Jean Wilson Murray

Isabella Bird – Rocky Mountain Adventurer Falls in Love

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Isabella Bird. Public Domain. On Wikicommons.

Isabella Bird Bishop was feminine, dressed in women’s clothes and rode side saddle (only in town). She also was an experienced traveler who wasn’t afraid of anything or anyplace. Miss Bird, as many called her, was a world traveler, but I have been especially interested in her travels in the Rockies in the 1870s, in part because it was here that she met her “dearest desperado,” who was the love of her life.

Isabella is probably the best-known woman adventurer, next to Gertrude Bell. I talk to people about the Women Adventurers series, they will often mention her. This article focuses on her trip to the Rockies in 1873, with a focus on her travels in the mountains and her relationship with Jim Nugent.

Isabella’s Early Life

Isabella Bird was born in Yorkshire, England, on October 15, 1891. Her father was a clergyman who had trouble keeping a position, so they moved often. From childhood, she was frail, with spinal issues, nervous headaches, and insomnia. Because of her illnesses, she was taught at home. A fibrous tumor was removed from her spine, but she still continued to have problems, and the family spent summers in Scotland to see if it would improve her health.

She was an outspoken child, bright, curious, and a great reader. Her father taught her botany and she enjoyed looking for specimens on her travels.

Isabelle’s first trip was a family trip to the U.S. in 1854, and her letters back home were the basis for her first book, An Englishwoman in America (1856). The book was well received and she was on her way to becoming a celebrity.

Off to the Rockies

In 1872 Isabella started a long journey. She found that travel invigorated her; she wasn’t prone to seasickness and she enjoyed much better health when she was traveling.

Fall River @ Estes Park. Ewing Galloway [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This trip began in Australia (which she disliked) and New Zealand (she liked it), and then she went to the U.S, with the aim of seeing the Rocky Mountains.

On her way to Estes Park, she stayed with two couples, and her time with them reveals the types of people who were living in Colorado in the 1870s. The first couple, the Chalmers family from Illinois, were “in all ways hard.” In A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, Isabella described their faces “like granite,” their meanness, suspicion and ill humor.

They were also “simply incompetent.” When Mr. Chalmers offered to lead her to Estes Park, she had clear evidence of this: On the way, their horses took off because he forgot to tether them. And he lost his way and couldn’t find the trail; he even forgot the way home! Isabella, of course, took charge.

She also stayed with the Hutchinsons, a “more agreeable” young doctor and his wife. They were from Britain and not used to the ways of rough citizens of Colorado. The settlers “shamelessly” cheated them and they had no farming or domestic skills. Isabella again took charge.

Isabella was at her best and healthiest when traveling, and she was “enchanted” with the mountains, with the brisk air and beautiful scenery.

Isabelle and Jim Nugent

Mountain man. Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons
When Isabelle reached Estes Park in 1873, she saw a “rude black log cabin” with a dog out front and “a broad thickset man, about middle height. He wore an old cap, a ragged hunting-suit, and mocassins on his feet. He had only one eye and “‘Desperado’ was written in large letters all over him.” * He actually kicked the dog as he raised his cap. This was Jim Nugent, “Rocky Mountain Jim, AKA “The Mountainous One” “because of the extraordinary altitude of his lies.”

But she was shocked when he began to speak, because, she said, his manner was that of a chivalrous gentleman, “easy and elegant” and cultured. “I hope you will allow me the pleasure of calling on you,” he said to her.

I wasn’t surprised to hear he was Irish, born in Canada; this was a complex man. He had run away from home because he couldn’t marry his first love. He had been a fur trapper and Indian scout (he was about 45) and he did trapping and guiding and stock raising to get money to spend on “orgies of drunkenness and ruffianism.” But he also wrote poetry and was vain about his reputation. He was gentle and children adored him.

He offered to guide her through Estes Park and a spark was quickly lit in their relationship as they traveled and talked. She said Jim was “cultured, erudite, delightful.”

Long’s Peak from Mont Alto CO, Library of Congress[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The description of their attempt to climb Long’s Peak (14,700 ft) was comical. Picture Isabelle, who described herself as  a “short, plump, devout, high-minded English spinster of over forty…” (she was 45) in cumbersome Victorian dress and petticoats. She wanted to prove her bravery and courage by climbing the mountain, but her physical state wasn’t up to the challenge. She had to be “half-dragged” by Jim to the summit, as he tied her to himself and basically climbed with her on his shoulders. At times she crawled on her hands and feet.

Continental Divide / Bureau of Land Management [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Toward the summit, the last 500 feet was a “perpendicular crawl up a smooth cracked face of pink granite.”

After this adventure, she stayed in a cabin (not the same one where Jim was) and enjoyed his company and that of his friends. She knew she was falling in love with him and didn’t know what to do. So she went on a trip to Denver and Colorado Springs and was able to find her way to the Continental Divide.

She was running out of money and came back to the cabin, where their relationship became more and more complex and “emotionally charged.” She knew, she said, that

“He is a man whom any woman might love but whom no sane woman would marry.”

Although she doesn’t come right out and say it, it appears that he declared his love for her and asked her to marry him. Finally, after a good deal of soul-searching, she wrote to him saying “there can be nothing but constraint between us…It is my wish that our acquaintance should at once terminate. Yours truly, ILB.”

Pat Barr, who recounts this story in A Curious Life for a Lady, suggests that Isabella had a strong sense of self-preservation and her Victorian upbringing wouldn’t let her tie herself permanently to the man she called her “dear ragamuffin desperado.”

She left Colorado to avoid being stuck there all winter. She found out about a year later that he had been killed in a fight.

Somebody should do a movie about this adventure. It reminds me of The African Queen, with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, only their story ended more happily. Just for fun sometime, try the original of The African Queen, the book by C.S. Forrester.

Isabella had more adventures in many countries and she did marry a Scottish gentleman who hated traveling. I’ll be writing more about her story in a future article.


* The quotes from this article are by Isabella, quoted in Patt Barr, A Curious Life for a Lady.

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Disclosure: The books featured in my posts have links to Amazon.com, and I receive money if you buy a book from one of these links.

 

Joey Guerrero – Spy and Heroine of World War II

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Josefina (Joey) Guerrero was a true heroine and a woman of immense courage. Not only did she risk death by spying for the Americans in the Philippines during World War II, but she had to live much of her life as a leper. Her story doesn’t even rate an entry in Wikipedia, but it’s inspiring and she deserves the recognition she has begun to receive from a new book about her called The Leper Spy.

Joey’s Early Life in Manila

Joey Veluya was born in 1917 near Manila in the Philippines. She was super religious as a child and she idolized Joan of Arc, and her biographer Ben Montgomery says this “awoke in her a powerful defiance.” She was educated in a convent where she learned proper English. She loved everything beautiful, including art and poetry, but especially music.

When she was 16, in 1934, she met and married Renata Maria Guerrer0, the eldest son from one of the most distinguished families in the Philippines. Renata, 10 years older than Joey, was a doctor who played classical music. Two years later they had a daughter, Cynthia.

Then the headaches started, with fatigue, loss of appetite, and then a small blemish on Joey’s cheek. Renata took her to an infectious disease specialist. Montgomery says, “The diagnosis…fell out of his mouth like a stone. Leprosy.” This disease, now called Hansen’s Disease, was like a curse because most people believed it was highly contagious (it isn’t). In many societies, it was believed that leprosy was punishment for sin. Lepers in Manila were required to carry a bell and to announce themselves as “unclean.” When the pox became apparent they were sent off to leprosariums in the country. Joey’s husband and daughter moved in with his mother, and Joey was devastated.

Joey Guerrero the Spy

The Japanese took control of Manila in January 1942 and inflicted years of brutality and deprivation on the people. The Filipino population remained loyal to the Americans (they were at the time an American commonwealth). The rationing during the war limited her ability to get medicines, so her leprosy advanced.

At some point during the first years of the war, Joey decided she needed to help people, like Joan of Arc, so she volunteered for the resistance fighters. Her leprosy proved to be a benefit to spying because the Japanese would stay clear of her and look the other way.

She started by observing a Japanese garrison from her window, noting troop movements, soldiers coming and going. She even noted the condition of their uniforms (clean or soiled) to give information on what they might have been doing. After a while, she worked as a courier, delivering secret communications to resistance units.

At first, she would put messages in her hair, but one day she decided that might not be safe so she found another place on her body to hide messages. That same day, a Japanese sentry tugged on her hair and it came loose. Close call there. She tucked messages between two pairs of socks. If she was asked to remove her socks, she took off both pairs, with the message safe inside.

She walked miles to deliver messages, her face behind a veil. For a while, she had to stop working because her resistance leaders told her she was being sought by the Japanese.

Joey’s Last – and Most Dangerous – Spy Journey

The Americans landed in the Philippines in January 1945 and gradually began taking back the country. They were close to recapturing Manila but they needed to know about the location of Japanese mines so they could avoid them. Joey was asked to deliver a map to an American captain. She was told that the troops were located in Calumpit, about 35 miles from Manila. She agreed to make the delivery, taping the map between her shoulder blades.

No information was given to her about how to get to the troops, so she started walking. She still had headaches and fatigue but she felt she had to go; there was no one else. The Japanese were everywhere, guarding roads and paths and searching everyone. She reached the city of Malolo, about halfway, without much trouble from the Japanese, but she was warned about trouble ahead. Joey hired a banca (canoe) driver; they were chased by river pirates, but they managed to escape.

American troops in the Philippines [Public domain]
Joey walked the last 8 1/2 miles to Calumpit, only to find out that the troops had moved to Malolo! She had to walk all the way back to deliver the map to the captain. When she got there, she was so exhausted she was not able to eat. When she told the captain what she had been through he said, “By God! I never dreamed the Filipino women had such courage!”

She was able to ride with the American troops as they raced to Manila to free the city. The Japanese were dug in, and it took many days to clear them out. During the battle, Joey cared for soldiers and civilians, praying for the dying and carrying children to safety. She worked until she was exhausted and suffered a hemorrhage to the lungs.

From One Leprosarium to Another

Carville Leprosarium, Louisiana. Leslie Seaton from Seattle, WA, USA [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons
After the war, Joey went to a leprosarium outside Manila, where she stayed for three years. The conditions there were awful, with no sanitation or running water, so Joey, in her typical fashion, rolled up her sleeves, grabbed carbolic acid, and started cleaning up.

She started writing to groups in America and around the world to explain the plight of the leprosarium and ask for donations. By the time she left, the leprosarium had been cleaned up.

In May 1948 Joey received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from the U.S. and a medal from Cardinal Spellman for her “Christian fortitude and concern for fellow sufferers.”

Joey was offered the opportunity to go to the U.S., to the only public leprosarium in the country, at Carville, Louisiana, where she could get the best drugs and treatment. But there was a problem: no one with active leprosy had been able to get a visa to enter the U.S. Friends and supporters started a writing campaign and finally, in July 1948, she was able to fly to the U.S. and enter the Carville leprosarium. She was 30 years old, 5 ft tall and 100 pounds. She brought books and a record player to listen to music.

At Carville, Joey jumped right in as usual. She wrote articles for the colony’s newsletter, taught school, and studied. She received her high school diploma in 1953 and she hoped to go on to college through correspondence courses. But there was one problem: Her visa had expired and she was subject to deportation. She wanted to become a citizen but again her active leprosy was a barrier. It took many years of fighting and attempts by friends and her attorney to get a special Congressional action approved to allow her to get permanent resident status. With this, she could apply to be a citizen after three years.

During this time, she divorced from her husband. They had fallen out of contact and she hadn’t heard from him or her daughter in years. The divorce was final in December 1956. In January 1957, she married a fellow Carville resident, a Vietnamese man named Alex Lau.

They both were given permanent resident status and both received the status of “no clinical evidence of active leprosy.” This was in 1957, about 15 years after her first diagnosis. Finally, she was free to live her life.

Joey’s Later Life

Joey and her new husband moved to California, where she found work as a secretary. Alec’s leprosy came back, though, and he went back to Carville. She got a bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State and a Master’s degree in Spanish literature from Middlebury College in Vermont. She worked for four years as a Peace Corps volunteer (no surprise there!) and taught English and music.

In 1977 she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for many years as a clerk, and she lived in a small apartment full of books and music. She changed her name to Joey Leaumax and went to mass almost every day.

Johannes Brams [public domain]
She volunteered as an usher at the Kennedy Center to be near her beloved music. Montgomery says she, “fed her soul on concerts for piano and violin.” Her favorite was Bhrams’ Symphony No. 1 in C minor, the second movement, “pregnant with unspoken yearnings.”

When she died in 1996 her friends found that there was no record of her life before about 1970. She had no information about previous acquaintances, had never told anyone about her leprosy, her daughter, or her life in the Philippines.

In a letter to a friend she said

“I have tried very hard to efface the past. I simply want to forget it! It was too traumatic and has given me no end of heartbreak.”

Thoughts…

On the one hand, you could look at Joey’s life and see sadness, heartbreak, and struggle. She certainly had a difficult life, dealing first with tuberculosis then leprosy, the loss of her daughter and husband, the war, and the situation of living in leprosariums.

On the other hand, Joey lived a life of service and a love of God. Reading about the numbers of people who helped and supported her in her effort to get her permanent resident status convinced me that she was loved and appreciated. In her last years, she surrounded herself with beauty, books, and music and she lived quietly and self-sufficiently.

Was she a hero? Absolutely!

Maybe that’s the best we can expect of life, taking the ups and the downs, trying to forget the difficult times and focusing on enjoying what we can of the present.

I was thrilled to learn about Joey Geurrera’s story and I hope you were too.

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More about Hansen’s Disease

If you would like to know more about Hansen’s Disease, here are some sources:

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has some information about the causes of Hansen’s disease, including the interesting fact that contact with an armadillo might be a cause.

From the National Organization for Rare Disorders

Another interesting theory is that red squirrels brought to England by the Vikings may also be a carrier for Hansen’s Disease.

My statistics about Hansen’s Disease are from Wikipedia.

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Disclosure: The books featured in my posts have links to Amazon.com, and I receive money if you buy a book from one of these links.

Narcissa Whitman – Doomed Missionary to the Indians

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Did you read about the young missionary who was killed by a remote tribe on an island in the Bay of Bengal? Against many warnings and official sanctions against his going, John Chau went to one of these islands and was shot with arrows on the beach as he landed. His story reminded me of Narcissa and Marcus Whitman, missionaries in Oregon territory in 1836 who tried to convert the Cayuse Indians. They, too, didn’t heed warnings and their fates were tragic.

Narcissa Whitman/ Mwanner at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I’ve been reading about and studying the Whitmans for several years now. Their story fascinates me, but I’m not sure why. In this post, I’ll tell you about Narcissa’s bravery in traveling to the mission in Oregon territory and living there in what was wilderness. She and another missionary wife, Eliza Spaulding, were the first white women to travel across the country to the West.

Narcissa’s Early Life and Marriage

Narcissa Prentiss was born in March 1808 in Plattsville, New York, the oldest of nine children. The U.S. at the time was in the middle of what has been called the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious revivals and fervor. Her mother was over-the-top religious (Presbyterian), and the children were totally under her thumb. Narcissa was converted at age 11, and by age 15 she committed to becoming a missionary.

I can’t think of anyone who was less likely to succeed as a missionary than Narcissa Prentiss Whitman.

Marcus Whitman /Paul Kane [Public domain] wikicommons
Young women of the time were rigidly controlled and Narcissa’s life was circumscribed by church activities. She had no contact with any other people of different cultural or racial backgrounds. She lived a cultivated and organized life, in “refined society.” She was an advocate of abstinence and the newly-formed women’s movement had no effect on her.

She was going to found a mission in Oregon, in what was then a foreign country, working with native Americans whose culture was totally different. But the mission movement needed married men, so Narcissa was paired with Marcus Whitman, a doctor and a missionary, and they were married in February 1836 after having met only a handful of times.

Narcissa’s Trip to Oregon Territory

In March 1836 they began their journey to the Walla Walla Valley in today’s eastern Oregon, along with Henry and Eliza Spaulding, also newlyweds, who were going to start a mission near the Whitmans. (Henry Spaulding had been a suitor of Narcissa, and she had refused his offer of marriage. He was not happy about going west with her and said, “I question her judgment.”)

They traveled down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and to St. Louis, leaving there in early April. The women could not ride horses side-saddle all the way to Oregon, and they were not allowed to ride astride, so wagons were waiting to take them on their journey. The first strange thing I saw that gave me a clue as to their rigidity was that the missionaries refused to travel on Sunday, even though they were traveling with fur traders and non-Christian guides.

Hunting buffalo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Narcissa was a good traveler, enjoying the scenery and not minding the early inconveniences. She was also getting used to being married (some honeymoon!). She was appalled when Marcus got rid of his best clothes, and she had to work to keep him “relatively clean.” (Strange to worry about that on the trail, but it gives a clue to her rigidity.)Hun

Along the way, they met Indians, and Eliza was quick to spend time with them, learning their language and speaking with the women. Narcissa, although she seemed to like the women, spent little time with them and made no attempt to learn to speak with them.

After Ft. Hall in Idaho, the became more difficult, more rugged and mountainous. They had to give up the wagons, the women were forced to walk, the heat was oppressive, food became scarce, and they had to live on buffalo and occasionally small animals. Because Narcissa downplayed the rigors of the journey in her journals and letters home, it’s hard to say how difficult the journey.

The Whitmans Among the Cayuse Indians

When the Whitmans and Spauldings arrived in Oregon territory, Eliza immediately went with her husband to the mission because she was eager to start ministering to the Indians. Narcissa stayed behind at Ft. Vancouver for several months, enjoyed the more civilized surroundings. She was pregnant and she used that and her need to order home goods for her delay in moving. She criticized the religious practices of the Americans at the fort, believing apparently that only Presbyterians were possessed of the true religion.

Cayuse Indian (John Cutmouth) ca. 1865 / Unknown photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Cayuse Indians were semi-nomadic hunters and horsemen. They had little use for homes, spent much time on horseback, and they traded furs with the Hudson’s Bay Company. They were everything Narcissa abhorred – dirty, polygamous, alcohol drinkers, gamblers. The dark-skinned Indians painted their faces and lived communally.

She moved to her new home at Waiilatpu in December, but it took her several months before she went to visit the Cayuse. in her diary, she called this visit “a day spent…in heathen lands, widely separated from kindred souls, alone, in the thick darkness of heathenism.”  

Trouble started when Narcissa refused them access to her home; she didn’t want the dirty heathen in her private space. Troubles seemed to multiply, although both Whitmans didn’t see the danger. The church services were full of Marcus preaching of hellfire and damnation, which angered the Indians. In a documentary about the Whitmans produced by the Whitman Museum Historical Society, you can see several scenes where Marcus is preaching or leading singing and the Indians are looking confused and angry.

Whitman Mission, Waiilatpu / Samuel A. Clarke [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Julie Roy Jeffery, the author of Converting the West, says the Whitmans confused faith and culture. The Indians were worried about the changes to their culture, but the Whitmans saw everything in terms of religion. The Whitmans saw the nomadic lifestyle of the Cayuse as a barrier to their conversion and wanted them to become farmers, settled and Christian. It was an essential difference that proved impossible to overcome.

In the 10 years the Whitmans were at the Waiilatpu mission they were not able to convert any Cayuse to Christianity. Not one.

The Tragic Outcome

All through the time of the mission, the Indians were at times angry with the Whitmans for a variety of problems, but at the end, two things were the sparks that set off the smoldering blaze of their anger. The first spark was the increasing presence of many more settlers at the mission. During the last few years, the Whitmans took in settlers who would spend the winter and sometimes, like the orphaned Sager children, The Cayuse became more worried that the settlers would take over their land and push them out.

Grave at Whitman Mission / National Park Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The final spark was the diseases brought by the settlers. The measles was the worst. Indian children died at higher rates than the whites. Marcus Whitman doctored these Indian children, and the Cayuse became convinced he was killing them. It was common for Indians to kill a doctor when a patient died.

Marcus Whitman had been warned many times that their lives were in danger, but he chose to stay, not willing to admit defeat.

On the morning of November 29, 1847, several Indians entered the house and slaughtered Marcus and Narcissa and 11 others. They took 54 captives for a month, eventually trading them with the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The Cayuse who carried out the massacre were caught, tried, and hanged publicly.

Thoughts about Narcissa and Marcus Whitman

As I mentioned in the beginning, I have been fascinated by this story of courage, but also of its tragic outcome. The term “tragedy” has been overdone, but I’m talking about Tragedy in the classical Greek sense, “a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character.” According to Aristotle, a tragedy should arouse both fear and pity from the audience.

Marcus Whitman was a tragic character, limited by his fatal character flaws from fulfilling his calling. He had an earnest desire to convert and heal, but he couldn’t do it. Narcissa certainly elicits pity from those who hear her story. She was a tragic character, a prisoner of her upbringing and unable to change. That doesn’t make her any less brave and steadfast.

I’ll be writing more about the massacre and about other women who traveled with the Whitmans and later to be missionaries in Oregon.

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My Absolute Favorite Mystery Novels and Writers

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Agatha Christie Unknown author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I love books and my favorite books are mysteries. I’ve been reading them, buying them, collecting them, and dragging them home from the library since I was very young. Among the first mysteries I read were the Agatha Christie books. At one point, I had almost all of them; right now I have most but some have become lost in my many moves.

A conversation with another mystery novel reader prompted me to construct this list of my favorite mystery writers and novels. I’d be interested in your thoughts about my list, and if you have any to add, I’d love to hear about them. I’m always looking for new mysteries to read!

I tend to British detective novels, sometimes called “procedurals” because they focus on solving a crime. This list doesn’t include suspense or psychological novels, although some mystery writers (Ruth Rendell is the best example) also write suspense novels.

If I find a mystery writer I like, I hope for series. Then I begin with the first in the series. Many mystery series have a plot thread, usually about the main character and relationships, and it helps to start from the beginning.

Some of the books have police or private detectives who are “brooding,” that is, sad, morose, some suicidal. The worst are the Scandinavians (esp. the Wallander books of Henning Mankell). I get tired of morose detectives, would rather just have them solve the crime.

Here’s my list:

New York Detective Library 77 (Public Domain) wikicommons

Best Classic Mystery Writers

Agatha Christie. Of course. I’ve read all her books, some many times. I like Poirot the best, then Jane Marple. I’m not as fond of Tommy and Tuppence some of her standalone suspense novels like Pale Horse. 

Sherlock Holmes. What can I say? Great books, short stories. Holmes was so popular that the public was infuriated when Conan Doyle killed him off, so he had to bring him back.

Josephine Tey. Josephine Tey isn’t as widely known but her Inspector Grant books are great. My favorite is Daughter of Time when Grant is hospitalized and he works on solving the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Wilkie Collins‘ The Moonstone is a little dated, but it was the first great classic mystery/suspense. Worth a read.

Edgar Allan Poe. I went through a Poe period when I was younger, and I got back to his mysteries occasionally. Poe set out all the conventions of mystery and detective fiction that authors still follow, including the introduction of August Dupin, detective. Try The Purloined Letter. 

P.D. James, who died recently, wrote about a British detective named Adam Dalgliesh. Also try her novel The Children of Men, about a dystopian society (reminded me of Soylent Green).

Dorothy L. Sayers. Sayers is famous for the Lord Peter Wimsey series. These are dated, but I liked them anyway.

Ngaio Marsh. Her Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries often featured the theater crowd in London. They are a little dated but still good

Georges Simenon. Another classic author whose work is a little difficult to read. These Inspector Maigret mysteries are set in France.

Current Mystery Novels/Writers (in no particular order)

Michael Connelly. My top favorite mystery writer. His Harry Bosch mysteries are always good, about Harry Bosch, an L.A. detective, who is now retired. Some mysteries feature other characters like Harry’s half-brother Micky Haller (the “Lincoln Lawyer”). Always great stories.

Louise Penny writes about a fictional village in Quebec called Three Pines, and a Montreal homicide official named Armand Gamache. Quite a roster of quirky characters and a continuing plot line.

Colin Dexter. I LOVE the Inspector Morse mysteries. Yes, I know he’s brooding, but there is also humor in the stories and good plots. He’s a national hero in England, and you can get a Morse tour in Oxford. I heard that Queen Elizabeth came to a party where Dexter was and she asked, “Is Morse here?”!!

Rennie Airth. Airth’s books are another find a few years ago. They don’t make the NYT bestseller list, and they are few and far-between (only 5 to date), but they are great. The stories focus on a British detective a named John Madden after World War II. I read River of Darkness and I was hooked.

Martha Grimes. The titles of Grimes’ mysteries are the names of British pubs, like The Man With a Load of Mischief and The Old Fox Deceived. Richard Jury is the detective who solves mysteries with his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat. Another group of quirky characters.

Nevada Barr. Anna Pigeon, the central character of Barr’s mysteries, is a forest ranger. The mysteries take place in interesting national parks and some dangerous places. Since her first mystery in 1993 at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Anna has solved mysteries at 19 parks and counting.

Peter Robinson His DCI Banks series (British) has been going on for 30 years, and I have to confess that’s how long I’ve been reading them. Banks is a police detective, low on the “brooding” scale because he has a varied love life.

Ann Cleeves writes about the Shetland Islands, which really come alive in her stories. The “Shetland” series with Jimmy Perez and the detective Vera Stanhope mysteries are good. She also has several other series if you get done with these and want more.

Peter Grainger. I happened on to the DCI Smith series on Amazon. These books are only available on Kindle. Smith is quirky rather than brooding, and he’s endearing. I can’t wait for the next one.

Deborah Crombie‘s detectives are a pair – Duncan Kincaid and Gemma Jones. They start out working together on cases and end up in a relationship. Interesting, multi-dimensional plots that bring parts of England and London to life.

Frances Brody. A British writer you probably haven’t heard of who has a series of mysteries with private detective Kate Shackleton. These stories are set in the post-World War I era. If you like the Maisie Dobbs mysteries, you might like these.

Elizabeth George. Her mysteries feature Inspector Peter Lynley, a British peer, and his partner Barbara Havers, the exact opposite. Barbara is always in trouble for her dress and behavior, but she’s a brilliant detective. This write got off the track (in my opinion) for a while with some not-so-good books, but she’s back on with her last two.

William Kent Krueger. I found Krueger’s work in a bookstore in Minnesota. He writes about Minnesota in his Sheriff  Cork O’Connor series, which feature interactions with local Indian tribes and have some beautiful settings. Also try his stand-alone novel Ordinary Grace; it’s excellent!

Val McDermid. She writes about Tony Hill, a criminal psychologist who works for the British police on assignments. A Place of Execution, a psychological thriller, is just about the best mystery I’ve ever read.

Laurie R. King. King re-visits Sherlock Holmes in his retirement as he meets and marries a young woman named Mary Russell. After their first few mysteries, they take off around the world.

Ian Rankin. The Inspector Rebus novels set in Scotland are a little dark and super-brooding, but I skip through those parts. In case you haven’t noticed, I read fiction in part because I want to experience the setting.

Caroline Graham. If you have ever watched Midsomer Murders, you’ll recognize the main character, Inspector Barnaby. Graham’s first book, The Killings at Badger’s Drift, started the series. Just good mysteries/puzzles. The TV shows are set in the beautiful Cotswolds in England.

Anthony Horowitz. He has picked up the styles of Agatha Christie (in Magpie Murders) and Sherlock Holmes (The House of Silk). Good writing.

Peter Lovesey is another British writer with a series about a detective. in this case, it’s Peter Diamond. Lovesey also has two other series: (1) A series set in the 1920s; the first is The False Inspector Dew, and (2) a series set in London in the 1870s featuring Sergeant Cribb. All are good. Check out especially Rough Cider, a standalone.

C.J. Sansom. I’m usually not fond of Medieval mysteries, but Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake Tudor mysteries (set in Medieval England) are interesting and avoid some of the more obvious anachronisms.

Ruth Rendell. Besides PD James, Rendell is probably the co-queen of British mysteries. She writes psychological thrillers but her best writing is in the Inspector Wexford series. Some of the psychological books are written under the name Barbara Vine. My favorite is A Dark-adapted Eye, a Barbara Vine novel.

Charles Finch writes about a Victorian gentleman named Charles Lenox who starts solving crimes in London to help friends. The later books in his series have Lenox setting up a detective bureau.

Peter May has several series of psychological thrillers and detective novels. His best series is the Lewis Trilogy, set on the Isle of Lewis off the coast of Scotland, featuring detective Fin Macleod. Lots of atmosphere here.

Mark Mills. I’ve included Mills in this list even though his books are more in the suspense/thriller category. Try The Information Officer, about a young lieutenant who solves a mystery on Malta during World War II. All his books are stand-alone.

Robert Goddard has been writing standalone mystery/suspense novels for 30 years, starting with Past Caring in 1986. (And, yes, I’ve been reading his books for almost that long). Each one is different and interesting. He also has a new series about a WWI former pilot named James Maxted. Some of his mysteries are set in England, others around the Continent – France, Spain, Italy, Germany.

Reginald Hill. Another quirky British cop series with Inspector Dalziel and his sidekick Peter Pascoe trying to solve mysteries in Yorkshire. They make for good reading. On Beulah Height is another of my top favorite mystery stories.

Christopher Fowler. Arthur Bryant and John May are a team of detectives in a special branch of the London police, called the Peculiar Crimes Unit, who solve unusual (peculiar) crimes. Good mix of characters and plots, many of which give a different view of London; one, for example, focused on the sewers of London. The latest, Hall of Mirrors, goes back to the beginnings of the pair, as they are in their 30s.

Jacqueline Winspear writes about the World War I era in England, with her character Maisie Dobbs at the center. Maisie is a private inquiry agent who solves mysteries for a price. A recent one, In This Grave Hour, involves Belgian refugees. The series has continued into World War II.

Charles Todd is actually a mother-son writing duo that has been working together since 1996. They have two series – the Ian Rutledge mysteries and Bess Crawford mysteries, set in England. Rutledge is a British police detective and WWI survivor with guilt that won’t let him go. The guilt takes the form of a voice in his head from a man he killed during the war. It takes a while to get used to that voice (MAX brooding), but the stories are good. Bess Crawford is a nurse during WWI and after who solves mysteries with the help of her family and a friend.

Jill McGown, who died in 2007, wrote about a detective pair – Inspector Lloyd and Judy Hill. She also wrote some standalone mysteries.

Sue Grafton. I was sad to read the Sue Grafton died in 2017. She wrote the Kinsey Millhone mysteries about a private detective in a fictional town in California. The first in the series was A is for Alibi. Grafton got all the way to Y is for Yesterday but never got to Z.

Alan Bradley‘s series is unique because the detective is a young girl named Flavia deLuce. She lives with her father and sisters in a falling-down house in a small English village in the 1950s. The plots and her part in them are sometimes unbelievable, but they are fun.

Henning Mankell. As I mentioned earlier, Mankell’s series character Kurt Wallander is the king of brooding. But the plots in his series set in Sweden are fascinating studies of human minds. Brutal crimes, like the one in Faceless Killers, are standard. Just so you know.

Chris Grabenstein. For a fun final series, there’s nothing to beat Chris Grabenstein’s John Ceepak mysteries. They are set in the 1950s in a beach town on the Jersey Shore. The stories are told by officer Danny Boyle, and the mysteries center on carnival rides like Tilt-a-Whirl, Fun House, and Mad Mouse. Bruce Springsteen lyrics are a favorite of John Ceepak, who is kind of a super-hero cop.

Mystery Novelists you won’t find on my list

Donna Leon Guido Brunetti mysteries. I find the corruption in the Italian criminal system disturbing.

Anne Perry Daniel Pitt and William Monk mysteries. Not as well written as some of the ones I mentioned.

Elly Griffiths’s books are too full of personal problems to make good mysteries.

Alexander McCall Smith. I couldn’t get into his Ladies’ Detective Agency novels.

Anything by James Patterson. Patterson has become an industry.

No mystery where a cat or a dog is involved.

Nothing like Silence of the Lambs  (too creepy)

Robert B. Parker. The TV series of the Jesse Stone novels with Tom Selleck was better than the books.

James Runcie. I tried to read his Sydney Chambers mysteries after the series came out on Masterpiece. They are very dated. Stick to the PBS version.

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Delia Akeley – From Hunting Elephants to Living with Pygmies

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Carl and Delia Akeley Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons
Delia Akeley began her adventures in Africa as an elephant hunter, but she turned into a cracker-jack explorer and ethnographer, spending three weeks with a Pygmy tribe (maybe cannibals?).

Delia Akeley was a rebellious child. Born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, in 1869, she was deliberately silent about her past. She was described as a “little rebel,” and when she was a teenager she left home and never returned. (Strangely, though, she dedicated her book Jungle Portraits to her mother.)

When she was twenty, Delia (nicknamed Mickie) married an older man. They were divorced and she met Carl Akeley in 1902 when he was 38 and she was 27. He was a taxidermist who collected large animal specimens and preserved them for display in museums. (I know what you are thinking, but at the time “lifelike” displays of animals in their supposed habitats were exhibited at museums so the public could see what they looked like. Like other women who hunted big game, she later disavowed this practice.)

Delia and Her Monkey – Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons
The Akeleys traveled to East Africa several times on collecting expeditions. On their last trip, Carl was attacked by an elephant and almost died until Delia, taking charge, made an overnight trip with her guides to come to his rescue. The couple divorced in 1923, in part, due to Delia’s fixation with a monkey she had found in Africa and named J.T., Jr. She even wrote a book about him that is still in print.

Delia’s Solo Journey into Pygmy Country

By 1924, Delia, now 55, was ready to go back to Africa alone. She had a commission to send back some large animal specimens for the Brooklyn Museum of Natural History; when that task was completed she headed for the Congo. In Jungle Portraits, she writes of her experiences in finding and living with a Pygmy tribe. I found this the most fascinating part of her story and I want to focus on it here.

Delia approached her search for a pygmy tribe in the same way she had studied animal specimens on previous trips, to spend time with them “up close and personal.” She wanted to find a tribe that was untouched by contact with the outside world.

She found one tribe, but when they lined up for “photo opportunities” with the expedition members, she decided they had become too Westernized. Finally, she found a tribe that suited her desire for unspoiled subjects.

Delia wanted to observe the tribe, but she realized that she would have to get them accustomed to her presence, in the same way she had lived with apes and monkeys. She was convinced that she could come alone, with no guns, … and make friends with the women and “secure authentic and valuable information concerning their tribal customs and habits.”

She found the chief (called a sultan) sitting on a stool, with the rest of the village in the background with weapons in their hands. She said it took a real effort of willpower to go forward.

Settling in with the pygmies, she charmed the children by teaching them jump rope, and she chatted with the women about food and clothing and the children (she had to make up a family because they couldn’t believe she didn’t have children). She comments,

“Some day no doubt we shall hear that some traveler has visited the .. Pygmies of the Itari forest and discovered that the little people were the originators of the childish pastime, jump the rope.” 

Pygmies with African Explorer – Keystone View Company [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

More about the Pygmies:

  • Pygmies, she said, are born normal sized but they don’t develop normally. They broaden out and develop tremendously heavy shoulders and torsos. The average height is around 41 inches but that varies tremendously.
  • These pygmies were very primitive. They didn’t have household goods, just shelter. They didn’t have crops or livestock, but lived off the land, eating whatever they could find for protein (nasty bugs, rodents, snakes, caterpillars, monkeys, lizards, etc.), cooking everything in big stews. You would think they were malnourished, but she found them well-nourished, healthy, and disease-free (no malaria).
  • They didn’t wash their clothes or themselves, were fascinated with Delia’s bathtub.
  • Delia said she never saw a child punished. Parents were loving, demonstrative, and protective of their children.
  •  Delia noted that the women were dull and stupid (her words) by comparison with the men, who had a keen sense of humor.
  • They spent hours basking in the sunlight – lots of vitamin D and low stress!

Some of the pygmy traits bothered Delia, especially the way the men treated the women. She describes an incident when the sultan hit his wife. Delia interfered, and he jumped into the air toward her and beat his chest, just like a caged chimpanzee, in a towering rage. Delia was terrified, but for some reason, she started to laugh. The sultan’s mood changed, his rage subsided, and his face and body relaxed. They shared a cigarette.

The men of the tribe forced her on a five-day march to track an elephant; she hated the march but was fascinated at the same time. They smeared their bodies and faces with elephant droppings to mask their smell (she declined) and tracked the elephant stopping only briefly. When they finally found and killed the elephant (with poison spears), the rest of the tribe joined them in a five-day orgy.

Elephants – The Worst Danger in the Jungle

Many times in her journeys Delia talked about the danger from elephants. They are large, have lethal tusks, and can charge quickly with little notice moving faster than a horse. Stumbling on one is not something an explorer wants to do. During the trek with the pygmies, she spent most of her time on guard against elephants. The elephant is at home in the jungle, and its great strength and large bulk allow it to plow through the tangled overgrowth with ease. Delia wrote that the animal could “charge with such swiftness it can stamp the victim to death, or pick him up in its trunk and pound his body to shreds on the tip of its tusk.”

At one point on that trip with the pygmies, Delia was trapped on a vine over a ravine and an elephant came out of the bush. It’s mammoth head and body were no more than 35 feet from her. he spread his “great ragged ears” and raised his trunk, tipping it straight in her direction, like an accusing finger. After a few minutes, he left. She said,

“I lived a year in those few moments and I don’t think I took a single breath during the trying ordeal.”

But she also said that surviving the experience was exhilarating and that she remembered the thrill again and again later in her life. I’ve read the stories of many women adventurers, and they all say the same thing: the moments of terror are those when they feel most fully alive.

Delia After Her Travels

After her return from what would be her final African expedition, she remarried and worked on her memoirs. Like Mary Kingsley, Delia chastized the missionaries and colonists, who want to “improve” the natives and “raise their status by education, hygiene, cotton suits, and by training them to be subservient to the white man’s wishes and desires.” She argued that attempts to Christianize them would rob them of their freedom, and that these people were different, and that others would never understand them.

She died in 1970, at age 100.

Two of the Akeley’s elephants are still part of the Field Museum collection. According to the museum’s website, “Today, they can be found in the middle of Stanley Field Hall (Delia’s elephant is the one with two tusks).”

More About Delia Akeley

You can get more details about Delia and her adventures in Women Explorers in Africa, which also includes information about Christina Dodwell, Mary Kingsley, Florence Baker, and Alexandrine Tinne.

I would also recommend Delia’s book, Jungle Portraits, which has more details about her journeys, including her time with the pygmies. (You may be able to find it in your local library since the price is higher due to its being rare.)

 

Disclosure: The books featured in my posts have links to Amazon.com, and I receive money if you buy a book from one of these links.