women adventurers

Helga Estby – Walked Across America To Save Her Family

Helga Estby (left) and her daughter Clara, 1897 in Minneapolis.| Unknown photographer [Public domain]

SPOKANE. Wash., May 4.(1896) -Mrs. H. Estby and her daughter, aged 18, leave tomorrow morning to walk to New York City. They are respectable, but will “rough it” as regular tramps and carry no baggage. Their object is to wear a new style garment, which they will exhibit when they reach New York. Mrs. Estby is the mother of eight children, all of whom are living with their father on a ranch near here, except the one going with her. The family is poor and the ranch is mortgaged. Mrs. Estby, seeing no other way of getting out, concluded to make the journey afoot.

What would you do for $250,000? That’s the equivalent today of the $10,000 promised to Helga Estby for walking across America in 1897 in an effort to get money to save her family farm. Helg’s story is amazing. Even if she only had one adventure, it was quite a big deal.

Helga’s Life Before Her Walk

Helga Estby had a tough life all around. She was born in Norway in 1860. Her father died, her mother remarried, and in 1871, when Helga was 11, they moved to Michigan. At sixteen she married Ole Estby, they had eight children, and they lived the first part of their married life in Minnesota. Their lives were like many pioneer families; the winters in Minnesota were brutal, they had to endure prairie fires, illnesses like diphtheria, hunger and the death of children.

In 1884, seeking an easier life, the Estbys moved to the area around Spokane, Washington. they bought a home in Spokane Falls and lived there with their six surviving children. But bad luck seemed to follow them. Helga was injured in a fall on a slippery street and injured her pelvis, requiring an operation. The family moved once again, to Mica Creek, about 25 miles southeast of Spokane, to a community with other Scandinavian immigrants.

Helga’s Desperate Wager

In April 1893, an economic depression hit the U.S. Ole couldn’t work because of a back injury, and they took out a loan on their property. But they couldn’t pay back the loan. They were in danger of losing their farm. In desperation, Helga somehow found a wealthy sponsor for a trip across America. She would receive $10,000 for making the trip with her 18-year old daughter Clara.

The conditions for the trip were specific: They had to work to get money, they were required to wear and publicize a new type of woman’s clothing (illustrated in the photo above), and they had to arrive by a specific date, no more than seven months later. They also had to get a signature from the governor of every state they passed through, to document their travels.

Helga’s family and neighbors were not happy about this trip. The trip was seen as irresponsible, unseemly for a woman, and even scandalous. They were advertising Ole’s inability to care for his family, and women in traditional communities should never seek publicity.

I wasn’t able to come up with a name for the mysterious sponsor. One source said it was a woman, and others said it was someone in New York. Being naturally suspicious of anonymity, I read of Helga and Clara’s adventures with increasing concern.

Helga and Clara’s Journey

Helga, 36, and Clara, 18, started on their 3,500-mile journey on May 5, 1896. They had to walk and decided to follow railroad tracks to keep from getting lost. They knew the tracks would take them into towns where they could buy things and find work. “Putting one foot in front of the other,” they set off, taking only a few things: a revolver, homemade pepper spray, and a curling iron for Clara.

They endured rain and sleet and were not welcomed in some of the towns because they were seen as “scandalous vagrants.” To cross the Blue Mountains, they had no blankets, boots or food. Averaging 27 miles a day, they were in Baker City, Oregon on May 24. In Boise, Idaho, they got their first signature.

In Park City, Utah, they found the Mormons more welcoming, and they got another signature. At this point, they picked up their new ankle-length bicycle skirts and continued.

Through Wyoming, where they were lost in forests and had adventures with mountain lions, they moved into Greely, Colorado. At this point, they needed new shoes (they wore out a total of 32 pairs of shoes on the journey). They were able to find shelter most nights and were often fed, especially as their story became known.

Somewhere after Park City, Helga and Clara started to gather more publicity. Railroad workers left jugs of water by the track for them, and they often received welcoming parties in the towns they visited. Clara injured her ankle and they had to rest for 10 days. This was a bad setback, putting their trip 10 days behind schedule.

William Jennings Bryan, c. 1896 | Copyright by Geo. H. Van Norman, Springfield, Mass. [Public domain]

Congressman William Jennings Bryan and his wife welcomed them in Lincoln, Nebraska. Bryan was in an election contest for the presidency against William McKinley of Ohio, so both he and the Estbys got publicity from the meeting.

In my research, I found an article Helga wrote while after her trip while she was stranded in New York trying to earn money to return home. The article in a Norwegian newspaper describes Helga’s experiences as a gold and silver miner She used an ordinary frying pan to pan for gold in Boise, Idaho and she was able to go down into a silver mine in Park City, Utah.

Helga and Clara arrived in Des Moines, Iowa on October 17. They bought new shoes and raincoats and headed to Chicago. The weather was turning to fall, which meant rains and cold nights. In Canton, Ohio, McKinley signed a letter for them. They quickly marched through Pennsylvania, fending off two attackers with their revolvers.

They continued trudging onward. Linda Lawrence Hunt, author of Bold Spirit, says, “Each new destination strengthened Helga’s sense of achievement” and her confidence.

The Sad Aftermath of The Journey

Finally, on December 23, 1896, they arrived in New York, at the agreed-upon location of the New York World magazine. The sponsor refused to pay, saying they had arrived late (only a few days, and mostly because of Clara’s injury). They had no money and had to work to survive. All the mother and daughter wanted was to go home. Finally, a wealthy railroad owner gave them a ticket to Minneapolis, but it took them until the spring of 1897 to get back home.

Things got worse. During the time they were stranded in New York, two of her children died of diphtheria. The family blamed her for not being there to care for them. (Yes, that’s irrational; she probably couldn’t have saved them, but it was her duty as they saw it.)

Helga had made extensive notes and kept a journal of her trip, and she hoped to write a book about it for money. She started writing, but couldn’t finish. I was able to find one magazine article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, that reproduced an article from an interview with Helga.

After Helga and Clara returned, the family farm was sold. They hadn’t saved it after all. Friends and neighbors turned their backs on the family and the family never talked of what had happened. When Helga died in 1942, a daughter burned all her notes.

It was only recently that one of Helga’s descendants found some material, which set Linda Hunt on a search for more, resulting in her book Bold Spirit.

Helga became a supporter of the women’s suffrage movement in later life. I think her journey made her think differently about women’s place in the world and how women can do anything they set out to do. She was brave, if naive, and I admired her courage.

Sources:

Most of my information came from Bold Spirit. This article from HistoryLink was also a source.

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.

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Helga died in Spokane in April 1942. Her obituary in the Spokane Daily Chronicle made no mention of her amazing trip across the U.S.

Weetamoo – An Amazing Warrior In a Clash of Cultures

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

Weetamoo was an amazing woman, warrior and chief of a native American tribe who lived in a time of cultural change. She was an influential leader, but because she was a native American and not English – and a woman – her story has been mostly ignored. I had to do some digging so I could tell you a more complete story about her.

The time was the 1670s, in New England (Massachusetts and Rhode Island) a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence. The Salem witchcraft trials were about 20 years in the future (1692-93). Colonists from England had been living in the area for about 50 years and interacting with the native tribes.

Weetamoo was a sachem (actually a sunksqua) – a head chief of the Wampanoag, a group of native Americans. The term “squaw” comes from the word “sunk-squa;” it was a derogatory term used by the English colonists for women native Americans.

We know nothing about Weetamoo’s childhood, but it’s believed she was born about 1635, in what is now Rhode Island, as a member of the Wampanoag tribe. She comes into the records after she became sunksqua, on the death of her father.

Weetamoo as Chief

The conflicts between the native tribes in New England and the English settlers began almost immediately after the English arrived. As more and more settlers came and needed land, they found new ways to take land away from the native tribes. For example, the settlers brought pigs and cattle with them. Of course, these animals would roam widely, onto Indian fields, eating their crops and stomping on the tender plants.

Sometimes the colonists would trick the native tribal leaders into signing away their lands. The Indians thought they were just signing treaties of friendship, only to find that the colonists were claiming ownership of the lands. Then the colonial authorities jailed or fined the tribal leaders and took their land in payment for their “debts.”

The sachems in 17th-century tribes were not just leaders. They were diplomats and negotiators, trying to keep the peace while protecting the rights of the tribe. As chief, Weetamoo often went to the colonial court to argue against the confiscation and theft of Indian lands. She is said to have been a skilled negotiator, but it was difficult to fight the English. They believed God had given them this land and they weren’t about to let pagans keep it.

Weetamoo in King Philip’s War

King Philip’s War is a little-known conflict between the native tribes and the English settlers in New England (1675-76).

One native tribal chief was Massasoit; you may have heard of him in stories about the Mayflower settlers. (Actually, his name was Ousamequin; Massasoit means “chief.”) At the beginning of settlement by the Pilgrims, he had good relationships with them.

He had two sons – Wamsutta and Metacomet, also known as Philip because he was also friendly with the colonists. Wamsutta was the second husband of Weetamoo. (She had several husbands, as was the custom among the tribal women in this area.)

Wamsutta (whom the English called Alexander) died in mysterious circumstances on his way home from a meeting with the English (1662). There is some concern that he might have been poisoned, but there’s no way to know. His death is one of the events leading up to King Philip’s War.

As I said above, tensions had been growing, and a couple of incidents set off the sparks that led to the conflict that began in 1675. Weetamoo led a band of Wampanoag fighters in several battles. The most famous was the Great Swamp Fight.

She was responsible for the safety of the elders, women, and children of the tribe, and she led the English troops on a frustrating march through the swamps until she and her people finally escaped. Weetamoo and her second husband Quinnapin led the tribal group north to Narragansett territory, away from the fighting.

Metacomet | Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions]

While the English troops focused on Metacomet, they also targeted Weetamoo, knowing that she was a leader and that killing her would cause the fight to go out of the tribe.

Weetamoo and Mary Rowlandson: A Clash of Cultures

In February 1676, Weetamoo and Qunnapin attacked a colonial settlement and captured several inhabitants, including Mary Rowlandson. Mary later wrote an account of her capture, and she described Weetamoo:

Mary Rowlandson’s narrative | John Carter Brown Library [Public domain]

A severe and proud dame she was, bestowing every day in dressing herself neat as much time as any of the gentry of the land: powdering her hair, and painting her face, going with necklaces, with jewels in her ears, and bracelets upon her hands. When she had dressed herself, her work was to make girdles of wampum and beads.*

Mary despised Weetamoo. They were very different, in great part because they were women in different cultures. Mary didn’t understand that Weetamoo was a leader. Mary thought that making wampum was “women’s work,” but it was actually the work of chiefs; wampum was used as money and only the chiefs could make it.

Notice how Mary focuses on Weetamoo’s appearance. She seems to be saying that Weetamoo was trying to make herself into “gentry” (a high social position just below nobility). To Mary, a mere “squaw” couldn’t possibly be of high status.

Women in native American tribes were considered equal to men. They worked alongside them, trained as warriors, became chiefs, and led their people. They could marry and divorce as they pleased and they could hold property in their own right, all rights not allowed to women in colonial New England. Mary had a difficult time figuring out Weetamoo.

The two women had several memorable clashes, described in Mary’s narrative. Mary was supposed to work, but she sometimes rebelled. When she refused to work one day, Weetamoo picked up a stick and beat her. I’m sure Mary was surprised and angry.

Another time, Mary was reading her bible on the Sabbath when Weetamoo grabbed it from her, tore it up, and threw it away. The Puritans in New England at this time were actively trying to convert the native tribes to Christianity. Weetamoo was reacting against these attempts, as did many other native Americans of the time.

Weetamoo’s baby died on this trek, but Mary refused to mourn him. She said she was happy that now there was more room for her. It’s sad that these two strong women couldn’t connect with each other, but the cultural divide was too big to cross.

What Happened to Weetamoo

After almost a year of fighting and running, everyone was tired. The colonial leaders promised to let the tribes return to their lands and the native American agreed not to destroy colonial towns. Weetamoo and Quinnapin negotiated for their reward for the release of Mary Rowlandson and they headed home.

Of course, the English lied. Using some feeble excuses and the help of natives who allied with the colonists, they began attacking the native tribes. This time the tribes were not able to get to the swamps. One by one, the tribal leaders were captured and killed. In early August, Weetamoo’s sister and her son were captured. Quinnapin was captured in mid-August and Philip was pursued, cornered and killed.

Weetamoo and her family were relentlessly pursued. Someone betrayed them, and they were attacked. Everyone was taken prisoner except Weetamoo, who managed to escape. But not for long. There is no clear information about how she died. She may have drowned trying to escape and was found “newly dead.” Her head was cut off and set on a pole in Taunton. When the captives say her they “made a most horrid and diabolical lamentation.”

While the settlers would have liked to think the war was over, it wasn’t. In Our Beloved Kin, Lisa Brooks says:

The conflict that began in Metacom’s homeland continued long beyond his death, perhaps for another hundred years.”

When two cultures collide, sparks fly. In this case, differences in beliefs about land led to armed conflict The colonists claimed victory, but at a high cost.

King Philip’s War is considered by many historians to be the deadliest war in American history in terms of losses. More than half of the colonial villages were destroyed or damaged by the native Americans, and both the tribes and the colonists lost many people. The tribal tradition at the time was for warriors to take their families with them, so when a tribe was attacked, a whole tribe could be wiped out.

Weetamoo was involved in this conflict and also a more personal conflict in her interactions with Mary Rowlandson. I doubt if the views of either of these women were changed by their clash, but we can see how it happened. And we can grieve for both of them. Both were proud and brave women.

Note: About 3000 Wampanoag still live in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, on a reservation.

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Sources:

Our Beloved Kin, by Lisa Brooks, is a more scholarly discussion of King Philip’s War and Weetamoo’s place in that war. Much of the detail about Weetamoo, including her interactions with Mary Rowlandson, are from this source.

Weetamoo: The Heart of the Pocassets by Patricia Clark Smith. Pictured above, this is a fiction work for ages 7-10, part Scholastic’s Royal Diaries series.

*”A Severe and Proud Dame She Was”: Mary Rowlandson Lives Among the Indians, 1675, in http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5793

**The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Puritans attacking King Philip’s fort” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1865. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-f403-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

#The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Death of the Indian Chief Alexander” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1885-11. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-cd27-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

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

Ani Pachen – Brave Tibetan Buddhist nun and warrior

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

Ani Pachen | Nicolehood [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

Ani Pachen wanted to spend her life in simplicity and quiet contemplation in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. Instead, she became a resistance fighter against the Chinese invaders in the 1950s, was captured and spent over 20 years in prison. But she was finally able to fulfill her lifelong dream. Her story is one of great courage and steadfast endurance.

Ani’s Commitment

Ani Pachen was born in 1933 and she grew up as a privileged daughter of a chieftain in eastern Tibet, in the town of Lemdha in the Kham province. Buddhism was the religion of Tibet, and she had an early calling to be a nun.

At 17, she overheard her parents discussing a man they were going to force her to marry. She was NOT going to marry, she decided. She got help from one of her parents’ servants when she threatened to jump off the roof, and she went to a monastery. Her father finally relented and said she didn’t have to marry; only then did she agree to come home.

When she came back, she settled into her life of contemplation. Then, in 1950 everything began to change. The Chinese invaded Tibet.

Ani as Rebel Leader

Her father was a chief and he and others began resisting as they saw the Chinese takeovers of villages and the humiliations and torture of Buddhist monks. The Chinese first promised a lot of things, but gradually things got worse, and it was obvious the Chinese were going to wipe out the Tibetans and their Buddhist heritage. “We have to make plans,” her father said.

In 1958, her father’s health began to decline and he died. He had groomed her to take over for him, even training her how to shoot if necessary. She wasn’t sure she could do it, but she knew she had to fight for Tibet.

Tibet’s culture at the time was one of equality; women and men worked side by side and women were fighters. As soon as her father died, the resistance fighters turned to her as a leader.

“That day I passed from my childhood. In a moment, I knew that my dream of a life devoted to meditation and prayer was no longer possible. Unable to follow my heart, I was bound by duty to carry on my father’s work. With my country threatened and my family in danger, I set about making preparations for war. From that time forward, my life was never the same.” (SM, p. 123)

Ani Pachen had to make decisions on where and when to fight. She was responsible for many lives and she had to keep encouraging them to fight. She had to be tough with her “troops;” at one point she ordered a man whipped who disrespected her. She hated doing that; it went against all that her non-violent Buddhist training had instilled in her. Even though she had a gun, she wasn’t sure she could kill.

More and more Chinese troops were pouring into eastern Tibet. The resistance fighters were able to buy weapons and the American CIA began to help them, mostly training resistance fighters. Ani’s troops headed for Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, but then they learned it had already fallen to the Chinese. They learned later that the Dalai Lama had already fled to India.

Tibetan monks in captivity | unknown. Public Domain.

Capture and Prison – For Over 20 Years

“Fear always followed us: fear of being captured, fear of being killed. At times the fear had no object, but floated like a vapor around us.” (SM, p. 163)

The Tibetan resistance fighters and their families lived scattered about Kham province, waiting for food and weapon drops by the Americans. Then the Chinese attacked from all directions. Ani and her fellow resisters tried escaping over the Himalaya mountain passes to India, but Ani and about 100 others were captured and marched away.

Ani Pachen spent the next 20+ years in various prisons and work camps. Each one was terrible, some more so than others. Her autobiography Sorrow Mountain tells of her life during those years. She was interrogated, beaten, starved, tortured, lived in squalor, held in isolation, and denied the ability to worship. Her treatment was worse than for other women because of her “crimes” (resistance) and her status as a “commander in chief.”

Many times she was told to give up and confess to receive special treatment. She didn’t believe the Chinese and she said she would never confess.

In one prison she worked in a laundry washing the clothing of Chinese soldiers; the clothing was full of lice. In keeping with her belief in no-violence, she would brush off the lice and seep them onto the ground so they wouldn’t be boiled and killed. She had to be careful not to let the guards see her.

For several years she was in a prison close to her mother and she was able to see her occasionally; after she was moved from that prison, she never saw her mother again.

During the Cultural Revolution in 1966, she was forbidden to speak Tibetan, wear Tibetan clothing, or practice Tibetan customs. The sacred texts were burned all over the country and any monasteries still left were destroyed.

“Seeing the smoke rise up from the direction of Sera [monastery] was more painful to me than being beaten.” (SM, p. 220).

She had a special turquoise bead that she had kept hidden in her clothes for many years. She hit it in a chink in a wall above a toilet. The guards tried to find it but didn’t. When she went back for it, it was gone.

After Her Release – a Dream Come True

Someone asked her many years after she came to Dharamsala, “What kept you going?”

“The wish to see His Holiness….”

Dharamsala, India | Gayatri Priyadarshini [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

The 14th Dalai Lama is a special person to Tibetan Buddhists. They call him “The Precious One” and believe he is the reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. He was the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet and he is still a symbol of Tibetan freedom. The Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet in 1959 freed the Tibetans to continue their resistance.

Since his escape, the Dalai Lama has been living in Dharamsala, India, as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Thousands of escaped Tibetans have come to this city to be near him.

After her release, Ani Pachen spent several years on pilgrimage throughout Tibet, including several years in solitude in a cave. Then she came to Lhasa to participate in the continuing resistance there. Finally, in January 1981, with the Chinese watching her again, she was persuaded to escape to India.

It was shortly after her arrival in Dharamsala that she was able to meet with the Dalai Lama. They talked for a long time and cried when they spoke of their sorrow at what was happening to Tibetans.

Ani Pachen continued to live in Dharamsala in a nunnery. She died in 2002, at the age of 69. At the end of Sorrow Mountain, she said,

“As for me, the story will go like this: She led her people to fight against the Chinese. She was present at the protest in Lhasa. She worked to save the ancient spiritual teachings. When I die, just my story will be left. “ (SM, p 282)

Ani- Pachen’s life, her resistance, and her 20-year endurance were a testament to her faith. Could any of us endure as long as she did, continuing to fight for what we believe in?

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Sources:

Most of my information and the quotes above are from this book:

SM: Sorrow Mountain: The Journey of a Tibetan Warrior Nun. Ani Pachen and Adelaide Donnelly. Kodansha International. 2000. It’s part autobiography and part reflections. Although the accounts of her ordeals in prison were disturbing, I found the book interesting and inspiring.

I also got information from Buddha’s Warriors about the last days of Lhasa, the escape of the Dalai Lama, and the CIA’s involvement in aiding the Tibetan resistance.

You might also be interested in another book called Escape from the Land of Snows, which tells more of the dramatic story of the fall of Lhasa and the young Dalai Lama’s “harrowing flight to freedom.” I found this book at a library book sale and it has started a multi-year study of Tibet, Tibetan adventurers (like Alexandra David-Neel), and the history of Buddhism.

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

Marthe McKenna: Codename Laura – A Brave World War I Spy

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

Are spies adventurers? I’d say yes. Case in point: Marthe McKenna, a brave young woman who spied against the Germans in World War I.

Life in Belgium in the first part of the 20th century must have been idyllic. In 1892, when Marthe Mathilde Cnockaert was born in the village of Westrozebeke in the Belgian province of West Flanders, it would have been quiet countryside. But then came World War I, and the German army barrelled through on their way to Paris. And, worse, they stayed.

German troops invading Belgium. Deutscher Sturmwagen in Roye/Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-P1013-316 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)]

Life Under German Rule

Life was bad for the people of Belgium. The Germans took all the good food and supplies and left the people with almost nothing. There was bacon, putrid stuff nicknamed “Wilson” (after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson) and a kind of maize (corn) called “Hoover” (chair of the U.S. Relief Committee and later U.S. president) by the residents.

The Germans took their clothing to make sandbags, so they had to use blankets, tablecloths, curtains, and sheets for clothing.

Animals were also hard to find because the Germans took them too. One of Marthe’s neighbors had a goat that she loved and that gave good milk. She trained the goat to hide every time someone came into her house, by climbing into a hole between two houses!

How Marthe Got Started Spying

Marthe and her family were burned out of their home and had to move to a different town. She had been enrolled in a medical school, but it closed because of the war, so she found the only work she could do – as a nurse in a German hospital.

Like Rose Zar in World War II, Marthe was for a while living “in the mouth of the wolf” by working alongside the Germans. It was ironic that the Germans valued her services so much she was awarded their Iron Cross for distinguished service.

The dilemma for Marthe, like many people in Europe during wartime, was whether to help the hated Boche, as they were called to keep her family alive and get privileges or to resist and possibly be killed. Marthe found an uneasy balance – she worked with the Germans but she also spied on them. It was a dangerous life for a young woman with almost no training. She was even asked by one German officer to spy for the Germans and get more privileges! If she had said no, she would have been under his suspicion. She did some spying, but very little, toward the end of the war.

Marthe’s spying began when an acquaintance noted her liked Marthe’s cool, calm personality and intelligence and she persuaded her to spy for British Intelligence. She learned how to recognize fellow resistance fighters by the “two safety pins” they wore under their coat lapels. in the Philippines in World War II, Marthe worked in her father’s café in the evenings, where she passed on information she overheard. Like Joey Guerrero in World War II in the Philippines, she delivered messages and noted troop movements. Later she was asked to get information, which involved getting into restricted areas, a more dangerous task.

It’s ironic that women in Belgium during World War I were not able to vote or hold political office, but they could serve – and die for – their country by spying.

How Marthe’s Dilemma Played Out

The central dilemma of all spying is whether or not to act on the information you have found. If you find out about something by spying, and you act on it, you might be able to stop the enemy temporarily, but the other side knows you were spying on them and they find new ways to communicate. If you don’t act on the information, you take the risk that your own troops or civilians will be killed.

Several times Marthe’s spying cost Allied lives. At one point, she notified the Allies of a big German ceremony in another town. The doctor at the German hospital wanted her to take some of the wounded German soldiers to the parade. Marthe had already told the Allies about the parade and she knew they were planning on disrupting it, possibly with bombs.

When she found out that she would have to be there, she tried to get word to the Allies, but it was too late. She was lucky that she wasn’t in the area where the bombs went off – it could have cost her her own life.

Mata Hari | Lucien Walery [Public domain]

Marthe Was Not a Mata Hari

One part of the spying business that Marthe didn’t like was having to deal with German soldiers and officers. According to Tammy Proctor,* “Women, particularly working-class women, were seen as sexually available by many soldiers.” Woméen who ran boarding homes or cafés were particularly vulnerable and Marthe’s family ran a boarding house with a restaurant attached.

She had to pretend to be the girlfriend of a German officer and even spend a night with him, in order to get information. She always managed to avoid becoming intimate (or so she reports in her autobiography), but it was difficult.

The Most Terrible Secret Marthe Found

Marthe and another spy were digging in a yard when they found some suspicious cylinders.

Gas attack. United States. Army. Signal Corps. |[Public domain]

They reported the cylinders to the British authorities, who didn’t think they were important and called Marthe’s suspicions “highly speculative.” The true purpose of the cylinders became obvious on April 23, 1915, when the first choline gas attack was launched against the French at Ypres, Belgium. This was after the tear gas attacks and before mustard gas was used. Terrible way to kill people.

Marthe’s Life after the War

Marthe managed to survive the war without being captured. She was awarded honors by Britain, France, and Belgium for her espionage work. She married a British army officer named John “Jock McKenna.

During World War II, she was living in Machester, England, but she was still under suspicion by the Nazis and listed in Hitler’s “Black Book” to be arrested if they invaded Britain. She died in 1966.

In his Foreword to her autobiography, Winston Churchill said,

“[She] fulfilled in every respect the conditions which make the terrible professional of a spy dignified and honorable. She reported the movement of troops; she destroyed, or endeavored to destroy, ammunition dumps; she assisted the escape of British prisoners; she directed the British airplanes where to strike at the billets, camps, and assemblies of the German troops, and thus brought death upon hundreds of the enemies and oppressors of her country.”

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Sources: Most of the information for this article came from Marthe’s autobiography, I Was a Spy. The New York Times, in its article on Marthe McKenna in its Overlooked series, said, “Much of the account was later determined to be invented….”

*I also used information from the section on Marthe in Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War. Tammy Proctor. NY University Press 2003

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

Anita Garibaldi – A Warrior and Adventurer for Love

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

Anita Garibaldi. By Gaetano Gallino (1804 – 1884) [Public domain]

Anita Garibaldi was a bright flame who shone briefly in her native Brazil and Italy. She was the companion in arms and wife to Giuseppe Garibaldi and a hero in her own right. Her story is wonderfully romantic and tragic.

Anita’s Early Life

Born in 1821 in Brazil, Anita (named Anninha) was her father’s daughter. She loved being with him breaking horses or helping with the herds, rather than sewing for her wedding chest. She had her father’s love for the outdoors, mountains, streams, flowers, and trees.

When he died in a construction accident, Anita was devastated, and her mother was left destitute.

Statue of Guiseppe Garibaldi, Nice, France. Miniwark [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Women in South America at that time were expected to marry, in part because they had no other way of making a living. Anita’s mother remarried quickly after her husband’s death, and she expected her three daughters to marry too. But Anita was willful.

Her father had said she would probably want to find her own husband. She agreed. But when her mother begged her to marry a shoemaker who was much older, she did, to get stability. He turned out to be a brutal, violent man. Her life was boring when he was sober and terrifying when he was drunk.

Then Anita met Guiseppe Garibaldi.

Giuseppe Garibaldi was a larger-than-life figure in European history. He was a freedom fighter who fought throughout his life for the cause of Italian liberation and unification. At the time they met in 1836 he came to South America as a political exile but also to help the Brazilians fight for their freedom.

He had long red-gold hair, dark blue eyes, and great charm. Just the sort of person Anita might fall for. It was love at first sight, for both of them. He was 29, and she was just 15. When he sailed on a short journey, she begged to go with him. He told the crew she was his wife. Anita loved the life of the sea and she quickly took on sailor’s duties and won the admiration of the crew.

Her Most Dangerous Adventure

Anita became Garibaldi’s companion in arms, went everywhere with her “Jose,” as she called him. She fought with him and cared for the troops as a nurse after the battles were over. A few years after they met, on a campaign against the Brazilian empire, she was captured and put into prison. She shared her daily meal with other prisoners, refusing special treatment because she was a woman.

She managed to escape from the prison and hid in the woods until dawn. She got some help from a farmer and his wife and she headed south on a horse, through a summer storm. For two days and two nights, she got little rest and food, eating grass to keep going.

On the third day, she crossed a desert and a raging river. As she stepped out of the river, an imperial guard saw her, as her hat came off, revealing her hair. He fled as if he had seen a ghost. She finally found Garibaldi and his soldiers.

It didn’t take long for her to become pregnant, but she didn’t let it stop her from traveling with Jose as a guerrilla fighter. Twelve days after she had the baby (a boy named Menotti) she wrapped him in a blanket, slung him on her saddle, and rode with the men.

Italian Flag. I, Sailko [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)]

In 1840, Jose and Anita and their son went to Uruguay. He tried to settle down, but it wasn’t the type to do that. He soon took a post with the Uruguayan navy.

It was during this time that she made his famous “red shirt” uniform, and his comrades in Italy took on that name when they fought for freedom.

They had three more children, one dying from pernicious anemia. Garibaldi wanted to go back to Italy, even though he had a death sentence on his head in Sardinia.

Anita and the children went ahead of him in 1847 and lived with his mother in Nice. When they left, Anita told him she was taking red, white, and green cloth with her on the journey, to make him a flag to carry when she met him on his return to Italy.

Sure enough, in June 1848, she met his ship with the flag waving by her side.

Fighting in Italy – and Her Death

Garibaldi stayed only a few days in Nice after he landed. He took off immediately for Rome and she followed, leaving the children with his mother, determined to fight by his side.

They couldn’t conquer Rome, so they headed for headed off to fight in Milan. I can see her in her legionnaire uniform of “red shirt, baggy pants tucked into her boots, large round hat with a plume, concealing her hair.”

Anita was pregnant again, but she refused to go home. The Apennine mountains were difficult, and she was feverish and in pain. Her tent was lost on a pass, and she slept on a bed of leaves. In Venice, a doctor told her not to travel further, but she lied to Jose and didn’t tell him about the doctor’s orders. Through her “amazing willpower” she kept going as Garibaldi and his legionnaires tried to avoid the Austrian troops and escape to Switzerland to avoid a death warrant on him. She was weaker and weaker, stubbornly continuing to walk.

Finally, they found her a bed in the home of supporters and her body finally gave in. She died on August 4, 1849. Garibaldi had to leave immediately after she died because the Austrians were chasing him

Anita – After Her Death

Anita Garibaldi’s body was buried as an “unknown woman” to keep the Austrians guessing, but the neighbors knew exactly where she was. In 1859, Garibaldi and his two surviving children took her body to Nice to be buried.

You may be wondering why she would leave her children to fight with her husband. It’s simple. She said,

“I love my children, but…I love Jose more than I love any other creature in the world.”

Anita Garibaldi’s Monument in Rome / Sergio D’Afflitto [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

In June 1932, her ashes were taken to Rome, where a monument to her still exists. The Lisa Gergio, the author of the biography below, says,

“On the summit of [the hill of] Janiculum, her body outlined against the Roman sky, she leaps with her horse, not as an Amazon, but as a wife and mother who had turned warrior for the sake of the man she loved and of the freedom she learned to love.”

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Sources:

Most of the information in this article and all the quotes come from I Am My Beloved. Unfortunately, the price of this book is high ($45.19).

I also found information in Rejected Princesses: Tales of history’s boldest heroines, hellions, and heretics by Jason Porath. 2016.

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