A Visit with the Tomboy Bride
It has been over thirty years since Harriet Fish Backus wrote Tomboy Bride. Those that have read this regional classic about the trials and tribulations of a new bride at the Tomboy Mine, high above Telluride, Colorado, are passionate in their praise for it. Since the author died over twenty-five years ago it was presumed that there would never be a sequel. Fortunately for us, Fort Lewis College professor, Duane Smith, did an early review of Tomboy Bride in Montana: The Magazine for Western History in the 1970 summer issue. Harriet enjoyed the review, wrote Duane Smith, and began a correspondence with him that would last until her death in 1977 at the age of ninety-two. Over the years she sent him photographs, letters from her friends who had lived in Tomboy Basin, and most importantly she recounted additional tales (such as the trials of a new mother trying to breastfeed a baby at that altitude) that she had not put in the book. She also wrote about how she came to write the book and the obstacles she encountered in getting it published (the first edition was a self-published book). Professor Smith’s book is not meant to replace Tomboy Bride, but rather to supplement it with a potpourri of information and photographs from Harriet and her friends, as well as observations from Duane Smith. A Visit With the Tomboy Bride takes us back again to another era and allows us to relive the adventurous life of a new bride thrust into an unfamiliar lifestyle. We can once more experience the grace with which she accepts her hardships and the love and commitment that she shares with her new husband and eventually her newborn child. Just as the original, this book reflects a wonderful, spirited life high above timberline in the rugged San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado. If you enjoyed Tomboy Bride you will want to read the rest of the story in A Visit With the Tomboy Bride.
- Published
- 2003
- ISBN
- 1-890437-87-5
- Pages
- 144
- Place
- Telluride
- Publisher
- Western Reflections Pub. Co.
- Listed at
- $12.95
Publication details from Open Library. The price shown is the last one on record and is historic, not a current offer.
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About this book
A Visit with the Tomboy Bride is a companion to a regional classic. The description explains that it has been over thirty years since Harriet Fish Backus wrote Tomboy Bride, and readers who know it are passionate in their praise. That book is about the trials and tribulations of a new bride at the Tomboy Mine, high above Telluride, Colorado.
The description also notes that Backus died over twenty-five years before it was written. Duane A. Smith is the author of this one. Open Library files it under miners' spouses, mining camps, biography and history, and lists a 2003 edition from Western Reflections Pub. Co.
At 144 pages, it is a short companion for anyone who has read Backus or wants to see how people remember her. We have only the opening of the catalogue description to work from, so we won't claim more about its contents than that. If you want to know what a woman's life looked like at a mine over eleven thousand feet up, this book and its subject are the reason to ask.
What is inside
A famous memoir's subject
The book revisits Harriet Fish Backus, author of Tomboy Bride.
The Tomboy Mine
Backus's story is set at the Tomboy Mine above Telluride.
A bride's trials
The memoir is described as an account of the trials and tribulations of a new bride.
Readers' devotion
The description says people who read the original are passionate in their praise.
Biography and history
Library subject headings cover miners' spouses, mining camps and biography.
Who it is for
The book will appeal first to readers of Tomboy Bride, who already love Backus and will want more of her world. Telluride visitors and hikers on the old Tomboy road may enjoy the setting. Researchers on women in mining camps can use it as a pointer to the original memoir. Libraries with a Colorado shelf should have both. Because it is a companion, it is best read after the classic it follows, though anyone curious about life on a high mountain mine can start here.
About the author
Duane A. Smith is a Colorado historian who has written on mining camps, railroads and newspapers, and here he writes about one of the best known women's memoirs from those camps. He has nine books in our catalogue, from a 1967 regional survey to a 2011 biography. His author page has the details we can verify about his career and a short note on each book.
The place and the period
The Tomboy site is real, and it is high. Wikipedia places the former mining town about two miles east of Telluride in San Miguel County, at 11,509 feet, one of the highest ghost towns in the United States. It was first called Savage Basin Camp and later took its name from the nearby Tomboy Mine.
The Tomboy began producing gold ore in 1894, and the mine sold for $2 million to the Rothschilds of London in 1897. The town had a store, a school, a stable and miners' cabins, and a stagecoach carrying passengers and mail passed through daily. Wikipedia adds that it had a YMCA and tennis courts, unusual for a mining town of the era. The mine operated until 1928.
Down the mountain, Telluride was founded in 1878 as Columbia and renamed Telluride in 1887. Otto Mears opened a toll road in 1881, and the Rio Grande Southern Railroad reached Telluride in 1891.
Source: Wikipedia, Tomboy, Colorado
Good to know
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