Wild Women Of The Old West: Squirrel Tooth Alice
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas where it is a balmy 67 degrees today! No sun though and winds are supposed to be gusting up to 60 mph tonight! Gonna stir up some dust and tumbleweeds later that for sure.
I've found so many crazy, fascinating female characters from the Wild West period that I decided to do a number of posts featuring a different woman each time. Hence the name Wild Women of the Old West.
Today features a gal from Texas known as Squirrel Tooth Alice and she fits into the category of "you can't make this stuff up!" starting with her name! lol.
Well, first of all let me give you her real name. Get this..her real name was Mary Elizabeth Libby Haley Thompson. Whew! Why she had such a long name I don't know. I'll call her Libby.
The Texas State Historical Society provides this photo of her:
(that's a pet Prairie Dog she's holding)
Some people just have extraordinary things happen to them and she's one of them. Her family lived in on a farm in South Central Texas when it was raided by Comanches in 1864 and she was kidnapped by them. She was 11 years old at the time and she lived with them for three years before her family was able to buy her freedom.
By the way, this was a common occurrence out West when someone was kidnapped by a tribe. They were usually able to be purchased back by paying a ransom. Usually a couple of nice horses or something like that. Sometimes the captives were not able to be bought though, if the kids were adopted into the Chiefs family or if it was a woman and the Chief married her.
I have some incredible stories of kids and women being kidnapped by Indians and later went on to write about their experiences but I've been hesitant because I don't want to paint the indigenous people in a bad light.
The truth is...they thought the whites were terrible and the whites thought they were terrible. It was just a clash of cultures with atrocities committed by both sides.
If you want to hear some of those stories though..let me know in the comments. Some are shocking and hair-raising though. But part of our history.
You would think that being brought back to her family would have been a tremendous blessing and perhaps it was, but life was not easy for her because at age 13 she was totally ostracized and shunned because everyone assumed that she was "used" by the Indians so she was regarded as "damaged goods." Poor kid.
When she met an older man who didn't care about her past she was thrilled but her father wasn't and shot the man to death! I don't know the circumstances but apparently the father was not charged with murder.
Not a happy home life
Shortly after this she ran away from home. Can you blame her? She made her way up to Abilene, Kansas which was a wild, booming cowtown at the time.
It was also full of brothels as this was one of the destinations of the big cattle drives moving herds up from Texas. Which meant the brothels were the biggest business in town alongside the saloons.
Well, with no money, no friends and no way to earn a living Libby became a "soiled dove" in one of the brothels.
Shoot...I got a call from the furnace company and one of their service guys is coming out to check our units so I gotta get off here.
I hate it when real life interrupts my steemit adventure! lol. Anyway tomorrow I'll finish Libby's wild story.
Thanks for reading folks.
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- here's something you will never hear a redneck say:
Duct tape won't fix that!
Libby and haley was finely
Kidnapped by indians bro ?? Indians were under britishers at that time 🧐🧐
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Howdy sir clicked! I'm not sure i understand the comment but that's probably my fault, I'm glad you stopped by, thank you sir clicked!
Bro its not at all your fault may be I am not good at understanding :x. Never Mind you rock bro
To hell with the furnace lol! I want to hear more about her 😊 I grew up in a little town and as an adult I remember a poor guy who was obviously a little demented as my mother might say, but the entire town called him Squirrel!!
I got doing a little research of my own about people kidnapped by Comanches and the history really is fascinating! I'd love to hear what you dug up. The past is the past, hopefully we've all learned from it, but that doesn't mean we still shouldn't talk about it.
Ooooo @lynncoyle1 are you going to be sharing? I love these historical posts, especially when it becomes personal. Although I would be a bit worried if our kindly @janton were related to some of these trigger happy historical characters! Forget the long name @janton, where did the poor women get that nickname!??!
Haha! i got some super interesting stories of people who were kidnapped and then wrote books about it later in life. I'm explaining the nick name in today's post which is going out in just a few minutes. Thanks so much for your interest!
howdy Lynn! well those accounts are some of the most fascinating ones that I've found but I guess I don't want to be accused of being mean or racist if it casts the Indians in a bad light. One case here in Texas is very famous because the young lady who got kidnapped had an Indian son and he grew up to be one of the most famous Comanche Chiefs!
Later in life she was back with whites and wrote a book about it. The problem is I couldn't find it available anywhere the last time I looked but I know it's out there somewhere, somebody has it.
Thanks for your opinion on that subject and thanks for reading and commenting!
Exactly! Hate when he does that! Haha.
Ren
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Looks like there is definately another amazing story coming are way.
@janton
There is life outside of Steemit.
Hope all goes well there with the furnace company.
howdy tonight annephilbrick! well they just checked the units, it's their annual check up where they take readings and make sure the coolant levels are full and nothing is leaking and they check the filters so everything is good. This is a good story but just one more post. someone should have written a book, or she should have but they didn't.
Well naturally I think her name is quite normal and wonderful (LOL with a big grin).
If we ignore history, we are doomed to repeat it.
haha! you have a great username but to be called her nick name in real life is something else! lol. But yes we are doomed to repeat it and we usually do don't we?
I'd like to hear about those kidnapping situations. Sounds interesting. That poor lady in this story, I'm curious to know how she got the nickname.
I do think that some people are magnets for strange happenings, whether good or bad.
Howdy ginnyannette! yes I feel bad for Libby, talk about having a rough start in life! But it did make her tough. She was forced to grow up fast.
I have an old book about a Texas man who was kidnapped when he was a kid, like 9 yrs old I think, and he lived with the Comanches for 6 years. And later wrote a book about it. By the time he left them he was a full fledged warrior going on raids with them! So I'm thinking about doing that one. I doubt if anyone has heard anything like that. The problem with those kinds of stories is there's no pictures.
Thanks for giving your opinion on this and for reading and commenting!
You can always get creative with the photos and find some loosely related pictures. Half of mine are that way :)
It sounds like a good story.
howdy today ginnyannette! That's true about the photos but yours are a little different. you could just have local scenery photos and they'd go with your posts unless you're talking about specific conditions or the beach. To me it's a great story so I hope it will be to others as well.
Oh sure... The furnace guy! That's an original way of saying `I'm tired of writing, so tune in tomorrow'😉
My daughter has always wondered if anyone has pet prairie dogs!
I'm pretty sure that if anyone can tell an atrocious story from history in a sensitive way, it would be you.
thank you for the vote of confidence Melinda, I have a book about a Texas guy who was kidnapped when you was about 9 yrs old I think and spent 6 years with them, before he came back he was going on raids with them and everything.
Yeah, I've never heard of anyone having a pet prairie dog, didn't know that was even possible! lol. Maybe she learned that from the Indians.
I'm sorry that your internet was out! Are you getting high winds? Actually I did miss you and wondered why you weren't responding to some of your comments that people had left on your post. It seemed a little odd. You do know lots of interesting stories, and of course you should tell them.
Thanks Melinda for giving your opinion on that matter that I asked about. Yes, winds are very high and it often knocks the signal out, we have a line of sight signal from a tower about a mile or so away. It's kind of a lousy set up so we're looking at other options.When we first got here they were the only option we had because we're far enough away from major hubs and towers and such. And companies say they cover everywhere and then you call and they look your location up and nope, no coverage there! lol.
I do understand how that works! I'm down here in the river valley and when I went to Verizon to see about a cell phone I told them that the only way I would buy one is if they would come out to my house and prove to me that I would have a signal here. They came out and sure enough, no signal. The guy was literally walking around my house doing the 'can you hear me now' thing. I ended up going with us cellular but the signal is weak, so I continue to have a landline phone just so I know I am connected. I am glad that my internet comes in on a cable
We did have a land line reconnected for awhile here because one of the jobs that Mrs. J tried was a customer service rep for a local electric company and they required a land line so we had that working. The internet through them was slow though. They're supposed to increase the speed but hadn't by the time she was through with that job so we got rid of the landline phone. They probably got the high speed right after we diconnected from them!
I get my internet on the same cable that I my TV from, and recently started to used the cable company for my landline phone, too it is very reliable. I don't even have the volume turned on on my cell phone because no one has that number and I never use it to make phone calls from my house.
yes it sounds like the deal you got there with the bundle is really good and if it's super reliable that's what you need. that's what WE need! lol.
How can you just start such a fascinating story and give a furnace excuse? 😱 This little frog demands the rest! Okay, okay can we pretty please get the rest of this story? 😬
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haha! Howdy there coquiunlimited! I don't recognize your username, where are you located? And what is Popular Creative Awareness? yes I will have the rest of Libby's story tomorrow. It's short but interesting. thanks so much for reading and commenting!
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Was she good at gathering nuts??
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hahaha! no she was part Irish! lol...no I'll explain the nick name though.