Finding the stories

On the evening of Aug. 2, the Grand Encampment Museum (GEM) hosted a panel of authors and historians at the Grand Encampment Opera House as part of their Pioneering Women Symposium. The panel, called "Finding the Stories," was moderated by local historian Candy Moulton and panelists included Chris Enns, Donna Coulson, Jennifer Lawrence and Dick Perue.

During each panelists introduction, they all touched on the theme of the panel, informing the audience how they came to get involved in becoming historians or, in Coulson's case, becoming historical novelists.

Enns, who is the current vice-president of Western Writers of America, kicked off the introductions. The California-based author told the audience that she had worked for a radio station and was in charge of doing history reports. 

"I did a history report about the Bidwell-Bartleson wagon train party, which came to that area in 1841, and it was made of more than 80 men and only one woman. She made the journey from Independence all the way to the gold country, barefoot, carrying a one-year-old baby on her hip and I found it fascinating that she was just referred to as Mrs. Benjamin Kelsey," said Enns.

As Enns became more fascinated with Mrs. Benjamin Kelsey, she examined historical journals and found her first name.

"I spent lots of time going through historical journals and it was only when I was reading one of the diaries that one of the men kept on the journey where he said 'When I found it very difficult to go forward, I would look back at the end of the wagon train and I would see Nancy and her baby and I would move on.' It was only then that he calls her Nancy," Enns said.

Since then, Enns has continued to write books on women in history and has over 40 books ranging in subject from the first woman agent of the Pinkerton Agency to women physicians in the Old West. Enns cracked a joke related to the burden of history as she informed the audience of the cures that prospectors and other men thought the Emerald Bay of Lake Tahoe could bring to some of their ailments.

"Now you can go around Lake Tahoe and people are having such a great time. They're loving it. And I just want to roll my window down and say 'Hey, 170 years ago do you even know what was going on? Get out of the water now,'" said Enns.

Coulson's entry into the world of history began in Cheyenne, where she was born and raised.

"I was the youngest of three girls and I'm the best son my father ever had," said Coulson. "One year, I think it was the winter that I was eight, my father came home with a map and began talking about some ghost towns up in the mountains that we were going to go see if we were going to go camping this next summer. So, I spent an entire winter thinking about what a ghost town was and what it looked like and what it would be like and, at eight, that was a lot to keep in my head for the whole winter."

That following summer, over July 4, Coulson and her father went up to Haggerty Creek with a station wagon, a motorcycle and a dog. It was one of the rare summers in Wyoming in which it snowed on the mountain during the summer. Due to the runoff, Haggerty Creek was rushing and Coulson and her father hiked, rather than riding their motorcycle, to the ghost town of Dillon.

"When I first went to Dillon that many years ago, there were still some foundations and some cabins that were maybe even a little bit taller than I am. So, I could really see what this place looked like. Then, every year after that, we would spend a week, go up and explore and just look around. So, my playmates in the summer time were the ghosts of Dillon, Rudefaha and Copperton. My focus, during the school year, was to find out as much about that place as I possibly could," Coulson said.

Following her initial exposure to the ghost towns in the area, Coulson spent her high school years going to the Wyoming State Archives in Cheyenne every afternoon and read editions of the Dillon Doublejack on microfiche.

"I think they must have been tired of me because they printed them all for me. So, I still have all copies of the Dillon Doublejack that I can read anytime I darn well want to and I do," said Coulson. "So, I grew up thinking I didn't like history. I didn't like history in school. I didn't like history, I didn't like dates and names that didn't mean anything. What I found out was that, once I started reading historical fiction, I love history and I've always loved history because I've always loved Encampment history. I just didn't call it history, it was just part of my life."

This love of Encampment eventually led Coulson to write her first book, 'Mountain Time,' which was set in turn-of-the-century Encampment. It has since been awarded Honorable Mention for Book of the Year by the Wyoming State Historical Society. Her following book, 'Peaks and Valleys,' which is also set in Encampment, won Book of the Year. Both were nominated by former GEM board member John Farr.

Much like the historians before her, Jennifer Lawrence entered the world of women in the west by happenstance. Lawrence is the author of 'Soap Suds Row," which focuses on laundresses of the United States Army from their creation in 1802 to their disbanding in 1865.

"I got interested in laundresses through a friend. He did reenacting and went into the fourth grades around the Albany County area to talk to the kids about the cavalry soldiers here in Wyoming and he wanted someone to present the women's side, but he did not want the officers' side presented because they are so many books out there about the officer's wives," said Lawrence.

The author told the audience that army laundresses were paid $19.50, whereas a private in the Army was paid only $13, because the government figured they did laundry for 19-and-a-half men.

"Leave it to the government to find half a man," said Lawrence jokingly.

Completing the panel was Perue, a local historian and former editor of the Saratoga Sun. Perue joked that he was used to being outnumbered by women, remarking that he was the only man in an office of 12 women when he ran the Sun. The local historian spoke about the importance of Gertrude and Laura Huntington, the owners of the Platte Valley Lyre and the first women newspaper owners in Wyoming. 

Perue noted that, while a portion of his source material came from the collection of Bob Martin, compilations of that history had been done by Lori Van Pelt and the late Gay Day Alcorn. The former Sun editor used it as an example of how women still had an influence on history in the West.

Following the introductions, questions were few as the panelists did a sufficient job of explaining how they each came into exploring history and finding the stories they wrote about.