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Colorado's Legendary Lovers: Historic Scandals, Heartthrobs, and Haunting Romances
This collection of 28 vignettes of famous lovebirds from Colorado's past includes such incendiary historical characters as Baby Doe and Horace Tabor, Molly Dorsey and Byron Sanford, and Cort Thompson and Mattie Silks. The couples were chosen because of their impact on the state's evolution and their propensity for drama. These real-life chatacters include pioneers, adventurers, gamblers, silver barons, and madams.
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2004
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September 5, 2012
This title caught my eye when I saw it for sale in the museum shop of the Colorado History Center. (The Denver Public Library has it too.) With its short chapters on the licit and illicit relationships of famous Colorado personalities, it provided an entertaining way to pick up some local history. Along with the better known names like Horace & Baby Doe Tabor, J.J. & Molly Brown, and notorious madam Mattie Silks, we get the skinny on others familiar to Coloradans: the Elitches, the Iliffs, the Penroses, Chipeta & Chief Ouray, explorer Isabella Bird, the founders of both the Rocky Mtn. News and Denver Post and their secret ladies, just to name a few.
One jaw-dropping tale was the story of Mary Rippon, for whom a theater at CU is named. The first female professor at CU, beginning in 1878, she was the essence of Victorian "maiden lady" propriety on the surface. Carefully concealed, however, was her liaison with one of her students, Will, 12 yrs. her junior, which produced a daughter. On discovering she was pregnant, Mary asked for and was granted a sabbatical, during which the two married; their daughter was born a few months later in Europe. Mary and Will later divorced and he married someone else. Mary resumed her life as a supposedly never- married CU professor, yet she continued to visit and financially support Will's new family, including her own daughter, for many years. Mary's daughter did not know until she was grown that Mary was her mother instead of her aunt, as she had been told. The secret was successfully kept until some 50 years after Mary's death, when her grandson donated some of Mary's papers to CU Archives and revealed the truth.
These true stories are better than fiction.
One jaw-dropping tale was the story of Mary Rippon, for whom a theater at CU is named. The first female professor at CU, beginning in 1878, she was the essence of Victorian "maiden lady" propriety on the surface. Carefully concealed, however, was her liaison with one of her students, Will, 12 yrs. her junior, which produced a daughter. On discovering she was pregnant, Mary asked for and was granted a sabbatical, during which the two married; their daughter was born a few months later in Europe. Mary and Will later divorced and he married someone else. Mary resumed her life as a supposedly never- married CU professor, yet she continued to visit and financially support Will's new family, including her own daughter, for many years. Mary's daughter did not know until she was grown that Mary was her mother instead of her aunt, as she had been told. The secret was successfully kept until some 50 years after Mary's death, when her grandson donated some of Mary's papers to CU Archives and revealed the truth.
These true stories are better than fiction.
Displaying 1 of 1 review