Roberta Writes – WordCrafter Book Blog Tour: Delilah by Kaye Lynne Booth

Writing Marta – Strong female characters right out of history

One of the cool things about Delilah and the Women in the West adventure series is the fact that there is a true-life historical female character in a supporting role, along with the strong female protagonist in each book. In the first book, Delilah, the supporting character is Elizabeth “Baby” Doe McCourt Tabor. In Book 2, Sarah, the supporting character will be Big Nose Kate, and I’ve begun the pre-writing process of outlining for that one. In Marta, book 3 in the series, the supporting historical character is Clara Brown. An emancipated slave, Clara was one of the first women to go to the Colorado gold camps, providing domestic services for many of the miners, including the first laundry service in the Colorado territory.

I’m not that far with the third book. Marta is still a loose collection of ideas, with an outline draft, which can be manipulated as I change my plot points until I’m ready to begin the actual writing of the story. If you read Delilah, you will learn that Marta was captured by Indians while traveling west with her family. Book 3 is the story of Marta’s life in Central City, Colorado in the years following her release from the Utes. The supporting historical  female character for this  is not as renown as the supporting characters for the first two books, but she was  an important figure in the gold camp turned township of Central City, and I am proud to offer her a supporting role in my story. Marta takes place at a time when Clara Brown was elderly and in failing health, and she will fill the role of the wise women or mentor, sharing her wisdom with Marta, who is a nurse in charge of Clara’s care.

“Aunt” Clara Brown – A true pioneer in her own right

Clara Brown – Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame

Although there weren’t many women on the American frontier, there were women who did ‘go west’ to seek their independence, their fortunes, or both. There were also those who came west in the familial units, as wives and daughters, later losing husbands and fathers to the many hazards in the rough pioneer lives of those who ventured west into the frontier, and finding their own way out of necessity. But, if there were few women to be counted, there were even fewer black women. In this respect, Clara Brown was a pioneer and a trailblazer for the women who followed. Clara was a rarity indeed, as she was not only a female, but a female of African American descent – a freed slave, acting as her own agent in a frontier that was often harsh and cruel.

In slavery, as an indentured servant, Clara acquired domestic skills needed to run a household. Freed after many years, Clara used those skills to establish her value in the community and make her own way as an independent business woman and entrepreneur.

Born a slave in Virginia in 1800, Clara and her mother were sold and sent to Kentucky when she was nine. Later, she married a slave on the same plantation, and they had four children together. But, as was the fate of many indentured slaves, she and her family were all sold at auction by their owner and she would never see any of them again, with the exception of her youngest daughter. Her third owner freed her in 1859, at the age of 56. Under Kentucky laws, freed slaves were required to leave the state or revert to indentured servitude once more, and so she cooked and provided midwife services on a wagon train, to pay for her passage west, making her way to Colorado.

In Central City, a  gold camp consisting of mines, a few shops and saloons, and the shacks of miners and their families, she established the first laundry service in Colorado territory and provided domestic services such as cooking and cleaning, earning enough to make a living. go back to Kentucky as a representative of the Republican governor of Colorado to help freed slaves. She learned that her husband and oldest daughter had died in slavery, and her son had been sold too many times to trace, but she continued to search for her youngest daughter, Eliza Jane. She located her in Council Bluffs, Iowa in a heartwarming reunion. Clara returned home to Denver with her granddaughter in 1882.

In 1869, she went back to Kentucky in her search for her family. She came back empty handed on that score, but she brought back sixteen freed men and women, helping them to relocate in Colorado. At that time, she had accumulated savings and properties around Denver and Boulder, Colorado totaling almost  $10,000.00, (which would be valued at around $100,000.00 today).

With her wealth, she helped other blacks to relocate to Colorado, providing shelter and helping them to obtain gainful employment. In addition, her home became a community hub, as she opened it to freed slaves and provided religious services for the community, helping to establish the first Protestant Church in Colorado, and earning herself the “Aunt” Clara moniker. Most female philanthropists at this time were women wielding the wealth of their husbands, but there were some who did it on their own. A rare bird indeed, Clara Brown was a black, independent female philanthropist and profitable businesswoman.

Clara proved her value in the mining community of Central City, once labeled the richest square mile on earth, and to the state of Colorado, by venturing forth into places not for the faint of heart, much beyond the realm of common expectations for a black woman of the times. She became Clara wasn’t a superhero, but she was an amazing woman, who used her brains and her inner strength to help others. She was voted into the Society of Colorado Pioneers in 1884 for her contributions during the Colorado gold rush. She died on October 23,1885. Clara Brown was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 2022.

References

Karen A. Johnson (Winter, 2006) The African American Experience in Western States Journal of African American History Vol. 91 No. 1 pp. 4-22 Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/20064044

Clara Brown Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame Retrieved from https://www.cogreatwomen.org/project/clara-brown/

Clara Brown. Colorado Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/clara-brown

“Aunt” Clara Brown. History Colorado. Retrieved from https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/2017/aunt_clara_brown.pdf

Clara Brown: Pioneer and Philanthropist in Early Colorado. History of American Women. Retrieved from https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2015/03/clara-brown.html

Delilah giveaway

I’m giving away two digital copies, 

and one signed print copy

of

Delilah

Leave a comment to enter. 

Multiple entries are allowed, 

so leave a comment at each stop for more chances.

About Delilah

Delilah is a woman haunted by her past.

Her homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance when she is brutally raped and left for dead, and her fourteen-year-old ward is abducted. Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws to Leadville, Colorado.

Can the colorful inhabitants of the Colorado mining town work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence?

If you like strong and capable female protagonists, you’ll love Delilah.

Purchase Delilah: Purchase link: https://books2read.com/DelilahWIW

About the author

Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.

Her latest release is the re-release of Delilah, as Book 1 in the Women in the West adventure series. She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.

In addition, she keeps up her authors’ blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. Kaye Lynne has also created her own very small publishing house in WordCrafter Press, and WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services, where she offers quality author services, such as publishing, editing, and book blog tours. She has served as a judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Kevin J. Anderson & Jonathan Maberry.

In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.