved to Mora, New Mexico Territory on a land grant given to them by the Mexican government. It was there she met Matthew Kinkead. She left her husband, took her children and moved in with Kinkead, a naturalized Mexican citizen who came from Kentucky, who also had a land grant in the area. The family left Mora and moved to the American side of the Arkansas River. In 1841 they moved to Ft. Pueblo, a trading center for trappers, travelers and Indians. There is indications she and Matthew helped build and run this Fort, planned by George Simpson, Alexander Barclay, James Beckworth and Joseph Doyle. It was a thriving business that kept the couple busy. Some of the people Teresita came into contact with is like a who's who of early American traders and trappers, James Beckworth, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and 'Uncle Dick' Wooten, the man who built the twenty seven mile toll road over Raton Pass. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-richenswootton.html

Eventually Kinkead left for California with their nine year old son, Juan. At that point in 1843 Teresita moved in with Alexander Barclay and they moved to Hardscrabble, a settlement northwest of Ft. Pueblo, then later returned to Mora where Barclay planned to build a fort. He hoped to sell to the U S Government after the Mexican American war in 1848, but the government built a fort of their own. 

The only known image of Teresita, done by Alexander Barclay
coloradovirtuallibrary.org 

Teresita left Barclay sometime between 1848 and 49 and moved in with with her daughter, Cruzita, who had married Joseph Doyle, on their ranch Casa Blanca in the Arkansas River Valley. Her other daughter, Juana, married George Simpson. Teresita remained in the Arkansas River Valley the rest of her life, but she wasn't done yet. When Cruzita's husband died, Teresita took over the running of the property, keeping it from falling into the hands of rival cattleman. Teresita died 1894, a woman still in charge of her own life.

A further note on this time in history.  Before 1848 while the region Teresita lived in was still under Mexican law, women shared ownership with their husbands, could purchase land, and establish businesses on their own. Women were also allowed to divorce. Once the land became part of the United States many of these rights were taken away.

In my story 'Never Had a Chance' in the current Prairie Rose Publication anthology "Cowboy Celebration" the heroine looks up and is named for Teresita Sandoval. Leave a comment and one lucky person will win an e-book of this anthology, full of great stories and even greater recipes. Also watch for the Christmas in July event later this month from Prairie Rose Publications. You will not be disappointed with the stories awaiting you.


"NEVER HAD A CHANCE" , second in the Agate Gulch stories, in the Prairie Rose Publications "A COWBOY CELEBRATION" anthology http://amzn.to/1GzwJhw


HOME FOR HIS HEART the first in the Agate Gulch stories. http://amzn.to/1GJhpSu

Author Page: http://amzn.to/1I0YoeL

Angela Raines is the pen name for Doris Gardner-McCraw, Author, Speaker, Historian-specializing in
Colorado and Women's History. She also posts a photo and haiku five days a week at: http://fivesevenfivepage.blogspot.com