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THE WIDOWED ONES:  BEYOND THE BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN

CHRIS ENSS and Howard Kazanjian with Chris Kortlander

“Once or twice in a lifetime comes a meticulously researched book that so radically changes your understanding of a historical event it is as though the scales fall from your eyes and you actually see what happened for the first time. The Widowed Ones, Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn is that book. Listen to the women’s side of the story. We promise you will never be the same.” — W. MICHAEL GEAR AND KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORS OF DISSOLUTION AND THE ICE ORPHAN

Seventh Cavalry officers’ wives who lost their spouses at the Battle of the Little Bighorn survived the ordeal because of the friendship they had with one another. No one else could understand their grief or help them get past the tremendous hurt. The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn tells the stories of these women and the unique bond they shared.

Irish Central ran a story about the book Iron Women and my Irish heritage.

I was honored to be included in the publication.

Click on the link below to read the complete article.

The untold story of the women who helped build the US railroads

“Iron Women: The Ladies Who Helped Build The Railroad” by Chris Enss celebrates the women who influenced the first transcontinental railroad in the 1860s.

IrishCentral Staff

@IrishCentral

https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/new-book-women-helped-build-railroad

Enter now to win a copy of Iron Women:  The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

Enter now to win a copy of

Iron Women:  The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

While attending college in Pennsylvania, Mary Lawser was part of a group comprised of several accomplished female artists.  They were known as the Philadelphia Ten.

Among the members was a talented painter and sculptor named Mary Louise Lawser.  Like Mary Colter, Mary Lawser was hired by a major rail line company to help promote westward travel.

Born in 1906 in Pennsylvania, she exhibited at a young age.  She attended the Pennsylvania Museum School, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.  Mary’s work was exhibited in galleries in Europe and New York.  She was recognized by her peers as a gifted, bronze work artist.  After graduation she took a position as an art instructor at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and at Bryn Mawr.

In early 1940, she was hired to work for notable architect Paul Cret.  The French-born, Philadelphia architect and industrial designer was impressed with Mary’s design and execution of bronze tablets found inside Alexander Hamilton’s home, The Grange.  Commissioned by the American and Historic Preservation Society, the tablets were made to honor Alexander Hamilton, first secretary of the United States treasury.  In addition to designing buildings on the University of Texas campus and the Pan American Union Building in Washington, D.C., Paul Cret designed railroad cars for the Burlington and Santa Fe rail lines.  While Mary was employed by Cret, she contributed to decorating various railroad passenger cars with sculptures, wood carving, and mixed metal creations.

When Cret passed away in 1945, Mary was hired by another respected Pennsylvania architect, John Harbeson, to aid him in creating a new look for Burlington’s Pioneer Zephyr.  Although in the employ of Harbeson, Mary was singled out by the Budd Company, a railroad industry manufacturer, to design murals for the interior of the passenger cars that would inspire ticket-buyers to go west.

In 1948, Mary began work on a mural for the California Zephyr’s Silver Lariat.  The train was built as a dome coach, a series of cars that have glass domes on the top where passengers can ride and see in all directions around the train.  Mary painted a mural of the Pony Express in the large dining and lounge car.

Over the course of her five-year business relationship with the Budd Company, she created murals for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Denver and Rio Grande Western, and the Western Pacific Railroad.  Mary’s murals generally adorned the end walls of the dome coaches and they always depicted Western historical themes.  She also sculpted the appliques of apples and grapes which hung at each end of the dining cars as well as the lyre-based radio speakers.

Mary Lawser died in 1985 at the age of seventy-nine.

To learn more about Mary Lawser and the other ladies who helped build the railroad read

Iron Women

The Native Daughters of the Golden West presented me with the

California Image Award today. 

COVID delayed the ceremony. 

I’m grateful and honored. 

Enter now to win a copy of Iron Women:  The Ladies Who Helped Build the Railroad

“Iron Women provides a valuable addition to the history of the building of America’s railroads. Thoroughly researched and wonderfully illustrated, this book describes many unrecognized contributions by women to successes achieved across the iron horse empires. Not surprisingly, women who worked for the railroads had to overcome the traditional prejudices that plagued their struggles to prove their worth in most professions outside the home. From innovations made in telegraphy and engineering, to accomplishments in hospitality and entertainment, the efforts put forth by the featured females is that of frustration overcome by perseverance. This volume also contains interesting biographical vignettes of women who served as railroad presidents, travel journalists, artists, architects, and more. Chris Enss couples her smooth writing style with historical quotations to make an enjoyable read. I learned fascinating new things about the railroads and the women who worked on them.”

Roundup Magazine Review, Convention Edition by Author Robert Lee