The Hand of Lou Diamond--by Guest: Dac Crossley

“Texas is hell on women and horses.”

I’m impressed by how many strong women come from Texas roots. In a time when they were second-class citizens, many women had instincts for survival that surprise us today.

In my new novel, “The Hand of Lou Diamond,” I imagine the plight of a young woman thrust out into the world with little to guide her except her instincts for survival.

The character Nicolette Devereux, aka Lou Diamond, is based in part on Frank Tolbert’s character Dulce Deno from his novel “The Staked Plain,” and in part on the real-life gambling woman Lottie Deno. But also on the life of my grandmother, Ida-May DeRyee. She grew to woman-hood in Corpus Christi and attended a finishing school in Nashville, Tennessee. Here she is with her fellow students. Ida-May is the one on the far right.

Ida-May settled into a comfortable life, married her high-school sweetheart and had two lively boys. Then her husband died, her father had a stroke, and they relocated to San Francisco where her brother lived. Soon her younger son died, then her mother and her brother. She was left with a young boy and an aging father to care for, and no source of income.

Is that an old, familiar tale in Texas? Ida-May rose to the occasion. She worked nights in a bakery, wrapping loaves of bread, while she attended business school. She sent her father to a German home in Comfort, Texas, and her son to live with Grandparents in Corpus.

Eventually she gathered them all together and found employment as a bookkeeper. She retired from a position at Missouri Pacific Railroad. I thought of my grandmother often while I was crafting  
The Hand of Lou Diamond.

We write fiction, don’t we, but is it so far from reality? As I age, memory blends the two. I want my western novels to be historically accurate – God help you if you place a gun in the wrong period, or write something incorrect about a horse. The stories that we writers tell slip easily through the veil. I hope my grandmother would approve of Lou Diamond.

 BLURB:
Young Nicolette Devereux, an orphan raised in a San Francisco brothel, is sent to a Nashville finishing school for young ladies. Dismissed, she must make her way back, relying on her wits and her skill at card games. Handsome riverboat gambler Ethan Diamond takes Nicolette in hand, but then sells her to a New Orleans brothel. She avoids prostitution with her skills at poker under the name Lou Diamond. She accompanies Ethan when he returns for her. Does he love her? Nicolette is unsure about her feelings for him. Can she break free of him and return to San Francisco? Texas gets in her way.

Dac Crossley

October 25, 2016

“The world forgets easily, too easily, what it does not like to remember.” – Jacob Riis

I’m D. A. Crossley, Jr., a retired professor at the University of Georgia. My nickname is “Dac.” I’m an emeritus professor of ecology. And a curator emeritus of ticks and mites in the Georgia Museum of Natural History.

And I write fiction.

I grew up in a little city in south Texas, Kingsville. It's the home of the famous King Ranch. Grandma King donated land for the city. It was also the home of railroad shops for the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico railway company. Everybody in town worked for the railroad or the ranch, or did business with them.

After WWII I went to the local college, Texas A&I, and soon migrated to Lubbock, to Texas Tech in the Panhandle. I started as an English major but fell under the influence of a charismatic biology teacher. I never looked back.

My doctorate was in Entomology at the University of Kansas, where I studied the classification of chiggers - redbugs. I think I'm still the U.S. expert. I'm the survivor.

After the University I was hired at Oak Ridge National Lab as an ecologist. Which I surely wasn't. In those days (1950's) almost nobody was. I looked at the effects of radioactive waste on forests and fields. A fortunate turn brought me to the University of Georgia, where I had the privilege of working with some excellent ecologists.

With retirement looking me in the face, I turned to my first career choice - writing. And hit my stride in writing about South Texas in its pre-civilized days. The Old West lived on for decades down near the Border and in the Wild Horse Desert. Family stories and tales I was told as a child form the basis for my Texas novels.

I am a widower with one daughter, Mary Freeman, a stream ecologist of note, and two sons Greg and Steve Blankenship, contractors, green builders.

 Dac's previous releases, available on Amazon.

1. 
   $12.90
   Paperback
2. 
   $4.99
   Kindle Edition
3. 
   $1.86
   Paperback
4. 
   $4.99
   Kindle Edition
5. 
   $9.99
   Kindle Edition
6. 
   $14.95
   Paperback

Contact

Dac Crossley

www.daccrossley.typepad.com

www.daccrossley.com/

Guest Author on Sweethearts of the West--invited and posted by Celia Yeary

FLYING COWBOYS: EARLY SMOKEJUMPERS

This month I thought I’d veer off the trail of cowboys, sheepherders, and gunslinging desperados. I’ve decided to focus on a different hero of the West, the ones who fall from the sky and fight fires…the smokejumper.

In 1918, Henry S. Graves, the Chief Forester for the U.S. Forest Service, contacted the Chief of the Army Air Service (Army Air Corps), inquiring about the possibility of cooperating with the Forest Service to provide aerial fire detection over forests in the Western states.

The first aerial patrols were conducted on June 1, 1919 over the Angeles Forest in California. The Missoula Sentinel out of Missoula, Montana reported in May of 1919 “…This will be the beginning of experimental work in which the adaptability of aircraft to forest patrol work is to be tried out thoroughly. If the tests prove as successful as it is thought that they will be, it is expected that the airplane patrols will be extended before the end of the 1919 season and that airplanes will become a permanent feature of the forest service forces." 

These first trials proved successful and in 1925, aerial flight patrols started in Region 1 (Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington at the time).  The Spokane Chronicle, June 25th, 1925, said: "Lieutenant Nick B. Mamer of Spokane today received appointment as forest fire patrol pilot for eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana. He will leave Spokane tomorrow night for Rockwell Field, San Diego, to get his Liberty-motored deHaviland Airplane which will be used on the patrol..." Nick Mamer was already a legendary pilot coming out of WWI.  He later established the Mamer Flying Service and Mamer Air Transport firms in Spokane.

From 1925-1935, Forest Inspector Howard R. Flint and Nick Mamer were instrumental in the pioneering of aerial activities in the Northern Rocky Mountain Region until Mamer’s untimely death in a plane crash. 

During the early years of aerial reconnaissance in the Forest Service, many began examining the possibility of dropping firefighters in by parachute.  A formal proposal was made in 1934, but Forest Service officials were not impressed. In 1935, the Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project in California experimented with dropping water and chemicals on wildland fires.  While these initial drops proved unsuccessful, they made delivery of cargo by parachute possible and helped set the stage for experiments in parachute jumping.

 

By 1939, the Aerial Fire Control Experimental Project was moved to Winthrop, Washington, where the balance of funds shifted to carrying out parachute jumping experiments. The Forest Service prepared a contract providing for parachutes, protective clothing, and the services of professional riggers and parachutists.

Montana Smokejumper descends into fire

After a series of experimental jumps, in the summer of 1940 the U.S. Forest Service Smokejumper Project became fully operational. Six smokejumpers were based at Winthrop, and seven at Moose Creek Ranger Station in Idaho. Two of the smokejumpers from Moose Creek made the first operational jump on the Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho. Eight more jumps were made during the 1940 fire season.

When U.S. Army Major William Lee (the father of airborne troops) witnessed smokejumper training in Montana, he incorporated many smokejumper techniques into the Army Airborne doctrine.

The entire project, consisting of 26 jumpers, was relocated to Missoula, Montana in 1941. This was an economical decision, basing all smokejumpers in one location made more sense than maintaining multiple and widely scattered facilities. Missoula was chosen because it was home to the Johnson’s Flying Service, who supplied smokejumpers with aircraft and pilots.

Early smokejumpers with equipment

As it did with so many things, World War II, interrupted and changed the smokejumper service.  With the United States entry into the war, by the summer of 1942 the number of qualified smokejumpers had been greatly depleted. By 1943, only five jumpers were available.  This problem was solved when the smokejumper program turned to the Civilian Public Service, an organization made up of conscientious objectors. Seventy members of the CPS were trained as smokejumpers and the use of CPS personnel continued through 1944.

A threat to the Western forests by Japanese fire balloons rose in 1945. Members of the U.S. Army’s All-Black 555^th Parachute Infantry Battalion were trained in timber jumping and firefighting to combat this threat. The threat did not materialize, but the members of the battalion were used as suppression crews on the large fires of that season.

Member of 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion preparing to jump into fire

On August 4, 1949, a 5,000 acre forest fire near Helena, Montana changed the way the Forest Service would fight fires, and leave the smokejumpers scarred.

The Mann Gulch fire was started by lightning during a particularly dry season. A fire thought to be only a few acres, blew up to 3,000 acres in ten minutes. Sixteen smokejumpers had jumped into the location only to be hunted by a fire with flames estimated at fifty feet high and moving fifty yards every ten seconds. Added to this was the terrible loss of their communication equipment during the cargo drop, leaving the jumpers without a way to contact the outside world. They attempted to make it to a ridgetop, but the fire caught up to them.

Members of NFS carry out victims of Mann Gulch fire

Thirteen brave men were lost, the largest single loss of life due to fire the Forest Service experienced until the loss of nineteen in a fire in Arizona in 2013.

The smokejumper program continued to grow through the 1950s, and new bases were established at Grangeville, Idaho; West Yellowstone, Montana; Silver City, New Mexico; and Redding, California.  In 1959, the BLM established a base in Fairbanks, Alaska, the first base not under the Forest Service management.

 This is just a small glimpse of the proud history of these elite firefighters.  I have a new contemporary series releasing this month, 4 Marines For History, and one of the heroines is a smokejumper and the heroes are members of a hotshot crew. While conducting research, I had the opportunity to meet with a few smokejumpers who offered more information than I needed for this series. So, coming in 2017, I will be writing a spinoff series focusing on smokejumpers and hotshots. I’m also planning a historical series featuring those first brave men who decided to fight fire by attacking it from the sky. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  

 

Kirsten Lynn is a Western and Military Historian. She worked six years with a Navy non-profit and continues to contract with the Marine Corps History Division for certain projects. Making her home where her roots were sewn in Wyoming, Kirsten also works as a local historian. She loves to use the history she has learned and add it to a great love story. She writes stories about men of uncommon valor…women with undaunted courage…love of unwavering devotion …and romance with unending sizzle. When she’s not writing, she finds inspiration in day trips through the Bighorn Mountains, binge reading and watching sappy old movies, or sappy new movies.

Legendary Western American Music By Cheri Kay Clifton

After writing my last blog on two of our most legendary singing cowboys, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, I thought I would research more in depth the origin of cowboy music, as well as the history of other classic western music. Like a lot of western writers, I love today's country music. Many of the songs reflect the sound and romance of songs and ballads, many written and sung over 150 years ago.

The birth of the American cowboy as we know him emerged with the advent of long-distance drives to move cattle to northern markets after the Civil War. These itinerant livestock herders included men from all walks of life and nationalities. For entertainment, they sang the songs from their native cultures and homelands, and these songs were often reshaped to fit the new landscape. “The Ocean Burial”—originally written in 1839 by Bostonian Edwin Chapin—and its lyric “O! bury me not in the deep, deep sea,” eventually became “The Dying Cowboy” with “Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.” Other music was influenced by Celtic, slave, and parlor songs.

Between 1870 and 1890, probably 10 million longhorn cattle traveled from Texas to Kansas and other northern markets. A group of cowboys rode with each herd of from 2,000 to 5,000 cattle to push them up the trail by day and herd them after dark. Any unusual noise after the cattle were asleep might send them into a wild and destructive stampede. To drown those disturbing noises, the cowboys crooned or yodeled to the cattle. From these cattle calls grew some of the trail songs descriptive of cowboy life. So long as the cattle could hear a familiar voice singing some lullaby, they had no fear of the howl of a wolf, the scream of a panther, or any of the other sudden noises of the night. What the men sometimes called "dogie" songs soothed the cattle to sleep.

Like the song, "Git Along Little Dogies."

 Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies
It's your misfortune and none of my own
Whoopie ti yi yo, git along little dogies
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.

Cowboys sang because they were lonely and because singing helped them in their work. They sang around the campfire and in the saloons to amuse themselves. They made up new songs and adapted old ones that told about themselves and their work in their own lingo.

"Home on the Range" is a classic western folk song, sometimes called the "unofficial anthem" of the American West. The lyrics were originally written by Dr. Brewster Higley of Kansas in a poem entitled, "My Western Home" in the early 1870's. In 1947, it became the state song of the U.S. state of Kansas. The song was eventually adopted by ranchers, cowboys, and other western settlers and spread across the U.S. in various forms. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the top 10 Western songs of all time.

"Red River Valley" is another folk song and cowboy music standard, although of controversial origins that has gone by different names, depending on where it has been sung. It also is listed one of the top 10 Western songs by the members of the Western Writers of America. Do any of you remember the lyrics?

From this valley they say you are going.

We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile,

For they say you are taking the sunshine

That has brightened our pathway a while.

So come sit by my side if you love me.

Do not hasten to bid me adieu.

Just remember the Red River Valley,

And the cowboy that has loved you so true.

The first and greatest collector of western songs was John A. Lomax. His songbook published in 1910, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, introduced the country to music of the American West and helped propel the cowboy to iconic status.

Even though the songwriter, Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 - January 13, 1864) was primarily known for his parlor and minstrel music, many of his songs were chosen among the top 100 Western songs by the members of the Western Writers of America. Named "the father of American music", he wrote over 200 songs, among his best-known are "Oh! Susanna", a minstrel song first published in 1848, "Camptown Races"," Old Folks at Home", "My Old Kentucky Home", an anti-slavery ballad composed and published in 1853, "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer".

Many of his compositions remain popular more than 150 years after he wrote them. His compositions are thought to be autobiographical. He has been identified as "the most famous songwriter of the nineteenth century", and may be the most recognizable American composer in other countries.

Foster was such a talent, sadly his life ended way too soon. In 1857, economic difficulties led him to sell all rights to his future songs for just under $2,000. Near the end of his brief life, he lived alone in New York City and suffered from alcoholism. In 1864, at age 37, he died in Bellevue Hospital. He had been taken to the hospital after suffering from a protracted fever which left him so weak that he collapsed and hit his head on a washbasin.

Delving into the history of such memorable music and songs, I found it fascinating to read about them and surprised that I actually remembered some of their lyrics. I hope you enjoyed reading about a few of these classics. Of course, there are hundreds more, so many written and published during both the good times and hard times of our nation's history.

You can check out more Top Western Songs listed with the Western Writers of America at their web site: www.western100.com 

Please visit me at www.cherikayclifton.com 
Buy Links: Trail To Destiny 
                   Destiny's Journey

Miss Lotta -- San Francisco's Favorite

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The miners in the Sierra of Northern California were used to the loneliness, dirt, and disappointments that came with the search for Gold. Gold of another sort appeared in 1853 to ease this routine and her name was Lotta Crabtree. From her beginning as a six year old until her retirement at the age of 45, she became one of the wealthiest and most beloved American entertainers of the late 19th century.

The tiny, red-haired, six-year-old jigged and danced to their clapping hands, while they showered her with nuggets and coins which her mother hastily collected in her apron.

Born Charlotte Mignon Crabtree in 1847 in New York City to John Ashworth Crabtree, a bookseller and Mary Ann (Livesey) Crabtree, an upholsterer, both of English stock, Like so many others, her father dreamed of finding a fortune in the gold fields in California. They packed up and left New York in 1851.

Lotta's exposure to the life of the theater and its inhabitants started early while they resided in San Francisco. She began traveling to mining camps where she became famous for singing ballads and dancing for the miners. The family moved back to San Francisco In 1856. Lotta started touring the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. She added a banjo to her repertoire and frequently performed in the city’s variety halls and various amusement parks. By 1859 she became known as Miss Lotta, the San Francisco Favorite.

Occasionally Lotta suffered from stage fright. Her mother, who once performed on the stage, coaxed her out of her fear. Mary Ann wasn't only a typical stage mother, but also a shrewd business woman. Because she didn't trust banks nor paper money, Mary Ann carried all of Lotta’s earnings -- consisting of gold nuggets and coins -- in a large leather grip. When this became too heavy, she transferred the earnings to a steamer trunk.

Considering how vast the amount of money and other valuables they carried around, it's amazing they were never robbed.