Jacqui Nelson's Blog

Life can take us down many paths. How does a German stone carver’s daughter go from sculpting the European elite to sculpting Texas heroes? First came tenacity, then talent, then tuberculosis.

Around the turn of the 19th century, the tuberculosis death rate worldwide was estimated at 7 million people a year, so tuberculosis definitely could be a life-changer. Even though Elisabet Ney never had tuberculosis, it resulted in her leaving her birthplace of Germany and eventually living in Texas sculpting Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston.

Franzisca Bernadina Wilhelmina Elisabeth Ney
( born 1833 in Münster, Germany )

Elisabet Ney

Elisabet (the spelling without the “h” seems to be the name most often used when referring to her by one name) grew up assisting her father in his stone-carving business. When her parents later opposed her becoming a sculptor, she went on a hunger strike. That’s tenacity.

King Ludwig II

In 1852, Elisabet became the first female sculpture student at the Munich Academy of Art under professor Max von Widnmann.

In 1857, she set up her own studio in Berlin and sculpted portraits of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, composer Richard Wagner, folklorist Jacob Grimm, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, General Giuseppe Garibaldi, King George V of Hanover, and King Ludwig II of Bavaria. That seems like a dual talent: getting the job done and pleasing those elite figures.

In 1853, Elisabet met Edmund Montgomery, a Scottish medical student, scientist, and philosopher. They kept in touch and, although she viewed the institution of marriage as a state of bondage for women, she married Edmund in 1863.

Marriage did not change Elisabet’s views on the role of women. She refused to take her husband’s name, chose to wear trousers and a black artist frock coat, and rode horses astride.

What changed Elisabet—at least as far as where she went next—was tuberculosis. The same year that she was married, her husband was diagnosed with the deadly disease.

In 1871, Elisabet and Edmund immigrated to the United States to join a colony in Georgia that was promoted as a healing resort for those afflicted with tuberculosis. When that didn’t work out, they searched for a new home. Elisabet traveled alone to Texas to see the Liendo Plantation in Waller County. When her husband was finally able to join her, they purchased the plantation.

For the next ten years, Elisabet concentrated on running the plantation and raising a son while her husband focused on his research. Only in the early 1880s, did Elisabet restart her artistic career—after being invited to Austin by Governor Oran M. Roberts.

In 1891, the Chicago World’s Fair Association’s Board of Lady Managers commissioned Elisabet to create life-size marble figures of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin for the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition World’s Fair.

Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston

Despite the supplement of $32,000 from the Texas state legislature, Elisabet missed her deadline and the Houston and Austin sculptures couldn’t be shown at the Exhibition. They can now be seen in the Texas State Capitol in Austin and in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Elisabet kept sculpting and died in her Texas studio in 1907.

Elisabet Ney in her Texas studio

Elisabet Ney traveled far and immersed herself in several careers, but she always came back to sculpting. Writing, I think, is like sculpting or painting or any creative endeavor. People start with a blank page or block of stone and shape something (after heading down a creative path) that other people will hopefully connect with.

If you’d like to see where my creative endeavors have taken me, head to MY BOOK PAGE on my website where you’ll find links to read excerpts from (and view picture inspiration boards for) all of my stories.

This blog post was originally posted on the Cowboy Kisses multi-author blog (as part of my Wild Women of the West blog series) on Feb 12, 2021. 

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Happy New Year…a couple of weeks after the day! The start of a New Year (or even the start of a new month or week) is a great time to make resolutions or create lists of dreams/goals we want to achieve. I believe that planning how I will achieve my dreams/goals is essential. So is embracing (as much as I can without exhausting myself completely) the mindset of a go-getter.

What or who is a go-getter? Well, I think Vinnie Ream definitely was one. Read on and be inspired (as I was) by the go-getter who was the daughter of a land surveyor but still found a way to sculpt Abraham Lincoln when she was only seventeen…

Lavinia Ellen “Vinnie” Ream
( born 1847 in Madison, Wisconsin )

As a child, Vinnie Ream moved frequently due to her father’s job as a land surveyor. When she was seven, her family moved to Kansas, and she was sent to school in St. Joseph, Missouri. Three years later, she attended Christian College in Columbia, Missouri. In 1858, she rejoined her parents in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

In 1861, her family moved to Washington, D.C. in search of new employment. As her father’s health continued failing, Vinnie started working to support her family.

She was one of the first women employed by the U.S. federal government. From 1862 to 1866, she processed undeliverable mail in the U.S. postal system’s dead letter office. She also sang in church and in hospitals and spent the rest of her time studying statues at the U.S. Capitol and in public squares—while dreaming of becoming a sculptor.

Vinnie standing beside her bust of Abraham Lincoln

In 1863, she used a contact from her Christian College days (who was now a U.S. Congressman) to gain an introduction to the sculptor Clark Mills. The following year, at the age of seventeen, she became an apprentice in Mills’ studio.

That same year, President Lincoln agreed to model for her in the mornings for five months. During this time, she created a bust of Lincoln’s figure and also (as a marketing strategy) sold photographs of herself and solicited newspaper attention.

A year later in 1865, she became the youngest artist and first woman to receive a commission from the U.S. government for a statue. She used her bust of Lincoln as her entry into the selection contest for a full-size statue of Lincoln.

Significant debate ensued over her selection due to her inexperience and the slanderous accusations that she was a woman of questionable reputation—known for her beauty, conversational skills, and zest for public relations.

In 1871 when she was 23 years old, her Carrara marble statue of President Lincoln was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Vinnie and her statue of Abraham Lincoln

In 1875, George Armstrong Custer sat with her for a portrait bust. In 1876, she exhibited at the Centennial Exposition. In 1877, she produced a model for a Lee statue in Richmond. And, after lobbying William Tecumseh Sherman and Mrs. Farragut, she won a competition to sculpt Admiral David G. Farragut.

She designed the first free-standing statue of a Native American (Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet) to be placed in Statuary Hall at the Capitol. The town of Vinita, Oklahoma (established by the Cherokee attorney and politician, Elias Cornelius Boudinot) was named in her honor.

Lavinia Ellen “Vinnie” Ream

Yes, Vinnie Reams definitely is my idea of a go-getter. Of course, going after (and getting) what you want helps if you have the gift of the gab, which it sounds like Vinnie definitely had as well.

I’d love to hear your dreams/goals for this year. Hope you’ll share

Three of my dreams/goals for 2021 are…Take a walk at least every second day, so that (if the world allows) I can go on the Kenya/Tanzania safari trip (I had to postpone last year) and be fit enough to really enjoy itLet go of what I can’t control (just say no to negative thoughts)Keep my mind focused on finishing writing my story-in-progress, A Bride for Griffin

This blog post was originally posted on the Cowboy Kisses multi-author blog (as part of my Wild Women of the West blog series) on Jan 8, 2021. 

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It’s Friday the 13th and I’m celebrating with a Lucky Number 7 publishing anniversary (for the month of November book sale) by joining a friend’s 10-year writing anniversary! 

Seven years ago on Nov 16, 2013, I self-published my first book, Adella’s Enemy. The inspirational nudge for creating this book (and joining the self-published world) was the invite to join a shared-world writing project with fellow Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® award finalists Elisabeth (E.E.) Burke and Jennifer Jakes. 

Here’s the story inspiration page that I included in Adella’s Enemy…

Have you watched the TV series Hell on Wheels? Would you like to write a railroad romance with a race for riches? Those were the questions asked by Elisabeth Burke and Jennifer Jakes. Without them, Adella’s Enemy would never have been written.

Post-Civil War America was a time of great tension and transition but also incredible opportunities for prosperity—if you played your cards right. Instead of weeks or months to cross America, when its transcontinental railroad was completed in May 1869, the journey was reduced to less than a week. The railroad builders’ and camp followers’ journeys (and fates and fortunes) made Hell on Wheels.

Time is money for travelers and builders—from the worker laying track to the smooth-talking promoter overseeing construction and the proposed route. The proximity of a railroad could make or break a town’s future and a speculator’s fortune. The entire endeavor often became a cutthroat race for riches. 

In Adella and Cormac’s story, I like to think their race for revenge, forgiveness and, above all, love provided the greatest riches of all. 

The Steam! Romance and Rails series started with three stories that not only shared a unique setting, time, and plot (Kansas 1870 during a cutthroat railroad race for riches) but characters as well… 

Adella’s Enemy by me

Pinterest inspires me. Every time I write a story, I create a secret Pinterest board to store my visual inspiration for that story. And after I release that story, I make my Pinterest board visible to the world.

So…now it’s time to share the Pinterest board for my newest release, A Bride for Heddwyn 

It’s been a year since I published my last book, A Bride for Brynmor (book 1 in my Songbird Junction series), but today I have a new book to share with you…

A Bride for Heddwyn (Songbird Junction, book 2)
is available now!

To celebrate, I have both books 1 & 2 on sale for $0.99 until Oct 9th. Or you can read them (like almost all of my books) for free any day with Kindle Unlimited.

What’s this story about?

Well…there’s a Welshman (named Heddwyn) who can’t stand still and an Irish-Cree Métis musician (named Oriole) who’s running away from her troupe manager…and every lie she’s ever told. And she’s told quite a few!

A Bride for Heddwyn – Opening Paragraph

Denver, Colorado

January 1878


The church bells rang for Lark and her husband, but they’d never ring for Oriole. Unlike her sister, Oriole couldn’t depend on love, and no one could depend on her. All she could do was run from her past and present, which included the dangerously distracting Welshman who kept glancing over his shoulder and insisting they needed to talk.

A Bride for Heddwyn – Book Blurb

Secrets are everywhere…

From the moment she met her sisters in a Qu’Appelle Valley orphanage, Oriole has rewritten her past to protect her present. Now Lark is married, Wren is lost, and Oriole is on a mission to find Wren before their cruel and controlling troupe manager does. In order to succeed, she must cling to her lies and evade the only man she ever let come close, the fast-talking Llewellyn brother who deserted her without a word.

Second chances are few…

From the moment he first heard Oriole sing with her sisters in a Cheyenne saloon, notoriously scatterbrained Heddwyn Llewellyn’s desire to change gained focus. Until tragedy struck. To protect his brothers and sister, Heddwyn turned his back on love and the only woman who’d ever riveted his attention—all while refusing to talk to him. Now, after two years apart, Oriole’s finally back in his life and so is a shot at redemption.

The Songbird Sisters’ quest for freedom may have reunited Oriole and Heddwyn, but it’s also tearing them apart. Her sadistic troupe manager is more than happy to maim and murder to get his money-making musicians back. Can two hearts always on the run finally stand still long enough to save each other and their love too?

And who will help them?
Friends & family from Noelle & Denver, that’s who!

A Bride for Heddwyn (set in January 1878) is book 2 in my Songbird Junction series, but it contains several characters from my Christmas stories: The Calling Birds, set in 1876, and Robyn: a Christmas Bride, set in 1877. 

And of course, those characters include Grandpa Gus Peregrine! When there’s meddling to be done, Gus will never be content to stay behind Peregrines’ Post and Freight’s counter sorting the mail. Not when he can get out and give advice for fixin’ young folks’ lives. And what does Gus have to say about (or at least say in) Heddwyn and Oriole’s story?

Something about “Horsefeathers”

Towns like Tombstone have histories full of gunfighters and gamblers, but what about lawyers? With all the lawbreaking going on, there must have been a few law practitioners. In fact, during its heyday, Tombstone had more attorneys than any other city in the Arizona Territory.

One of them was Sarah Herring Sorin, a New York City native who traveled to Tombstone with the intention of becoming a teacher. She accomplished that swiftly and thoroughly. She taught in Tombstone for ten years.

She also became the first woman admitted to the Arizona Territory Bar and the first woman to argue on her own before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read the rest of this blog post on the August edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.

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Prepare to get flowery or…plant-y! I love flowers, plants, trees, and— Well, maybe I should just say, I love botany. And I also love reading about real-life Wild Women of the West who pursued their love for botany

Alice Eastwood was one of those women. She lived in Canada, Colorado, and California…traveled from Alaska to Arizona to collect plants…and even entered a burning building to rescue her collection.

Read the rest on the July edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.

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Can you imagine having a mountain named after you? Or being responsible for a flower becoming a state flower?

Sara Plummer Lemmon accomplished both feats with no formal training in botany. Here’s how she made history…

Read the rest on the June edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.

Mount Lemmon – named after the 19th-century botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon

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When women started wearing bloomers (loose trousers gathered at the ankle and worn under a knee-length skirt) in the 1850s, it was considered a scandalous mode of dress. What bloomers replaced seems beyond scandalous by today’s standards.

If women wanted to be deemed fashionable in the 1850s, they wore…

1) a skirt that dragged several inches on the ground
2) layers of starched petticoats stiffened with straw or horsehair sewn into the hems
3) a whale-bone corset that pushed one’s internal organs out of place

As one medical professor warned his students, the result was “a feminine population which was of no use as cadavers for studying human anatomy.”

But bloomers (also known as the Reform Dress) resulted in warnings as well. Public meetings were called to stop the change. Some women were denied church membership for wearing bloomers.

So now it’s time to meet Amelia Bloomer and Lucy Stone, two Wild Women reformers and fashionistas who helped shape a new fashion…instead of having it shape them.

Read the rest on the May edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.  

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The times they are a-changing, but the special place in our hearts, hopes, and memories for healthcare professionals is timeless

Calfornia was often called a land of gold and opportunity. Meet Mariana Bertola and Charlotte Johnson Baker, two wild women doctors and reformers (born in the 1890s) who helped the Golden State find something greater than gold…

Read the rest on the April edition of my monthly blog with Cowboy Kisses.  

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