Page 13 - Summer2011 magazine

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

by Sharon Schaaf

In She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, authors Jo Ann Chartier and Chris Enss introduce us to twelve ladies who

lived during the l9th and early 20 centuries. We meet two women who disguised themselves as men in order to carry
th
out their missions; three women who saved many lives in the battlefields of Texas and New Mexico; and three Native

American women who worked as peacemakers for their people. Chartier and Enss also share with us: the courage of

George Custer’s wife, Elizabeth; the nursing skills of Calamity Jane; and the story of the first female lighthouse keeper,
Juliet Fish Nichols.

Their stories are remarkable because of their courageous endeavors. But the time period in

which they lived makes each woman’s accomplishments even more notable. One of the young-
est, eighteen-year-old southern belle Susan Shelby Magoffin, newly wed to trader Samuel

Magoffin, became one of the few women to travel the 2,000 mile-long Santa Fe Trail.
Susan’s journal of the trials her wagon train encountered along the trip also offered an

insightful look into the lives of the people who pioneered the west in the 1840’s. Despite

the harsh terrain, disease, unfriendly tribes and Santa Ana’s troops, Susan’s love of adven-
ture helped make the yearlong trip successful for the Magoffin’s.

The bibliography of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon demonstrates the amazing research that award-winning authors

Chartier and Enss did to write their book. In addition to citing history books and biographies, the authors use journals

and diaries, newspapers and magazines, handbooks, photographs and documents to create the narratives of these brave
women.

Of special interest to Nevadans is Paiute Sarah Winnemucca. In a short forty-seven years she met with generals and a

president, established a school for Native Americans, lectured across the country and was the first Native American
woman to publish a book. Sarah’s devotion to her heritage became the motivator to dedicate her life to make the

country aware of the traditions and treatment of the Native Americans. In the winter of 1879-80, Sarah and her father,
Chief Winnemucca, traveled to Washington, D. C. to meet with President Hayes and described for him how poorly the

Paiutes were being treated by government agents and also by other tribes. Sarah Winnemucca’s autobiography, Life

Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was written in 1883 at the Boston home of her friend Elizabeth
Peabody and published that year.

Subtitled “Women Soldiers and Patriots of the Western Frontier,” She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is available for sale in the

Elements Gift Shop at the Red Rock Canyon Visitors Center.
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