Introductions and Excerpts
from Joyce's biographies

Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story --
by Joyce B. Lohse --
a Now You Know Bio from Filter Press

2007 Silver CIPA EVVY Award!

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“It was Brown luck. I’m the unsinkable Mrs. J. J. Brown.”

Quotation from Rocky Mountain News, October 28, 1932
Photo from Rocky Mountain News, 16 April 1912

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                                           An early version of Introduction to Unsinkable:

        An unlikely moment can change a person’s life forever. For Margaret Tobin Brown, known much later to the world as “Molly Brown,” that life-changing moment arrived late in the evening of April 15, 1912, as she relaxed in her cabin aboard a luxurious cruise ship, reading a book. The moment rudely announced itself when she heard a loud noise and was jolted from her comfortable reading position. She immediately left her cabin to find out what was amiss.

            Margaret Brown wrote her memories of that night a month later for the Denver Post newspaper. “I looked out and saw a man whose face was blanched, wearing the look of a hunted creature. In an undertone he gasped: ‘Get your life-saver’.” Titanic, the unsinkable new luxury cruise ship on its maiden voyage, had hit an iceberg and was in danger of sinking.

            I immediately reached above and dragged [my lifesaver] out. Snatching up furs, I ran to A deck and there I found passengers putting on life belts. Strapping myself into one, I went up on the storm deck.

            On the storm deck we found a number of men trying to unravel the tackle of the [life]boats to let them down. We were told by an officer to descend to the deck below. We found the lifeboats there being lowered.

            Suddenly I saw a shadow and a few seconds later I was taken hold of and with the words, ‘You are going, too,’ I was dropped fully four feet into the lowering lifeboat.

            With but one man in the boat and possibly fourteen women, I saw that it was necessary for someone to bend to the oars. I placed mine in the rowlocks and asked a young woman near me to hold one while I placed the other one on the further side. She immediately began to row like a galley slave. All the time while rowing we were facing the starboard side of the sinking vessel.

            By that time E and C decks were completely submerged and the strains of music became fainter as though the instruments were filled up. Suddenly all ceased and the heroic musicians could play no more.

The foaming sea opened up as they watched from a distance and the great ship Titanic was pulled from below and disappeared from their sight.

            When Mrs. J. J. Brown found herself aboard Lifeboat #6, her life could easily have ended, although she had many things yet to do with her life. Her will was strong, and she was not about to give in to the formidable challenges she faced. But the choice was not yet hers. In a lifeboat only half full of distraught women and a couple of men, bobbing on the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, the future of Margaret Brown and other passengers was quite uncertain. The question at that critical moment was whether they would survive through the night or be drowned in those dark, icy, unforgiving waters.

            Margaret Brown was a rich and confident woman who was accustomed to taking charge of a situation and seeing that things were done properly. Although she was as wet and cold as the others, she was not about to let fate take over and determine the outcome of her current situation.  She worked the oars and helped the other passengers with their comfort as they strained to row as far away from the sunken ship as possible.

            To the survivors, it seemed an eternity since they had begun rowing their lifeboat through the frigid, dark night. Finally, a light was spotted in the far distance across the icy water. It was a signal from a steamer named the Carpathia. That ship had received a distress signal from a wireless radio operator aboard the Titanic. Although it was approaching to rescue the lifeboats, it was still miles away. The lights became easier to see as the ship approached, although the ocean waves became rougher and more difficult to navigate as the huge steamer approached the little lifeboats.

            As dawn began to lighten the sky, Margaret’s lifeboat was the last one the Carpathia attempted to rescue. At first, the bobbing lifeboat was pulled away from the larger ship by the rocking waves. It took a great effort to steer the lifeboat close enough for the men in the steamer to reach. Only then were they able to remove its occupants and save them from danger. The Carpathia saved 866 people from the dark sea. But 1,492 people died that night, sinking with the grand cruise ship, which lacked enough lifeboats to hold its many passengers.

            Once aboard the Carpathia, comfort in the form of food, blankets, and medicine was offered to the survivors. Did Margaret seek the rest, relief, and comfort she craved along with the rest of the distressed survivors? No, she could not rest. Margaret found herself surrounded by people whose circumstances were far worse than her own. Many of the people were frightened and anguished after they lost their loved ones. Some lost everything they owned when the ship sank.

            Margaret found she was able to use her extensive knowledge of foreign language and culture, along with her personal financial resources, to help other passengers. She helped write and pay the cost of sending wireless messages to relatives back in Europe, and she provided the survivors with clothing and medicine from supplies aboard the Carpathia. The lives of the survivors were no longer in danger, but for Margaret, her work had just begun.

Reaction to Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story:

I thought it was fantastic. It flows beautifully and is so factually complete. I just loved it.

                                                          -- Kerri Atter, Director,
                                                                           Molly Brown House Museum

Emily Griffith: Opportunity's Teacher --
by Joyce B. Lohse --
a Now You Know Bio from Filter Press

Emily Griffith had a dream. She wanted to start a school, an Opportunity
School, "for all who wish to learn". From her unlikely beginnings in a sod house
on the prairie, she came to Colorado and achieved her dream, building her school
to teach all who came seeking instruction. The school, which continues to this day
to operate as her educational legacy, has taught over 1 1/2 million students.

"Emily serves as a role model for our children and her sense of responsibility
and ability to problem solve as well as her qualities of a positive attitude and
loyalty speak loudly throughout the pages of this book."
                     -- Kari Gomez-Smith, Public Relations Mgr, Emily Griffith Opportunity School

Emily Griffith: Opportunity's Teacher

From Chapter 4 - Opportunity School Is Born

            Opportunity School’s doors opened for the first time. If Emily feared nobody would show up, she need not have worried. Fourteen hundred students registered the first week. Just as the sign on her ancestor’s boat had welcomed, “All Who Wish To Learn,” Emily’s school welcomed students with her own sign and the same message … For All Who Wish To Learn. Principal Emily Griffith pushed her desk into the hallway and waited by the doorway to greet each student. It was the beginning of a new tradition.

            The new school was open thirteen hours a day, five days a week. Students were allowed to attend walk-in classes at the school for an hour or two as their work schedules permitted. Subjects ranged from telegraphy, to industrial millinery, from typewriting on the school’s one typewriter, to all academic subjects, and English for foreign language speaking immigrants.

            It seemed everybody wanted to enroll in a different subject, but they all wanted to learn. As they entered the building, Emily asked each student what subject they wished to study at her school. A man wanted training in sign making. A foreign-born person wished to improve his English speaking skills. A waitperson from a restaurant needed to improve his math proficiency.

            Ladies who wished to learn needlework and sewing were encouraged to apply their skills to hat making for industrial millinery. Students wanted classes in cooking and carpentry. Young people who had quit school to take jobs to help their families earn money wanted to finish their basic academic education in evening classes.

            Opportunity School allowed adults and children to learn different skills and vocations all at the same time. It was possible for workers to attend walk-in classes and evening sessions whenever their busy schedules allowed. Aliens from other countries were encouraged to study what they needed to know to become American citizens. Teaching methods were individualized and all classes were free of charge. Rules and disciplinary action were kept to a minimum with total emphasis on achievement.

            Emily Griffith continued to place her desk in the hallway by the door so she was accessible to greet her students and answer their questions. In that way, Emily kept close track of her students’ needs. The chalkboard held messages for all who entered the school, starting with, “YOU CAN DO IT.” Messages contained directions and useful information as well as inspiration for all who entered. “We do not believe in failure,” she often said. She would print such a motto on a banner or sign to display in a place where everyone could see it. Another sign said, “Help One Another.”

            From the beginning, Opportunity School was a success. Two thousand three hundred ninety-eight students attended during the first year, and the faculty grew from five to thirty-eight teachers. The school was unusual in so many ways that it attracted a good deal of attention. Educators from other communities wanted to know how to start their own opportunity school.

            Resistance to the school’s approach endured. Not everyone thought Opportunity School was a good idea. Some people thought it was too radical and unusual to be practical. However, on April 10, 1917, the State of Colorado passed a law allowing the school to continue as a public vocational, evening, and opportunity school, open to all people. As Emily put it, “We will just have this school and there will be no entrance requirements.” Opportunity School was here to stay.

            When Emily discovered a need, she found a way to fill it. If a student needed a ride home, she slipped a nickel for carfare into his or her hand along with a handshake to conceal the gift. One evening, a young boy fainted in an evening class. He had no time to eat between his job and evening school, and had grown faint. Emily quickly observed that he was not the only student who had no time or money to eat, or money for extra streetcar fare to go home for a meal.

           

Justina Ford: Medical Pioneer

Colorado Independent Publishers Assoc. – EVVY Award Finalist
Women Writing the West – WILLA Award Finalist

Justina Ford: Medical Pioneer

From Chapter 3 - Overcoming Obstacles

        On October 7, 1902, Justina Ford applied for and received a license to practice medicine in the state of Colorado. It came with a warning.

        As he collected the five-dollar fee, the licensing examiner told Justina, "I feel dishonest taking a fee from you. You've got two strikes against you to begin with. First of all, you're a lady, and second, you're colored." She was not only the first black woman doctor in Denver and the entire state of Colorado, but also one of very few in the entire country.

        Justina was not discouraged. Although her main work was delivering babies, many people in Denver needed a doctor who would take care of them in their homes. Patients with tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases who had come to Colorado to breathe the fresh, healing air were sometimes turned away by Denver City and County Hospital, especially if they had no money to pay for hospital services. People of color were turned away whether they could pay or not. Some immigrants chose to be treated at home because they distrusted the hospitals.

        When Justina opened her medical practice in Denver, only three people out of one hundred in Arapahoe County were African American. About 26,000 people living in Denver had been born in foreign countries. Oriental people, especially Chinese, and European minorities such as Italian, German, Greek, Russian, and Irish were not allowed to use the County Hospital either. Twenty years later, in 1920, when the city's population had almost doubled, the number of African American citizens was about 6,075.

        Justina herself was not allowed to treat any patients at the Denver Hospital when she began working as a doctor. Membership in the Colorado Medical Society was required before she could join the American Medical Association. Both memberships were required in order for her to work as a doctor in the hospital. This situation could have put her at at a disadvantage in a city that already had 457 physicians, but many of Justina's patients could not be treated in the hospital anyway. Of course, Dr. Ford wanted the option of treating patients in the hospital. She knew that racial discrimination was one reason her patients were denied care. Justina would help change this injustice. As she later said, "I fought like a tiger against those things." Justina fought discrimination so that she could get the hospital care some of her patients needed. She could do  only so much on her own, and some of her patients suffered without hospitalization. Race and gender were very real obstacles.

        When the Fords bought a house near the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, Justina set up her medical office in their home, offering medical services in obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics. Justina was listed in the 1908 city directory at the new address on Arapahoe Street. Word spread quickly that she was a doctor who would care for patients and deliver babies no matter the race, color, or financial status of the patient. She even provided free medical service to the people in migrant camps near Denver. When she received the phone call or message from a person in need, she hurried to gather up her black medical bag and went to their aid.

From Chapter 4 - The Centennial State

            John Routt’s gregarious nature made it easy to connect with his new community. He communicated easily with laborers, professionals, or politicians, and set about resolving political differences among the groups. He exercised his natural problem-solving skills to address the qualms of Colorado’s citizens about statehood as he attempted to unify factions. To satisfy the public that he had Colorado’s best interest in mind, Routt explained at a reception, “I was getting ready to come and make my home in Colorado anyway.” He further declared his long-term commitment to Colorado by stating that he and his family wished to settle in as citizens and engage in private pursuits once his term had expired.

            On March 29, 1875, John Routt took his oath of office as what would be Colorado’s last territorial governor, as administered by Judge Hallett at the Wells Fargo Express Company Building, located on the southwest corner of Fifteenth and Market Street, then known as Holladay Street, in Denver.

Colorado’s acceptance as a state by the rest of the country was not without resistance from eastern politicians, who considered Colorado much too wild and unsettled for statehood. According to one New York publication:

There is not a single good reason for the admission of Colorado. Indeed, if it were not for the mines in the mountainous and forbidding region there would be no population there at all. The population, such as it is, is made up of a roving and unsettled horde of adventurers, who have no settled homes there or elsewhere, and are there solely because the state of semi-barbarism prevalent in that wild country suits their vagrant habits. There is something repulsive in the idea that a few handfuls of miners and reckless bushwhackers should have the same representation in the Senate as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.

A Philadelphia newspaper said, “Colorado consists of Denver, the Kansas Pacific Railway, and Scenery. The mineral resources of Colorado exist in the imagination. The agricultural resources do not exist at all.” Isabella Bird, a well-known traveler and author of A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, described Denver as she experienced it during a trip in 1873. “At the top of every prairie roll, I expected to see Denver, but it was not till nearly five that from a considerable height I looked down upon the great ‘City of the Plains’, the metropolis of the Territories. There the great braggart city lay spread out, brown and treeless, upon the brown and treeless plain, which seemed to nourish nothing but wormwood and the Spanish bayonet.”

Undaunted by the heavy criticism from the East, the people of Colorado voted by a margin of 11,000 to ratify the constitution on July 1, 1876. Governor Routt certified the results and notified President Grant of the outcome. Statehood for Colorado was nearly complete.

On July 4, 1876, Routt acted as master of ceremonies at a grand Independence Day celebration in Denver that went on for two days. After a parade through the city, the celebratory gathering of city officials and exuberant citizens assembled in a grove on the banks of the Platte River near the Colfax viaduct. As he addressed the crowd, Routt was handed a telegram from Representative Stephan Decatur, who was attending the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Carefully adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Routt read the words, “Are we a state?” from the telegram.

“We are!” was John Routt’s immediate and emphatic, booming reply to the throng, who sent up a great, deafening cheer. He continued to read aloud his reply as sent to the Exposition. “The Centennial State and the twenty thousand here assembled send joyful greetings to the sister States of the American Union represented at Philadelphia on this glorious Fourth. (signed) John L. Routt.” With that response, Colorado achieved the pride and dignity of statehood.

While Colorado was celebrating its status as the country’s newest state in 1876, it was also celebrating the centennial birthday of the country. The coincidence inspired Colorado’s nickname as the “Centennial State.” On August 1, 1876, President Grant issued his proclamation of statehood officially making Colorado the nation’s thirty-eighth state. That day is known as Colorado Day and is celebrated as the state’s official birthday.

Also from First Governor, First Lady:

Colorado Governors 
COLORADO TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS

1861-1862                                                       Gilpin, William (R)
1862-1865                                                       Evans, John (R)
1865-1867                                                       Cummings, Alexander (R)
1867-1869                                                       Hunt, Alexander C. (R)
1869-1873                                                       McCook, Edward (R)
1873-1874                                                       Elbert, Samuel H. (R)
1874-1875                                                       McCook, Edward (R)
1875-1876                                                       Routt, John L. (R)

STATE OF COLORADO GOVERNORS

1877-1879                                                       Routt, John L. (R)
1879-1883                                                       Pitkin, Frederick W. (R)
1883-1885                                                       Grant, James B. (D)
1885-1887                                                       Eaton, Benjamin H. (R)
1887-1889                                                       Adams, Alva (D)
1889-1891                                                       Cooper, Job A. (R)
1891-1893                                                       Routt, John L. (R)
1893-1895                                                       Waite, Davis H. (P)
1895-1897                                                       McIntyre, Albert W. (R)
1897-1899                                                       Adams, Alva (D)
1899-1901                                                       Thomas, Charles S. (D)
1901-1903                                                       Orman, James B. (D)
1903-1905                                                       Peabody, James H. (R)
1905                                                                 Adams, Alva (D)
1905                                                                 Peabody, James H. (R)
1905-1907                                                       Jesse F. McDonald (R)
1907-1909                                                       Henry A. Buchtel (R)
1909-1913                                                       Shafroth, John F. (D)
1913-1915                                                       Ammons, Elias M. (D)
1915-1917                                                       Carlson, George A. (R)
1917-1919                                                       Gunter, Julius C. (D)
1919-1923                                                       Shoup, Oliver H. (R)
1923-1925                                                       Sweet, William H. (D)
1925-1927                                                       Morley, Clarence J. (R)
1927-1933                                                       Adams, William H. (D)
1933-1937                                                       Johnson, Edwin C. (D)
1937                                                                Talbot, Ray H. (D)
1937-1939                                                       Ammons, Teller (D)
1939-1943                                                       Carr, Ralph L. (R)
1943-1947                                                       Vivian, John C. (R)
1947-1950                                                       Knous, William L. (D)
1950-1951                                                       Johnson, Walter W. (D)
1951-1955                                                       Thornton, Daniel I. J. (R)
1955-1957                                                       Johnson, Edwin C. (D)
1957-1963                                                       McNichols, Stephen L. R. (D)
1963-1973                                                       Love, John A. (R)
1973-1975                                                       Vanderhoof, John D. (R)
1975-1987                                                       Lamm, Richard D. (D)
1987-1999                                                       Romer, Roy R. (D)
1999-2007                                                       Owens, Bill (R)
2007-                                                                Ritter, Bill (D)

D = Democrat          P = Populist          R = Republican    

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Learn more about Colorado history at the Colorado State Archives web site.