A Woman to be Reckoned with
by Mary Fields was a woman to be reckoned with.
This incident was too much for the Mother Superior’s superior. He knew of Fields outstanding service for the mission but this was the last straw. He told Mother Amadeus,”Send that black woman away.” During the time she had worked at the mission her pay had been in board and a little spending money, now Mother Amadeus helped Fields open a eating house where she prepared and served meals. Due to Field’s kind heart she would not let anyone go hungry, money or not. So she was soon broke.
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Mother Amadeus helped her get the business on it’s feet twice and then got Fields a job . Mary Fields became a US mail carrier. She drove a wagon with a team of horses and later a stagecoach. She never missed a day during the eight years she worked as mail carrier. Neither rain, snow, sleet, or anything kept her from her appointed rounds. If the horses couldn’t travel the roads, Fields put on her snowshoes and walked. In 1903 she was over 70 years old. Fields gave the mail route up and became a washer woman. She had plenty of business. It was hard, back breaking work. Carrying water, washing clothes on a rub board with her homemade lye soap,and wringing them out with her hands. She had a tender spot for children and she babysat and did other odd jobs.
When Mary Fields fell ill instead of asking for help , she took her blankets out to an overgrown field and made her bed to die in. Some boys found her and summoned neighbors, against her will they carried her to a hospital. There she died. The townspeople cared. Mary Fields funeral was held in the Pastime Theater with a large attendance. The theater overflowed with flowers and nothing was left undone to give Mary Fields a good send off. Mary Fields lived large and loud. She could out shoot and out cuss most men, and had the guts and spirit to survive in the Old West.
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Post Commentceegirl
On October 8, 2009 at 7:31 am
That for sharing.
ken bultman
On October 8, 2009 at 7:45 am
A wonderful, well told story previously unknown to me. I enjoyed the read.
chitragopi
On October 8, 2009 at 8:22 am
Unbelievable. She was not bad. Interesting write.
Jenny Heart
On October 8, 2009 at 8:49 am
Very interesting!
Judi Eddy
On October 8, 2009 at 9:01 am
Loved the picture. and what a remarkable woman
martie
On October 8, 2009 at 9:17 am
This is the kind of story I love. It seems to me that Mary was tough but, she was also very kind and gentle in her own way.
Papa Sparks
On October 8, 2009 at 9:30 am
Very interesting.
Mythili Kannan
On October 8, 2009 at 9:32 am
Thanks for sharing this unknown story
strovek
On October 8, 2009 at 9:47 am
truly inspiring
James Tiger
On October 8, 2009 at 10:05 am
Nice one Ruby, cheers!
Frances Lawrence
On October 8, 2009 at 10:20 am
A remarkable woman, thank you for writing about her.
Tanya Wallace
On October 8, 2009 at 4:43 pm
What a brave and courageous woman she sounded like! Not only did she have her color working against her at that time but also the fact she was more like a man in many ways,I suppose she would have to be given the trails and tribulations she went through.Wonderful historical write,very interesting and well written!
CA Johnson
On October 8, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this biography on Mary Fields. She sounds like an incredible woman. I really enjoyed reading this article.
Judy Sheldon
On October 8, 2009 at 9:14 pm
She sounds like embodied many good qualities. I like stories like this.It makes me think of my grandparents.
Shirley Shuler
On October 8, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Thanks for sharing this story, Ruby, Mary Fields was a tough woman with a heart of gold, I love these kinds of stories, keep them coming!!
mystery61
On October 8, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I enjoyed this. It was very interesting. Good job!
Eunice Tan
On October 8, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Very encouraging to face our lives
PR Mace
On October 9, 2009 at 11:11 am
Wonderfully told story but from the title I thought it was going to be about Ruby Hawk. LOL.
Buffalo Soldier 9
On October 9, 2009 at 12:44 pm
How do you keep a people down? You ‘never’ let them ‘know’ their history.
The upcoming epic movie will tell this wonderful story about this free spirited women…http://www.stagecoachmary.net
The 7th Cavalry got their butts in a sling again after the Little Big Horn Massacre, fourteen years later, the day after the Wounded Knee Massacre. If it wasn’t for the 9th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers, there would of been a second massacre of the 7th Cavalry. Read, and visit site/great history, http://www.rescueatpineridge.com
Ruby Hawk
On October 9, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Thank you my friends, as always I appreciate the way you continue to support me. You are the greatest.
Pam, I wish I could write such a wonderful story about myself. I admire Mary Fields spirit and her attitude.
Buffalosoldier,I hope I see this movie when it comes out. I would love to see it, and I so seldom want to see any movie. I don’t won’t to miss this one.
Joe Dorish
On October 9, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Thank you Ruby for telling me this great story. Mary Fields must have been a great character people really liked.
Moses Ingram
On October 10, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Absolutely wonderful ! I loved every word. You are a great storyteller.
Mark Gordon Brown
On October 11, 2009 at 10:09 am
Thats one tough broad. Also a noted time traveler too (actually an error shows a date of 1980).
Peter Cimino
On October 12, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Another incredible story!
Daisy Peasblossom
On October 12, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Three cheers for this rousing tale of a diamond-in-the-rough.
Teves
On October 15, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Nice written…
CutestPrincess
On November 5, 2009 at 6:43 am
truly inspiring piece…
Linda
On November 30, 2009 at 3:03 am
Some interesting or fun additional facts- or current beliefs- concerning Mary Fields:
Unlike most people- especially women- previously held as slaves, as a young girl, Mary Fields was already at conflict with the expectations of the day, as she learned quite early on how to read and write. It is unclear whether it was Dolly Dunn who taught this to her, or whether Dolly’s father, the honorable Reverend Dunn, said to have been a very forward thinker, saw to it that Mary received lessons alongside his own daughter. Either way, Mary was not just a strong, cigar-chewing, gunslinging woman, but was surprisingly well-schooled, too.
Mary did not actually leave for the West until she was 52 years old, a time when many of us are already thinking of retiring, and she did not start working for the Post Office for another ten years after that, at the age of 62.
There are many who suggest that Mary followed Dolly Dunn (Mother Amadeus) into the West out of nothing more than a desire to help a ailing friend. Others claim, though, that the women had feelings for one another that were far more deep than mere friendship, and that had they lived in a different age and time, their relationship might have become something else, altogether. Whatever the truth on this may actually be, it cannot be discounted that Mary’s friendship with Dolly/Amadeus remained the single most important relationship she had in her life, ranging from earliest childhood throughout her adult life. If these feelings were even partially true, they may well have played some part in her eventual dismissal from the payroll of St. Peter’s Convent Mission. Even after being dismissed by Bishop Brondell, Amadeus did not exactly fire Mary, as such. After a concerted effort by both Amadeus and Mary to get the new bishop to change his mind, Amadeus still managed to keep Mary close at hand by assisting her in securing the mail route between the town of Cascade and the convent mission. The good Mother even used mission funds (that means Church money!) to buy Mary an old mule named Moses- famous for being almost as cantankerous as Mary, herself- along with a wagon and all supplies necessary to keep the business up and running. Of course, had Mary not been up to the task, she’d not have been awarded the route, but at 62 years of age, she out-performed all the men who also applied for the job, all of whom were much younger than she. When Amadeus was sent to open a new mission in Alaska, in 1903, Mary seems to have lost much of her desire and zest for life and very quickly retired from the post office, purportedly unable to bear the long trip out to the convent any longer, with Dolly/Amadeus no longer present to greet her.
Still, despite such deep despair, she lived more than a full decade longer in the Cascade area, working her own laundry, a business that, like the wagon and mule before it, Amadeus had arranged with the convent to buy for Mary. She worked this job, although her drinking got very much much out of hand after Amadeus left, and her carousing and fisticuffs at times got quite out of hand (she would later die of liver failure caused by the heavy drinking done at this time). Oddly enough, though, it was at this time that she became deeply focused on the men’s baseball team, and began giving out her own homegrown button-hole bouquets to each man for each play well-met. In one of the more rare stories told about the fights she’d get into, she is said to have been holding one of these bouquets in her hand when an opposing team supporter defamed one of her beloved Cascade players. Not even bothering to drop the flowers, Mary is supposed to have punched the man squarely on the nose, adding to her reputation as having given more broken noses in the county that year than anyone else or likely in any other, if the stories are all truly told. From that time on, too, the players are said to have often challenged other teams to be especially careful as Mary’s nose-gays were known to pack quite a punch.
A few days before Mary died, she gathered up a few personal belongings and a few favorite quilts and went off to die alone, in some tall prairie grass near her home. Luckily, she was discovered by some young boys who called out the alert, and although she was against becoming any kind of burden, Mary allowed her friends to carry her back home. It is said that the men lined up all along the path so as to make carrying her as easy on her- and because of her size, likely them, too- as possible. She died a few days later in the hospital in Great Falls. In one source, it is said that, almost in honor of Mary’s own tradition, not a few men resorted to throwing punches to decide just which got to serve as pall bearer.
It should be noted that at the time she won her position with the US Postal Service, Mary Fields became the second woman of any race to be hired as a carrier, and the first African-American, of either gender.
It should also be noted that Mary Fields vehemently hated wearing dresses. The only reason she is seen in a dress over her pants in the various photographs that exist is that the photographer refused to shoot the images unless she was “properly dressed.”
For those interested in reading Gary Cooper’s remembrance of this wonderful woman, you will find it on Google books, listed here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=18sDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=1959+Gary+Cooper+ebony+magazine&source=bl&ots=MR1aVpf1jK&sig=sdcuowvI2yOcc66Go3R7lIb__qg&hl=en&ei=emYTS4G1O43MsgO4vqnmAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false