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Female Firsts: Sarah Bickford · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and wellcome stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I'll never told you protection. I heart radio. It is
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: time for another edition of Female First, which means we're
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: once again joined by the stupidness the spectacular Eves. Welcome, Eves.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Hello, thank you for the welcome.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for being here as always. How have
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: you been, Eves? Any updates?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been pretty good. Honestly, I have been really
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: in my learn new things bag because I always want
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: to learn a lot of things, but now felt like
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a good time to try to learn a lot of them.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So I'm slow rolling them. I'm like, I'm introducing them
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in stages, and I'm like, I like to commit to things,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but I'm also willing to step out if I understand
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that something really isn't the thing for me. So I started.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a piano dance classes. So I've done two classes
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: so far, and I love to dance, and I think
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I could be well suited to the style of dance,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: but I'm not. I don't know. I have the rhythm
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and like I have the capacity to learn it well,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I think, but I'm not good at it yet. So
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: like I'm also never danced before, and I'm never taking
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a dance class before, so I also don't know just
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: like the technique and the format and the learning steps,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: like all of that is new to me. I just
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: kind of like do what I want and feel good
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: in my body dancing, but like the technicality of it
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with, so having to get used to that.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Hoping to start surfing class surfing lesson soon because I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: want to learn something water based where I actually have
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to like swim, because I have the privilege of being
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: around water right now and being able to surf, So
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I just kind of want to do it for the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: novelty and the physicality of it and to do something
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that will challenge my brain and my body and ways
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that haven't been challenged before. But I'll sign up for
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that soon. I know who I want to sign up with,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: but I haven't just yet, but I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: start that soon. But yeah, I'm doing a lot of
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of new things, trying things out.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: See, this is where I add all of these layers
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: of who you are into my tablet of what I
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: know of you, because we've already had many conversationations when
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm fascinated about you because you are unique
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: in this way and these levels you just keep adding.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: I'm like, wait, you're doing what you're doing? What you
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: do it?
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Wow?
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Like the admiration has blown. But yes, every time I
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: hear from you, I'm like, who are you?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I know I'm trying to figure I'm trying to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: figure it out too, Samantha.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I'm trying encyclopedia like your volumes upon volumes that I
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: love to learn about.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. Yeah.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: We always love checking in with you and seeing hearing
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: what you're up to. So cool, So I have. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: was going back and forth about our like transition question.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask for this one. I think
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with the sillier one. How are you
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: with the board game Monopoly? Eves?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Not good? I lose and I haven't played a lot
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in my life, to be honest with you, I've played,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: but it's not like Benna Staple in my households, just
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like it has been in other households. For me, it
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was more I was in terms of board games, it
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: was like Clue, Shoots and Letters. Do you remember mouse Trap?
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Game it was so.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Leration.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Oh oboration was.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Scary those silly games. The Monopoly was uh but yeah,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: it was above my pay grade, to be honest with.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Y'all, so that that was probably the number one game
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: to cause fights.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: Did you fight with people over it?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: That?
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Like? We have more thrown pieces thrown at each other
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: like brawls.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Wow? Yeah, that pieces thrown sounds like a choking hazard
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: those pieces serious.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: No, it's kind of like notoriously bad.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: You missed the part of your childhood of the anger,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: which probably you didn't miss.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: But I'm just saying it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I think, idea, Yeah, we weren't that much of a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Monopoly household. I'm trying to think if I have any
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: distinct like memorable memories from Monopoly, But no, I don't.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I think your.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really does.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so wait, what is it? What What was y'all's
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: experience with Monopoly?
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: You heard it, we brawls, fl games.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: My dad put it away, telling us that he's gonna
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: burn it because he was so tired of us fighting
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, yeah, I liked We had a Star Wars
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: version that I liked because it was Star Wars. But
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I know I just never won. And one time I
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: cheated and I still lost. And I'm convinced my little
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: brother was cheating too when he just cheated better for me.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: But I remember I was a kid.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: In that memory, I will die. Yeah, that sounds pretty
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: appropriate for the game of Monopoly. Cheating better Yeah, exactly.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, he had like the whole good side of the board.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: He had the all the properties. You just like feel
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the dread when you got over.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So intimidating it was.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: It was, and he was not a chill lose the winter.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: I'll say that, I.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Feel like you should glow. This is that goes the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: one with the characterization of the game.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: Obviously to brag about how rich you are.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, checks out.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who their family wouldn't even let
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: them have it in the house.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: They were like, get it out, okay, because because it
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: was so intense. Yeah okay. I thought it was like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: some sort of moral or ethical because I was thinking
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: about this in terms of how some families were like,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: we don't mess with Harry Potter because it's like a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: religious thing, like a religious or moral situation happened. Well,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's like this is an anti capitalist household.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: We can know it was originally an anti capitalist game
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: designed by a woman, but her idea got stolen and
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: look what happened. Yeah, anyway, that does loosely relate to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: it was one of the first things I thought when
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I was looking into the story. Actually, it makes sense,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: mix sense, yes, to the person we're talking about today,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: So we are excited to get into this. Who did
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: you bring for us to discuss youse?
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Today? We're talking about Sarah Bickford And the reason that
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: monopoly is related to this is because she was the
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  Speaker 1: first an only black woman in Montana and the United
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: States to own a utility company. So that was not
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: something that wasn't something I was expecting to bring to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the show. I wasn't like, I wonder who the first
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: black woman to own the utility company was. Honestly, it
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: didn't end up that way, and I was trying to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: figure out how I got to her. I don't know.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I was just as I do, just like going into
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: some rabbit hole and found out about her. So before
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: we were talking about her today, I wasn't familiar with
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: her story, but I probably happened upon it because I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: do want to talk more about black women in the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: American West, and I I don't. We've touched on some
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: people in the American West, but some black people in
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the American West. But I think I could definitely bring
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: more of that to female first. And of course, I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: mean we've talked about it a lot on this show.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: But she just there's a lot about her story that
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: had to be uncovered and that wasn't known before. There
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: are some like unknown origins and reasoning for why she
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: did certain things. There was a lot of digging into
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the archives that had to happen to find her stories.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I'll get to that in a second. But there is
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a part of her story that just always intrigues me
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and is just something I'm endlessly fascinated by and that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I'm always looking for in people's stories. Is that since
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that built in sense of mystery that black people have
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: and our ability to make myths in our own personal stories,
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  Speaker 1: it's like we are just so down for coming up
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: with a birth date or coming up with a story
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: or a birthplace. And I just think that the mythology
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: around her life and the personal myth making is just
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: so that element of blackness in history because of the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: gaps in our histories, is just so magical to me.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's a way in which it can be
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  Speaker 1: reclaimed where it came from places of violence and of forgetting,
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  Speaker 1: and all of these things that can be considered negative
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that can be turned into a positive and just can
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: be so fantastical too that I think is really cool.
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  Speaker 1: And I think there are parts of that in Sarah
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  Speaker 1: Bickford's story. And when I mentioned the uncovering, I referring
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to doctor Laura Arada, who's a historian. She wrote a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: dissertation and she has a book called Race in the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Wild West, Sarah Bickford, the Montana Vigilantes and the Tourism
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  Speaker 1: of Decline eighteen seventy to nineteen thirty, And throughout the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: course of this episode, just know that I'm pulling a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: lot of the information that I got from her work
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: because she really dedicated time to digging more into her story.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Even though she didn't have any specific personal relation to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Sarah Bigfort's story, she dug into it and found out
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: more things from the archive and was in touch with
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Sarah Bigfort's family members that are alive today. So it's
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: just it's a really fascinating story. I'm excited to share it.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I do want to stay upfront as a content warning,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: there is mention of domestic violence, but it's a very
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: short part of her story, and I'll let y'all know,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: you know, once we get to that part that I'm
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: about to talk about it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: It is a really great story. And I when I
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: was looking into the name after you suggested it, I
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: was like, Oh, I've never thought like utilities. That's so cool.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So I'm really really excited that you suggested this topic.
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  Speaker 2: So shall I get to the history.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: So, speaking of the unknowns, Sarah Bickford might have been
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: born in eighteen fifty two. Her birthdate is unconfirmed. It's
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: like I've seen I think eighteen fifty five, eighteen fifty
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: six at various points when her name was listed in
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a census. What it didn't collaborate with like the time
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: that she said she was born or sources said she
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: was born with how old they said she was at
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the time. But that could also be a miss documentation
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of the people who were recording these things. Just we're
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: saying eighteen fifty two though, and that was around the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: time that she was born. Sarah would give her birthdate
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: as December twenty fifth, but I do wonder about that
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: as well. Because I can't remember who it was. But
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: we've talked in a previous episode about a female first
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: about person who said that their birthday was July fourth,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And it's not like this fills aligned with that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: To me.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It's like say, saying a date that is a a holiday.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It has a lot of spiritual, religious, major social implications
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that are tied to it that makes a person's life
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: steel bigger than it is. But me saying that out loud,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I don't even want to put it that way. It's
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: just like it feels appropriate for how they consider their
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: own lives. And so that's where she gave her birthdate
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: ass But she later told her children that she had
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: been born a slave in the western part of North
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Carolina and that all of her immediate family had died
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: while she was young. Now, most sources point to her
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: being born into slavery in Washington County, Tennessee. So there's
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: some discrepancies around whether it was western North Carolina or
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: eastern Tennessee, but it's seemingly Washington County, Tennessee, and her
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: parents and slavers were the Blair family in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: There is very little information about her childhood and her
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: younger years, but it is known that she did learn
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to read and write when she was a child her
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: daughter Mabel, who obviously we haven't gotten to that part
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of the story yet but later on. Just know that
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: her daughter, Mabel later said that Sarah was separated from
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: her family at the end of the Civil War and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: never saw them again. There are some of the sources
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that were dug up that came from Mabel speaking about Sarah,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: so that's where some of that information comes from. But yeah,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: by eighteen seventy, Sarah had made it to Knoxville, west
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of Jonesborough, and there's little information once again on her
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: life in Knoxville as well, but she lived with an
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: aunt there who may have been Nancy Jones Gammon, she
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't explicitly named. And while she was there in Knoxville,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Sarah got to know a man named John Lttrelle Murphy
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: who had been a Union officer for the US Colored
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Troop sixtieth Regiment during the Civil War, but he later
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: went to Montana Territory and became an associate justice there,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and Sarah went with him as he went west. She
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: cared for his children on the way over there. Not
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: fully clear why she decided to go west, but it
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: was rough in Knottsville in the years after the Civil War.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: There were a lot of refugees there. Of course it
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was Tennessee. There was the threat of racism, probably little
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: opportunity for work. So some of these things might have
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: driven her to seek a new lfe. But we don't
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: have the exact knowledge of why she chose to go
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: so far west. But also think of the conception of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the West in a lot of people's minds. It was
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that way for white folks, it was that way for
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: some black folks as well, so she might have been
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in part, might have speculation in part driven by that,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: but that's just speculation based on the mythos of the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: American West at the time. But yeah, so the background
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of Montana a little bit here, it was pretty culturally
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: diverse in a certain way. There were indigenous folks that
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: were there, there were Chinese folks that were there, British, Germans, Italians,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: because the conception of whiteness was a little different there,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: so there was a lot of there were different communities
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: that were there, but black people were never more than
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: one percent of the total population of Montana itself, and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: there was some lawlessness still, it was there. I mean,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: there was a wild West element to it. The way
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: they say it. It was a little bit like that
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: there because in eighteen sixty three, residents were worried about
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: road agents who they thought were committing highway robbery and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: murder on the roads from Virginia City out to the
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: other cities around, which I think, is this idea that's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: really associated with the wild West. It is a part
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of Sarah Bickfert's story and a part of her story
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: in Montana. So folks in Virginia City, which is the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: city that we're talking about that Sarah Bickford moved to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Virginia City in Montana. So they people there thought this
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: group was led by official law enforcement, this group of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: bandits road agents, that they were led by official law enforcement.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: So basically, these group of vigilantes that became known as
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the Montana Vigilantes formed to address this concern. Stick with me,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: because this is related to Sarah's story. We're only going
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to touch on it here because that's its own history
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in itself. But they launched many people who were suspected
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: road agents starting in eighteen sixty three, and these were
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: white vigilantes and suspected road agents. By the way, they
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: didn't necessarily target folks based on race, like it can
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: be associated with extra judicial killings and other places around
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the country at the time, and that would be the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: case even more so going forth. There were, of course
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: racial dynamics. Like if anybody says there weren't racial dynamics
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the United States at this time, they're lying
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to you. There there's always there are those elements of
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that that are going to be involved. But it was,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: but it didn't operate the same there as it did everywhere,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: because you know, not everywhere it's the same. But since then,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: like after, the Montana Vigilantes have been celebrated as it
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: is part of Virginia City's and Montana's history. So in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: January of eighteen sixty four, the Montana Vigilantes hanged five
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: men next to each other. And this is like one
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: of the important images, the important parts of note from
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the Montana Vigilantes history. One because that was like a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: big part of what they were known for, but also
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: because is a big part of how Sarah big first
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: story is related to them. But we'll come back to
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that later on, So put a pin in that, remember
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that for later. Okay, So moving on to Sarah's time
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in Virginia City. So, at the time, Virginia City was
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a territorial capital of Montana. She got there in early
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one by sleigh. Apparently it is January when
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: she got there, so it was super cold. Never been
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in Montana, but I can only imagine how awful, how
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: awful that coldness, maybe because I can deal with the cold,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: but like I know, it's on a different level there.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so she was about and she was young,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: she was about like fourteen or fifteen, I think when
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: she made the trip, and Virginia City was this social
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: hub in the state at the time. Didn't stay that
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: way for long, but at the time it was. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: after Sarah got there, she started working as a cleaner
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: in the Madison House hotel. In October of eighteen seventy two,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: she married this Irish immigrant named John Brown. So this
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is the part where we're going to talk a little
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: bit about domestic violence. We won't go into any details,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: but just if anybody wants to skip forward just a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: little bit, then they are like welcome to at this moment.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: So she went by the name Sally Brown a lot
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: throughout her documentation. You'll see her called Sally, and then
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: she took on different last names over the time. So
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Sally Brown was one of the names that was in
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: her records, and John Brown was a minor at am
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I n e R. I got a bite, Claire Box
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: am I r okay. I caught myself on that one. Yes, yes,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: big part of the industry there was mining, mining.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: And gotcha, got ya, I'm.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: There for the same page with you. She had three
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: children with him, James, Eva and William. So John beat
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: an abuse Sarah. This this was like something that she
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: had to deal with in her relationship with him. That
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: was very awful, tragically. Also, all of their children died
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: young from illness at different times, but they all died
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: really young, and she did. It's like I cannot only
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: imagine how stressful this was. Like she was in a
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: new place. She had gone from the South all the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: way over here to the west. She was black, she
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: was married to a white person, like she would there was.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: She was facing domestic violence at home, and she opened
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: she was still working out, so she opened the New
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: City Bakery and restaurant around May of eighteen eighty. There
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: was an ad in this newspaper called Madisonian from April seventeenth,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty about her bakery and boarding house, and it
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: said the bakery and had fresh bread, cakes, pies, and confectionery.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So she was still a working woman. She was dealing
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: what she had to do to provide for herself and
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: her family. But she was still going through those issues
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: at home. But she did file for a divorce from John,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and so according to these divorce which wasn't that wasn't
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the norm, like that was not usual, especially for a
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: black woman this time in Montana. So according to the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: divorce proceedings, John didn't support William, their child. He had
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: abandoned his family around eighteen seventy eight. There was even
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a point where Sarah went to Lauren I think it's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: pronounced la u ri I n Montana for a time
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and she needed to support herself in Eva and John
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: left Virginia City and went to Deer Lodge where he
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: was served with his divorce papers and the divorce was
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: finalized on November thirtieth, eighteen eighty. That might have even
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: been the first time that a black woman successfully divorced
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: a white man in territorial Montana, so her daughter Eva
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the adding to the tragedy honestly of this part of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: her life and her story. Her daughter Eva died in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one, and she closed the bakery. She went
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: back to Tennessee in eighteen eighty one and then back
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to Virginia City. And I think an important part to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: say that doctor Laura Arada does bring up in her
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: work on Sarah. She talks about how she was able
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to travel back from Montana back to Tennessee and how
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: that meant that she had a little bit of freedom.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: She had the amount of financial success to be able
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: to make that kind of travel at the time, which
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: was notable. But sometime between eighteen eighty two and eighteen
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: eighty four, she got remarried a white minor, same kind
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: as before, in her name Stephen Bigfidge. So this was
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a different It seemed like a one to eighty from
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the relationship that she had before with John Brown. This
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: partnership seemed a lot more stable, a lot more positive.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: They support each other in their business ventures, and the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: first year they were together they lived in this cabin
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: near his mining claims and he ended up purchasing shares
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in the Virginia City Water Company in the eighteen eighties,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and she and him they had four children together from
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four to eighteen ninety and those kids' names
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: were Elmer, Virginia, Helena, and Mabel. And she sent all
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: of her daughters to school, one even earned a master's degree.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: So there are some wild stories, y'all. I can't get
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: into them now, but like if y'all go read about
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: her story, there are some wild stories about what the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: kids had to deal with in school. So we talked
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: about doctor Laura Rata talked a lot about race and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: how race figured into her life, how it was treated
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in Virginia City and in Montana in general. Some very
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: fascinating stuff in there. So if y'all want a deep
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: dive on that, you can't. But she talked a lot
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: about how race wasn't mentioned a lot, if at all,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like really when it came to like newspapers and media
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: outlets talking about black people in Virginia City at the time,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: they just didn't mention race. However, they didn't mention race
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: for people who were of Chinese descent, and it was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: they were treated in a very spoken about in a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: very derogatory way versus it was kind of an emptiness
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of the non mentioning of race when it came to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the black people in a lot of aspects. Now, that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: didn't mean that they weren't racist though, Like there were
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of stories that doctor Laura Rada told and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that were mentioned about Sarah's children when they went to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: school related to the menstrul se, the blackface, the singing
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of the kun songs that the kids it was. It's
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: really wild, y'all, And I just feel like it is traumatizing.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: It would have been trauma tizing for those children, But
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: they were in such a specific they were mixed black
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and white children in Montana, in Virginia City in the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and that is like they also didn't necessarily
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: have the ability to contextualize the same way Sarah would have,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: having come from Tennessee and being born in that place.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So anyway, there's that. But when it comes to Stephen,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Sarah's husband and their father, they said that he was tricked.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Mabel later said there could be no disobedience of commands.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: They were not discussed but obeyed. And as I mentioned
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: at the top of this episode. Some of her descendants
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: are still alive, so there are living descendants of those children,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and his children even said that they thought that he
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: might have even been a member of the Vigilantes that
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: is unconfirmed. May have been a sympathizer, a supporter of memory.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: There is speculation around that, but there isn't much that's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: been settled upon. But yeah, so Sarah probably been running
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: the Virginia City Water Company since around eighteen eighty eight,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: since Steven was off mining a lot of the time.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: But around eighteen ninety three, Sarah and the family moved
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: to this farm called Romey's Gardens to make more money.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: They had livestock, they had, they grew things, they sold things,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: all of that. But by March of eighteen ninety nine,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Steven had gotten sick with the flu, and his illness
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: got worse and he had to stay home. Sarah's taking
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: care of him and Stephen Bickford ended up dying in
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: March of nineteen hundred. So after Bickford died, the water
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: company still needed to be ran. Sarah took over his
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: shares of the Virginia Water Company, so at that point
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: she had two thirds ownership of the company, and that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: made her the first Black American woman in the West
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: who owned a public utility company. This is where her
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: first comes in, and she would be pretty active in
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: those first years in the company. She would visit the
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: homes and the offices of the customers of the company.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And there was of course, I mean it's a utility.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of work. I mean at
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the time, in that specific environment, that's a lot of work.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: And I couldn't imagine being in charge of that. But
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: there was of course maintenance and repairs that had to
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: be done because there were these super below freezing winter
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: temperatures and as we know even in Atlanta, that can
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: be a problem when it comes to infrastructure. They had
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to replace they have wooden pipes, there was that they
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: had to replace those, and when the metal pipes came around,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: they would burst and so those had to be fixed.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And so there were issues that came up throughout the time.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: There were of course customer complaints all these kinds of things.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But I mean the par for the course for running
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: something as major and as important and fundamental as a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: utility for the people. So Sarah was like, I think
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I need some more education to help with maintaining this business.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So she took a correspondence course, which is basically a
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: distance learning course by mail, and she took that in
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: business management from a school in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yes, great Scranton,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: stand up, do you have a connection to Scrants from
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the office?
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: So I'm like, look at that. What is shout out?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: So she was really tapped into the tourism sector in
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Virginia City too. People would gather in the city for
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: July fourth celebrations and they would pass through the city
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: on the way to Yellowstone, So there was some environmental
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: recreation tourism happening there too, and there was the sentiment
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: from like newspapers and people in the city that they
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: wanted Virginia City to be this better place for tourists
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to stop. This is pretty relatable because this is still
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that happens today when cities are
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what they need to make sure
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that their people are taken care of, that there's income
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: coming into the city and all these things. So they
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: were like, how can we figure out how to build
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: up the city so that the people who are coming
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: through have a reason to stop and stay and enjoy
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and spend their money here, and part of that was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: including adding historic sites, and so that leads us for
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a moment back to that history of the vigilantes. So
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: there was this what they call the Hangman's Building, and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: that is related to the people who had been hanged
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: by the vigilante that I mentioned earlier. So there's this
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: nineteen oh one article in the Madisonian that said that
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the Hangman's they called it this I'm not calling it this, okay,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: they called it the Hangman's Building. That feels, you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's it feels pretty inappropriate because it definitely makes a
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: light of the situation that people were hanged there. But
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that's complex in itself, and there's also a particular history
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: behind this Hangman's Building and how that lynching was situated
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: among the others because it wasn't like the lynchings in
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the South, and it was also it became celebrated as
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: a part of Virginia City's history. So yeah, there's all
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: of that. But it's called the Hangman's Building, not my moniker,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: but the moniker that has been that it has been
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: christened with by other people. But so yeah, this article
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: said that it had been a pill shop, reading room,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: post office, meat market, ice cream parlor, and half a
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: dozen other things. I think it was also a law
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: office at one point, and so Sarah ended up purchasing
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this building. Later, I think in nineteen seventeen, she purchased
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the Hangman's building and she moved the water Company's business
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: office there. So the city's thinking about tourism. The car
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: automobile tourism is picking up. There's this industry around here
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: ittage tourism that is growing and becoming more popular at Montana.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: At the same time, the population in the city was declining.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: So that's the overall population, but that includes the population
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: of black people who were there. And there's this As
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: time continues, of course, there's usually this. Most people are
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: going to feel compelled to increase modernization, you know, and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: keep up with the times because you want to stay
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: relevant to people, you want to continue making money and
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: things like that. So the city is facing this challenge,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: but it's also figuring out that it can turn to
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: highlighting the city's wild West ara of that history to
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: attract more visitors. And Virginia City started marketing itself as
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: a cradle of Montana history. And this Hangman's bab had
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: been covered up in the building, but apparently Sarah exposed it,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and in the nineteen twenty she even ended up opening
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: up the building for tourism. There is this rumor that
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: doctor al Arada Minshett that that she had kept some
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: rope in her desk and that she would sell pieces
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of it to visitors as souvenirs of the original rope.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: She'd be like, here you go, I mean you get
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: this original rope. Yeah. So I don't know how true
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: that is, but there's a room or that she did that,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and Sarah's children ended up all moving away from Virginia City.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: You hear this story a lot. I would be curious
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to know what Sarah's feelings about them moving away would be,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: because I know parents often face this struggle of kind
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of where they want their kids to remain. Where you
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: know they were, where their foundations are, you know where
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the family businesses, and you know where they're parts of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: their heritages and all these things. So I would be
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: curious to know how she felt about that. But they
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: all moved away from Virginia City. There's various places, I
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: think Chicago, d C, New York. Over the course of
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you know, time, So they went a bunch of different places.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Though her child, Elmer, did come back in the mid
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties to help with the water company and he
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: also did some plumbing work there. But by the nineteen twenties,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like basically kind of like all the black population in
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Virginia City was gone and it was a very different
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: place it was when Sarah first moved there. She did
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: die at home in Virginia City on March twenty second,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, and she's buried there in Virginia City
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: next to Stephen Bickford. And after she died, the Hangman's
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Building became one of the most popular tourist attractions in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: the city. There is I can't tell you what the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: answer is. It doesn't seem like historians can fully pin
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: down what the answer is. Only Sarah would be able
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: to say. But the question remains at the end of
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: her entire stories, like why did she promote the Hangman's
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Building as this tourist element, as a black woman who
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: was born in slavery in the South, why did she
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: promote the building? Questions? It was it just a business opportunity?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Was it that the vigilantes she supported the vigilantes because
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: they kicked John Round out of town after he had
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: abusing her, because there was some stories about them, you know, basically,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: there was retribution to get the people who committed domestic
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a violent domestic violence. Was it that, don't know? Was
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: it that her late husband Steven supported the vigilantes. Was
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: he one of them? Was he sympathetic? Don't know. It's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: not fully clear, but it is clear that it is
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a pretty it's pretty like complicated and fascinating part of
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: her story that she bought this building. To me, thinking
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: about it in the way that I think about things personally,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it does in a way feel like a sort of reclamation.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: And let me just be clear that I am placing
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: this narrative on it right now because I'm just doing
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my acts of wondering that I do when I'm reading
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: people's stories. But it's like I went to a different
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: part of I'm speaking as Sarah, like I went to
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: a different part of the country, somewhere where I went
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: before lynching was happening, as it did in the early
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, And she went before then, and so
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: lynching hadn't become it wasn't that same exact thing that
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: it was after she had left and she was living
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: in Montana, and also she was in a different geographic
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: space in the country by being there, and she was
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: it was also related to this history of lynching that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: was more about like it was in some ways what
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: some people would have considered their imagine it kind of
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: punching up because they were targeting people who were shady
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: law enforcement officials who weren't treating the people of Virginia
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: City correctly. And so I wonder if there was a
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: reimagining there, if there was any sort of empowerment that
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: was in it for her, if I just wonder what
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: kind of like recontextualization and n narotizing narrative there was
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: there for her. But I'm not sure. Her children did
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: continue to own and operate the water company for more
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: decades after she died, So her story arranges the gamut
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of the thing she did in her life too and own.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So over the course of her life she had run
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a boarding house, catering business, restaurant, and ice cream saloon,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: which I am partial to because I love ice cream.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I wish I could taste ice cream that was in
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: her ice cream saloon. But yeah, she was mark Grave
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: was marked. You know, her name was written in the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: newspapers even at the time. On April tenth, twenty twelve,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: she was inducted into the Gallery of Outstanding Montana's and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the Capitol Rotunda. And there's an image on the wall
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: in a Hayman's building that includes information about Sarah's life.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And there are a couple of pictures of her, not
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: many so as far as I know, they're just too
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: There might be more than that, but that I'm not
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: privy to. But there's one of her that if you
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: google her, you'll probably see that one first. And then
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: there's another one that I saw that doctor la Vada
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: shared of her later in life, closer to her death.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: That is very kind of it's pretty moving to see, honestly.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you could learn a lot through
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: a picture, even if that's just like, you know, an
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: emotional learning that's happening through looking at a picture. So yeah,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the Hangman's building still standing, as well as the building
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: where her bakery was. And I just wanted to share
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: this quick quote from the historian doctor Laura Roda's dissertation
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: just to end. So this is what she said, perhaps
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Bickford's story is most remarkable because it is in many
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: ways unexceptional. She accomplished incredible things, running a public utilities
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: company and providing the town of Virginia City with water
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: for three decades before her day in nineteen thirty one.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: But Bickford never cast her success or either of her
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: two marriages to white men in terms of race, and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: she was never notorious within her own community. Rather, she
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: was integrated, respected, and almost never identified by existing accounts
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: of contemporaries in terms of race. So that is that's
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that's what That's what doctor Laura abowt to say it.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: That is something she was situating in terms of comparing
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: her to other black women, specifically who had histories in
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the American West, like Mary Fields, stagecoach Mary as some
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: people I know that we've talked about her before on
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the show, And so a lot of times when people
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: stand out in history is because they have this anomalist
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: character or they did anomalous things, they stood out in
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: their communities in certain ways. And so I do think
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it was interesting that doctor rata Like made this connection
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that in this case, Sarah Bickford was a black woman
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: in the American West, and what she did was pioneering
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and it was singular, but it wasn't necessarily remarkable because
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of her outside like her larger than life character per se,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and something like a utility company is so foundational, you know,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: it's not so it's not as much of a spectacle
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: if you put it that way. So I do think
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: that that was interesting that she pointed that out. And yeah,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the race thing is a whole a whole other element
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: to it, because you know, it was notable that she
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: was married to two white men over the course of
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: her life there, but there also that's what was there,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Like she wasn't surrounded by a lot of other black
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: men either. So it's her story is just really fascinating.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And I think if folks want to dig into the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: history of vigilantism of indigenous people in the area, of
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: how Chinese people of Chinese descent were treated in Montana,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: of the history of Montana, of the history of mining,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a lot in there that that you
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: can dig into if you want to look more into
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: serious history.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Look, this story just is definitely like the Wild West
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: story that I like, it's such a separate state of
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: being compared to the South, like the timelines, I don't
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: even get it. Yeah, I can't even put it together
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: because in my mind they are such separate worlds and
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: separate stories. So I could definitely understand because especially with
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: a vigilante story West, justice versus racism, and all the
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: cultural contexts that was happening in the South and over
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: in the East area seems so separate that it kind
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: of made sense to me of her like yeah, obviously,
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Like I was actually expecting you to say that she
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: was a part of this.
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: Like that's kind of where I thought it was.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: For a second, I was like, oh, but she this
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: bad thought of force with some gun slinging doing her thing,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: Like yes, let's let's go.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: We need that story.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. I'm not promoting violence in any way,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: but I'm just saying, in like the historical context, it
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: made sense that she's like yeah, like it's not necessarily
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: what we know. It could also make sense again because
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the West Wild West has its own loss that she
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: was just making money and this is one of the
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: ways to do it, and it's just like one more
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: thing to add to her like legacy of I'm gonna
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: survive and this is what I'm doing, but it's so fascinating.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah it is, And yeah, I think who knows, maybe
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: she did have something to do with it and she
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: just never told me body or we don't have that
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: record of documentation.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: So she was that good at hiding it, like she
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: was one of them.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: To truly pull off something, you need to be like yeah, lowly,
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: it needs to be a secret. So she really held
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: it in regards to that. That would be an amazing story.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: So when this is also one of those is I'm like,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: I need a movie.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I was thinking that. I was like, yeah, like how
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: how could you know? They would have to up the
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: drama in the spectacle And that's why I'm where I'm like, yeah,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would love to see this
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: told as I would honestly love to see her story dramatized,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Like I think it would be pretty cool.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: He's pretty satisfying that she got a divorce from an
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: evil man like that that you don't need to do
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: much more that the fact that she had the audacity
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: to actually file for divorce. I'm like, come on, yeah,
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: that especially in this time as yeah, against a white
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: man who could have made it worse. So good thing.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: He had to run away anyway, but like there's so
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: many things to that, and like that's hard to do today.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm laughing because you're thinking, like you're thinking like
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: a Hollywood writer. You're like, yes, there actually is a
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: dramatic story here, and it is the story of a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: wife's revenge. Okay, right, and then nothing else, everything else
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: But at top of the fact that she owned and
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying you again, this is from my knowledge
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: of entertainment and just a few of the Westerns that
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: I've seen. In any of those because Montana also, we
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: had a guest on here was from Montana. I was like,
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: I've never met a person from Montana. And that's not
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: the sentence that I hear in general even today. But
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: like in that like water was really precious. Again, this
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: is my very small knowledge in entertainment life, and like
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: because they had a lot of livestock, they had all
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: these things, and like it was pretty best lands and
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: it was hard to get to get like all these things.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: And for her to be a utilities person that control
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: the water and helped make sure that it was accessible,
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: that seems like a huge undergoing test but also a
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: huge like power, not like in this level of like
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: during a time where water is precious and it is
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: today obviously, but it seems like a story in itself
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Wow, Samantha, that really that was really moving. I didn't
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: really I didn't really think about that. I'm serious that
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: that that really that touched me because you're right, like's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: it was a precious resource. And I think this is
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: something I was trying to situate as I was reading
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Sarah Bigfot's story because also my focus right now in
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the work that I do is a lot about how
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: black people are related to the land environment. I'm focused
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: more on environment and the outdoors in the land. And
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I knew that that I felt that through her story.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: One because it's Montana and it's it's the time that
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: it was, but also because she was in public utility.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: But there was something that wasn't fully connecting with me,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: which like, I know this is an outdoor and environmental story,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: but I'm not fully sure about what that is yet
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: because that's not necessarily how her story was presented through
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: doctor Laura Arada's work. So that is very a suit
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: point because she she like Virginia City was not an
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: insignificant place if it was this cradle of Montana's history
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and it was this social center at the time that
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: she got there, and for her to have that power,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: like you say, I will, that power of being the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: person who people had to come to when they had
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: issues with water and the person who was delivering that
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: very necessary part of people's everyday lives. Yeah, I must.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I mean I must have imagined it's so big. That's
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that is really big. Yeah, thank you for sharing that.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: No, it is. And it's funny when, like I said,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: when I was like, oh, who are we talking about?
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: What did they do? And I was like utilities? But
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: when you think about it, it is like so important
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: and it matters so much like when your utilities are
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: not working. That is when you're like, oh, I didn't
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: realize how valuable and important this is. So I do.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I think all the elements are there for them to
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: make Hollywood. The story is there, the myth making is there.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Like you said, Eves, there's a lot of cool like
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: rumors they could pursue.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: There was one instance in her story of like she
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: didn't sue. She sued one person in her the course
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: of her so she got into there were some people
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: who came it was like, yeah, this isn't this payment
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: isn't right, the water blah blah blah. You know, they
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: had issues with her. But there was one a known
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: person who she had to like bring legal action against,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: And I could imagine inserting some some imagina there, right, yeah, yeah,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: but yeah.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: I'm also interested because this should be the basis of
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: generational wealth, like this should be the conversation where she
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: was able to help set up her family for the
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: rest of their lives, like all of and the generations
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: to come in order to take care of them, because
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: this is what we see with like the beginning of
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the establishment of the US or before. Yeah, where are
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: our descendants? Do we know?
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know much about where they are.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Seemingly from what was said about her children, because it
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: would be her children's children who could still be alive.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: But from what they said about her children, it was
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: that they were pretty well off when they did they
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: were doing well when they moved to other parts of
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the country. I think one was married. One of her
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: children was married to the Howard professor she worked out.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I can't remember something like this, But in terms of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: where they want where her children went at the time,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I think they were doing pretty well, But I don't
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: know about the state of her the rest of her,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: her family.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: I'd just say that because you know, as we're talking
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: about monopolies and as we talk about the level of
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: wealth that has happened over the years in the US
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: for a lot of people, like, of course, it would
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: be an interesting, like a phenomenal thing to see a
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: black woman to be able to establish that. And she
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: should have been if she was in that same conversation
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: with the equity that should have been given to her.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: But of course, you know, that's the whole different thing.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: I just wondered where that was because she could been
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: like it could be a measure of what we could see.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: And then like I could also see her fear of
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: her the children leaving. And I know you didn't get
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: into us get into it, but like if she had
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: experienced the times of enslavement and seeing those repercussions in
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: the East, her children going back to that had probably
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: been horrifying, even though they didn't but.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Like they did, so they did go back to Tennessee.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: She took them back to Tennessee at a certain point, Yes,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: and there was part of her story that we didn't
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: get a touch on today that was about how she
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: felt about who her children should marry, and she did
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: want them to, you know, understand, be around other black
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: people basically at certain times. And so, yeah, there is
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: a little part of her stories. It seems pretty complicated
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: in how she viewed race because, like I said, she
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: was also married to white men and there was someone
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: who wanted her children got married to who was black
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: she didn't want them to be married to, but there
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: was also a white person she didn't want them to
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: be married too. So it wasn't a cut in dry
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: situation for her seemingly, but she did. As far as
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: what I can tell and what is written about her history,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: it wasn't She didn't seem to speak much about any
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: resentment or it didn't seem to be much of a
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: point for her because she did go back, So it
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't like I'll never go back to Tennessee. There seemed
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: to be still a connection there for her that wasn't
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: a completely lost cause if that makes any sense. Yeah,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: it does so much depth. Yeah, it's tough for.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Movie times.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a mini series, I think it's a
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: mini series.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, people are liking the wild the wild West situation.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Actually so last movies like that is the thing, and
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: this is like exactly her going at a young age
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: on a sled.
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: Come on the.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Sled right, Yeah, well pretty, we can only hope, We
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: can only hope. Thank you so much has always used
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: for bringing this story to us. It's a great conversation.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: I really loved learning about her. Where can the good
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: listeners find you? Y'all can find me on my website.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: You can just go there and get to all of
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: the other things. But my website is Eves Jeffcoat dot com.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: That's y v es j E F fcat dot com.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Y'all can also go to Instagram I'm at not apologizing,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: or you can just go to listen to a bunch
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: of other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told You with
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: me talking about other female first. Yes, yes, can't wait
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: to check back in with you, Eves and see what
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: new adventures, new skills you've acquired next month. But listeners,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: go check out all of that stuff if you haven't already.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: If you would like to contact us, you can you
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: can email us at hello at stuff Onnever Told You
• 52:33
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• 52:34
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• 52:38
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• 52:40
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• 52:42
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• 52:44
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• 52:46
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