What sense would it make now to live a false life with a real name?
From the
JOURNAL OF LORINDA JAMESON CARR
5 May 1937
New York City
Diary,
Perhaps I have been working too hard or gone too long without my Chappie (he wrote today from Argentina to inform me that the milk powder had arrived and the roof tiles for the school were the wrong size). Or perhaps I am merely getting to an age where one's eyes play tricks, the stage in life where one can no longer trust the senses not to lie. Still, I must tell you of the singular and grand illusion that visited me today as I stood among my friends in Union Square.
There must have been four or five thousand volunteers in the parade. From the reviewing stand they looked glorious: citizen soldiers of every color and creed. I readily admit I would have given much not to feel the ache inside me as I watched them march along the street in their makeshift uniforms.
Perhaps the vision came to me because in that moment I needed a distraction, a diversion from the stark reality that the fine manhood I saw in those streets were an army of the dead … far too small and weak to comprise the bulwark against fascism they so hope to be. But even through my tears I realized, as did every one of them, that for the right-thinking there is no help for us but to fight. Hitler is on the rise; the Germans have destroyed Guernica; and if Franco and his minions are not stopped in Spain, I fear they will spread their systemic hatred to the whole world.
Weeping, I held tight to the First Lady's hand. By her presence here today, Nell had withstood no end of criticism from the papers, the politicians, even our own party. They had shouted that this so-called Abraham Lincoln Brigade was nothing but a motley crew of communists, fuzzy-thinking socialists, and all manner of societal misfits. The Herald Tribune had called Eleanor's attendance “misguided.” That knuckleheaded flyboy Lindbergh had referred to her as “a pinkster in petticoats.” Franklin, of course, handled the situation with his usual aplomb. “You know my missus,” he had told the reporters, “she has her own ideas about things.” God, he is the most charming and practiced of liars! Could this be why Nell has stayed with him so long, or is it because being the wife of a president affords her power to accompany deeds?
Last night, as we have for three decades, we rendezvoused at the Alhambra. Luxuriating in the hot water, it struck me how much our bodies have changed while our spirits have not. Still, I was slightly embarrassed when Nell bluntly stated how lucky I had been.
“Twice,” she said, “you have found love with a man. I never have.”
How I wished for her sake that she was wrong. But as always she spoke the truth. Franklin's infidelities had finished them as man and wife years ago. Their marriage now was merely another political deal, something brokered on neutral territory. Lamely, I told her how much our country's poor loved her. She only sighed and asked me how warm I thought “one-third of a nation” could make a bed.
But I was going to tell you of my vision, was I not? Even now, it is fading like the dreams that seem so vivid in sleep but, upon waking, escape memory.
As the brigade rounded the square and approached the platform where we stood, I caught an errant sunbeam in my eye. This caused one of those dark spots to appear before me and partially block the center of my vision. Suddenly, on one side of the obstruction, I noticed a tall man, different from the others, primarily because he was quite old amid the young—older certainly than myself.
Still, his bearing was erect and his uniform pressed and immaculate. His hair and mustache were, I noted, gray as the coat of a Confederate general, and his flat wide-brimmed hat sat upon his chiseled head like the very crown of experience.
As my watering eyes blinked in the sunshine, he disappeared momentarily, only to emerge on the other side of the sunspot. As the assembled masses began to sing, I saw his mouth open with the joy of our cause. Then, just before he turned and left my sight forever, I noticed something familiar about his handsome face.
Just above the trim mustache, I perceived a tiny mark: black and round, riding midway between nose and lip. The sun caused my eyes once again to blink and water. For a second I considered making my way into the throng to confirm my suspicions, but I could manage only a small wave in the direction in which I believed he had gone. By the time my vision had regained full strength, he had marched, straight and strong, into the cheers and vanished.
As I stood staring after him, the good people of New York launched into the final verse of a familiar and hopeful tune. To be sure, I was trembling, trembling as I had not in thirty years. But as my tears at last fell free, on my breast and on the watch I have worn for so long, I took Nell's arm in mine and joined my voice to hers:
While we seek mirth and beauty, and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say,
Oh, hard times come again no more.
It's a song, a sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,
Oh, hard times come again no more.
Author's Note
I got the idea for Etta over a decade ago. I was watching a television special on the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang when the narrator said something that caught my attention. He claimed that virtually nothing was known about Etta Place, the alleged girlfriend of the Sundance Kid.
At the time, all I knew about Etta Place I had learned from the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I saw Katharine Ross play Etta (and do a fine job of it), but I couldn't imagine there could be so little known about the legendary figure herself, especially considering there was quite a bit of information on her two male cohorts.
I thought, “What a story. But that can't be right.” Shortly after that, I went to the Free Library of Philadelphia and began researching the subject.
It was true. Etta Place was the very definition of a mystery woman.
Not that there weren't plenty of stories. I read tales of her being a schoolmarm or a prostitute or both. Some theorized that there were women who later lived under other names but could have been Etta in their youth. There was even a man who claimed that she was a niece of English royalty and that he was her nephew.
But the fact remained that there was no record of where Etta Place came from, there was little data on what happened to her, and no one knew where she was buried. There wasn't even proof that her name was real or a nom de guerre. I made notes and drew a few pictures and began to think about writing a novel.
Then for years I did nothing, but that didn't stop Etta from haunting me. Finally, I could take it no longer and began the research for what would eventually become this book.
To give Etta a past, I went with what little was known. There is no question that Etta was an extraordinary beauty. She was said to dress fashionably and have fine manners. I also read that she was a crack shot and a fine horsewoman who rode using an English saddle. It was that saddle and those manners that led me to think she might have once been a wealthy girl. And where would a turn-of-the-century girl learn to use both horse and gun if not from a father who had no son and had raised her like a boy?
The choice to have her come from Philadelphia was easy. I live here and we are known for two things besides cheesesteaks and soft pretzels: old-school aristocracy and minding our own business— two qualities Etta would need in abundance.
Writing Etta as a prostitute or teacher had already been done by others, so I decided to make my heroine a Harvey Girl because I thought it was an interesting way to launch her into the western landscape. It would also allow her to fall in with all kinds of people: some good (Loretta Kelley, Laura Bullion) and some bad (Earl Charmichael Dixon).
With some of these basics laid down, I constructed a time line about Butch, Harry, and Eleanor using all the facts that I could find. This done, I liberally inserted various factoids about
Etta along with completely fictional material. Yes, Etta and Harry did go to New York and did leave for Bolivia on the Soldier Prince, but the relationship with Eleanor, the Wild West show, and the socialist politics are all my invention. Etta never robbed a train in New Jersey or saved Teddy Roosevelt; and if she became a celebrated philanthropist, we'll never know because she disappeared from history after 1909.
The rest of the dramatis personae in this novel have been similarly trifled with. In the case of Kid Curry, I knew very well that he had actually died a suicide, and the manuscript read that way originally Even so, in the end I decided to have him perish in a duel with Harry Longbaugh: a showdown that never happened.
Etta, Butch, Sundance, Laura Bullion, Curry, Eleanor, Peg Leg, Buffalo Bill, Charles A. Siringo, Annie Oakley, Don Vittorio Ferro, and the various Wild Bunch members actually lived, just not exactly the way I say they do in these pages.
Rodman Larabee, Loretta Kelley Earl Charmichael Dixon, Dante Cichetti, Hantaywee, Eli Gershonson, and Ralph Worthing-ton Carr are all products of my imagination. I hope they are worthy of accompanying the historic figures that appeared in this story, especially the woman who inspired it.
GK
Philadelphia
May 2008
Acknowledgments
Many people were helpful and supportive during the years I worked on Etta.
My wife, Joan Weiner, was lovingly patient with me from the time of Etta's conception through its publication. It's wonderful to have good things to share with her.
Our children, Kate and Ned Kolpan, deserve a medal.
Ruth Kolpan, my mother, died as I was finishing this book. She was encouraging till the end.
My agent, Katharine Cluverius, had faith in me and in Etta from her very first reading, kept me sane through rewrites and “over-thinking,” and did it all while awaiting her first baby. Thanks also to Liz Farrell, Larissa Silva, and everyone at ICM.
Editor Robin Rolewicz helped me form this work into something much better than it was when she acquired it and did it while awaiting her first baby. Anika Streitfeld polished Etta to a diamond shine and was my gentle guide through the new world of book publishing. I am a very lucky writer to have had their help.
At Ballantine, heartfelt thanks to Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Brian McLendon, Lisa Barnes, Dana Blanchette, Catherine Casa-lino, Christine Cabello, Jillian Quint, and Katie O'Callaghan.
Special thanks go to Linda Carner, Harris Devor, Denise Goren, Charlie Hardy, Lori and David Rech, Beryl Rosenstock, Jonathan Rubin, Bruce Schimmel, Gini Graham Scott, and Joseph and Meg Smith. A tip of my Stetson also goes to Ron Cohen and Lisa Moroz. They know why.
Thanks also to Twyla Tharp, whose book The Creative Habit helped me conquer the fear of tackling my first novel.
I'm not sure if “Hard Times Come Again No More” was ever an anthem for the Socialist movement in this country but if it wasn't it should have been. It is a beautiful, inspiring song and I salute the spirit of its author, the great Stephen Foster.
And finally, much obliged to Etta Place for being such a great mystery.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GERALD KOLPAN is an Emmy Award–winning television reporter in Philadelphia. Prior to his television career he wrote for newspapers and magazines nationwide and was a frequent contributor to NPR's All Things Considered. Etta is his first book.
Etta is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people,
events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters,
places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales,
or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Gerald Kolpan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered
trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51289-5
www.ballantinebooks.com
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
From the New York Herald Tribune December 9, 1960
Part 1
Chapter 1 - From the Philadelphia Public Ledger May 6, 1898
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 - From the Journal of Lorinda Reese Jameson 10 May 1898
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - From the Journal of Lorinda Reese Jameson 11 May 1898
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 2
Chapter 8 - Letter to Josiah Longbaugh 12 State St., Phoenixville, Pa. 10 November 1899
Chapter 9
Chapter 10 - From the Journal of Etta Place 12 March 1899 Harvey House, Grand Junction, Colorado
Chapter 11
Chapter 12 - From the Grand Junction, Colorado, Citizen's News May 30, 1899
Chapter 13
Chapter 14 - From the Journal of Etta Place 2 July 1899 Wyoming Territory
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17 - From the Journal of Etta Place 13 September 1900 Wyoming Territory
Chapter 18 - Pinkerton's National Detective Agency Founded by Allan Pinkerton, 1850 “We Never Sleep”
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21 - Letter to Josiah Longbaugh 12 State St., Phoenixville, Pa. 14 September 1900
Chapter 22 - From the Journal of Etta Place 1 October 1900 Queen Victoria Hotel, Laramie, Wyoming
Chapter 23 - Pinkerton's National Detective Agency Founded by Allan Pinkerton, 1850 “We Never Sleep”
Part 3
Chapter 24
Chapter 25 - From the Journal of Etta Place 20 September 1901 New York City
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28 - From the New York World October 25, 1901
Chapter 29 - Letter to Etta Place 234 West 12th Street, New York, N.Y. 25 November, 1901
Chapter 30
Chapter 31 - From the Philadelphia Public Ledger December 6, 1901
Chapter 32
Chapter 33 - From the Journal of Etta Place 6 December 1901
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37 - From the Philadelphia Mirror December 26, 1901
Chapter 38
Chapter 39 - Letter to Josiah Longbaugh 12 State St., Phoenixville, Pa. 26 December 1901
Part 4
Chapter 40 - From the Journal of Etta Place 10 January 1902 Parlor Car Peachtree Princess Bound for Atlanta
Chapter 41 - From the Atlanta Constitution January 25, 1902
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46 - From the Journal of Etta Place 3 February 1902
Chapter 47 - The Union Bank of Kings County 6050 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, New York
Chapter 48
Chapter 49 - Letter to Josiah Longbaugh 12 State Street, Phoenixville, Pa. 8 February 1902 New York City
Chapter 50
Chapter 51 - From the New York Herald February 10, 1902
Chapter 52
Chapter 53 - From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle February 11, 1902
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Part 5
Chapter 56
Chapter 57 - From the Philadelphia Chronicle and Advertiser February 15, 1902
Chapter 58
Chapter 59 - From the Trenton Times February 28, 1902
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Part 6
Chapter 64 - From the New York Times March 18, 1905
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
>
Chapter 67 - From El Diario La Paz, Bolivia, March 25, 1909 (translated from the Spanish)
Chapter 68 - From the Journal of Lorinda Reese Jameson 2 May 1909 Denver, Colorado
Chapter 69
Chapter 70 - The W. B. Conkey Company Manufacturing Publishers Hammond, Indiana
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73 - From the Journal of Lorinda Jameson Carr 5 May 1937 New York City
Author's Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Etta: A Novel Page 29