Sweet Americana Sweethearts: National Women's History Month

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Why National Women's History Month?

Post by Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Image (C) Doris McCraw

When I began College in the early 70s, I had a friend who wanted to major in women's studies. What she ended up doing in one of her classes was reading those books written by women from the early days to the present. She found the writing sometimes hard to read, but the idea of these women, many of whom were not known of at that time, finally getting their time in the sun was exciting.

If it were not for the push to remember these early writers, the rest of the story might have been lost to time, or we might just now be learning about the women who played a major role and about what we have become.

As I research not only for the history that I write about, but also the history I use in my novels, I now have access to so many women who made their mark.

In the current book I'm working on, which takes place in Estes Park, Colorado, women such as:

Mary Belle King Sherman: As a leader in the General Federation of Women's Clubs, she was dubbed "The National Park Lady," using her influence to lobby for the creation of RMNP and the National Park Service.
Esther Burnell Mills: In 1917, she became the first licensed nature guide in any national park, leading trips through the mountains and marrying champion of the park, Enos Mills.
Elizabeth Burnell: Sister to Esther, she was a pioneering educator who led hiking parties, including trips above the treeline, and was the first woman guide to lead a group to the summit of Longs Peak.
Isabella Bird: An English explorer who popularized the area through her 1879 book A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains and was among the first women to climb Longs Peak.
Margaret Fuller Boos: A geologist who served as the park's first female ranger-naturalist in the late 1920s, developing geological guides for visitors.
Kitty and Annie Harbison: Homesteaded land that later became part of the park.
Flora Stanley: Wife of F.O. Stanley, the builder of the Stanley Hotel.

all had a part to play in the history of the area.

Would our favorite stories exist as they do without the contributions of these women and others? We may not always include some of these women by name, but their presence can still be felt in the characters we create.

For me, having these histories available is priceless.

Until next time,

Stay safe and keep reading and writing.

Doris

Angela Raines - Amazon

Doris A. McCraw - Amazon

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

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."