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

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.

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