Stagecoach Mary and the Sisters

The link below on Stagecoach Mary notes she came west to nurse her childhood friend (and "owner's" daughter who became a nun).

This blog retells the story, but one comment fills in more personal information on Mary's parents: Her mother, a "house slave" got pregnant by a field slave, so the man was sold away...but Mary was allowed to play with the daughter, and learned to read and write...and later, when the daughter became a nun out west, Mary traveled to Montana to nurse her back to health.

Mary had no fear of man, nor beast, and this sometimes got her into trouble. She delivered the mail regardless of the heat of the day, cold of night, wind, rain, sleet, snow, blizzards, Indians and Outlaws.

Mary was a cigar smoking, shotgun and pistol toting Negro Woman, who even frequented saloons drinking whiskey with the men, a privilege only given to her, as a woman. However, not even this fact, sealed Mary's credentials given to her, her credentials boasted that, “She would knockout any man with one punch”, a claim which she proved true.

and if you think it would make a great movie, you are not alone: LINK

This book mentions Mary and the gunfight that got her fired, and three is a biography of her at Amazon (but not on line) and there is more information about both of them HERE. in a book about Catholic schools and hospitals.

Just like the story of the "Buffalo soldiers" is usually ignored in common history, so is the story of how Catholic nuns helped to tame the west.

Many communities actually asked Catholic sisters to come and set up schools and hospitals, not only for the Catholics but for all the people. You rarely read about them but they pop up in unexpected places when you read history, such as finding that the sisters in Santa Fe knew Billy the kid, or Doc Holliday's cousin (Melanie of GWTW was based on her sweet personality) became a nun, or that Brigham Young encouraged the sisters to nurse the local miners.

So Mother Amadeus established not only a school for local settler's daughters in Montana but for the local Indians....the sisters not only faced 30 below winters, poor food, but also the bishop, anti Catholicism with the feds and locals, and culture clashes with Native Americans.

And I find it amusing that when Mary got into a gunfight on the mission, that the bishop ordered her fired, but Mother Amadeus made sure she had other employment...so at age 60 she ended up delivering mail (the second woman to ever get a post office job).

Even back in the good old days, Catholic nuns were not exactly meek and mild brides of Christ...