Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [41]
Besides the important connection with the family she loved, she believed their experiences would intrigue others. She wanted readers to hear about the generous hotel owners who gave them housing and refused to accept payment, and of the many farmhouse families who kindly sheltered and fed them. An accomplished seamstress, interested in fabric and design, she noticed the homemade quilts, lacework, and stylish fashions she saw in farmhouses and cities. These were good stories, of a good land and good people. Her abiding love for America, nurtured as an immigrant child, deepened daily.
While in Denver, the vibrant capital of Colorado, Helga visited Governor Albert W. McIntire’s office and added his prestigious signature to her document.
Courtesy Colorado Historical Society, photo by Harry H. Buckwalter, CHS-B980, 200030980.
Now much more interested in politics and society, her letters home likely told of her thoughts about women having the right to vote, what westerners said about Bryan, or the response of strangers to their short skirts. Did she admit to her discouragement, or did she abide by the western code of “swallowing your complaints … don’t talk about trouble”?6 Each day of travel expanded Helga’s awareness of her own physical and mental strength. But it also immersed her into the swirling ideas of a turn-of-the-century country in tension and transition.
The “pedestrians” exerted exceptional effort to visit Cripple Creek, which like Leadville, Colorado, had labor unrest in the mining district that kept federal troops in the region.
Courtesy Colorado Historical Society, photo by O’Keefe and Stockdorf, CHS-X4591, 20004591.
Outside of Denver, a bold highwayman attempted to rob them. Undaunted, Clara sprayed the dangerous man with her pepper gun and “rolled him down a hill.”7 This could be the same robber of whom Helga later claimed proudly, “I knocked him down.”8 They arrived unharmed to Denver, the capital of Colorado, a vibrant city of over 100,000 residents that emerged as a regional center for mining, transportation, and commercial interests as settlers moved west.
In Denver, Helga saw women’s strong interest in the campaign for the presidency because this election gave them their first chance to cast their ballot. Colorado passed women’s suffrage three years earlier in 1893, and now women actively organized for both McKinley and Bryan. In 1877, an earlier suffrage referendum for Colorado failed, partly out of many women’s apathy or disdain for the reform.9 But this changed in the following years, accelerated through the formation and growth of less threatening women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Ladies’ Aid Societies, literary clubs, and unions. Women in Colorado began to have a variety of opportunities for participation in social issues, intellectual stimulation, and political organization, and the idea of suffrage stayed alive. With an active Women’s Temperance Union, middle-class women began to see the ballot as a powerful tool for moral reform. The women Helga and Clara met throughout both Wyoming and Colorado in 1896 held a political power that Helga and Clara now recognized they lacked. While in Denver, Helga visited another powerful politician, Governor Albert W. McIntire, who added his signature to her document.
Helga wanted to visit the Cripple Creek gold-mining area where labor troubles were brewing, even though this detour added a few extra days, and even though two raging fires in April had destroyed the business district and hundreds of homes. So, on Sunday, September 6, they followed the railroad spur into the mountains. With the economic depression following 1893, miners throughout America were upset both by loss of jobs and unjust salaries. The miners in Cripple Creek, by striking, prevented the lengthening of the working day in 1893, and their union won another substantial victory