Some frontier teachers had a harsh rule they strictly enforced. They believed “Lickin’ and larnin’ goes together, No likin, no larnin.” (Now I’d start with “lickin” the teacher here, not only for the idea but for such poor spelling, but that’s just me). The forgoing dogma was basic to the educational philosophy of the old days. Lessons were regarded as a commodity to be pressed into reluctant vessels – the pupils – and a birch rod or hickory sick was used to accomplish this end. Legally in loco parentis, teachers relied upon it more heavily to enforce discipline, their devotion to scholarship often measured by the number of backsides they had reddened. Humanitarians, a tiny minority, thought otherwise, among them a former schoolmaster named Walt Whitman, who complained of the “military discipline” of the schools. “The flogging plan is the most wretched item yet of school-keeping,” he thundered. “What nobleness can reside in a man who catches boys by the collar, and cuffs their ears?” But such criticism posed no threat to corporal punishment, which was extremely hailed as a healthy and indispensable practice. (One inveterate disciplinary referred to his weapon as “my board of education.”) And concomitant with this belief went an austere mistrust of improvements to the physical plant because they were a “luxury.” A Washington Territory schoolmarm’s plea for the installation of toilets was turned down by the school board, which advised her that “there were plenty of trees in the yard to get behind.” Even her suggestion to replace the single well dipper with more hygienic individual cups was denied as being “undemocratic.”

Rural schools were handicapped not only by size – one room for all ages – but by the quality of instruction they dispensed. Teaching was an occupation of minimal prestige, with low pay, low standards and a high turnover rate. It was said that anybody could be a teacher, and while no doubt some were fine, dedicated individuals, most proved shiftless and unimaginative-products of the very systems they perpetuated. Because children supplied essential farm labor, the school year lasted barely twelve weeks, from Thanksgiving through early spring. It was hardly enough time for learning, or to encourage a teacher who genuinely sought results. And the salaries – in 1888-89 an average of $42.43 a month for men and $38.14 for women, grudgingly relinquished from frugal budgets-attracted mostly young men in transit to a profession or women who declared themselves schoolmarms to get away from a suffocating home life. Sometimes the teacher was a girl younger than several of her pupils, and almost as ignorant. Teachers were compensated for their low pay by being allowed to alternate free board and lodgings with various families. But many could not endure the accompanying scrutiny given their private lives and quit in disgust after a term or two, leaving the curriculum in chaos. Clarence Darrow recalls: “We seldom had the same teacher for two terms of school, and we always wondered whether the new one would be worse or better than the old.” To read more about teachers on the rugged plains read Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West. Go to www.chrisenss.com for more information.

When my brothers and I had this picture taken it was one of the happiest times we had together. If we only knew what was in store for us then we would have savored the moment a bit longer.

Being a fan of western films, I think it only fitting from time to time to note some of the great lines from those movies. Given the fact that I’ve focused on soiled doves this month I’m going to focus on dialogue pertaining strictly to those ladies of the evening. From the movie Escape from Fort Bravo – Southern Belle Carla Forrester (Eleanor Parker) and Captain Roper (William Holden), discuss marrying soiled doves. “The women always look beautiful when they get married and the men always look scared,” Carla tells the Captain. “They both get over it,” the Captain replies. Although she wasn’t portrayed as a soiled dove in the movie Calamity Jane, Jane was indeed a prostitute at one time. Wild Bill Hickok, played by Howard Keel in the film, comments on actress Adelaide Adams to Calamity Jane played by Doris Day. “She’s lovely. Charming figure. Everything a woman ought to be,” Will Bill boasts. “Looks like a fat-frilled, upside undressed beef to me,” Calamity remarks. From the movie The Deadly Companions starring Brian Keith and Strother Martin. “I sure hope this town has some pretty girls in it,” Strother comments as they ride toward a village looking for some nocturnal company. “You get this far out in the brush, they’re all pretty,” Keith reminds him. And finally, from one of my favorite flicks, Destry Rides Again starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich ran the saloon and made sure all the male guests were taken care of. “Wait a minute, lady,” Stewart calls out to Dietrich. “Who you calling a lady!” Dietrich snaps back. To learn more about the soiled doves of the Old West and the lives they led read Pistol Packin’ Madams. To order the book visit www.chrisenss.com.

Outlawry wasn’t completely a man’s world, thanks to horse thief and prostitute Belle Starr (1848-1889). One of the great stories of the Bandit Queen holds that she galloped into a livery stable one afternoon and ordered her horse’s shoes to be nailed on backwards. That way, she could really confuse the posse that was hot on her trail. Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley to a farming inn keeping family in Medoc, Missouri. The family moved to Carthage, Missouri, when Myra was a little girl. She attended private school there. Excelling in music and Hebrew. The stories about her start right around the time of the Civil War, when some folks swear she was teen spy for Quantrill. Her brother did ride with the raiders, but it doubtful Myra ever say the border butcher. Her father moved the family to Scyene, 10 miles east of Dallas, after the war. It was the summer of 1866 that young Cole Younger came riding by for a brief fling. When he left to rejoin the James boys, Myra Maybelle went to work as a soiled dove and a dealer in a Dallas gaming house. During this time, she met and married James Reed. The true paternity of Belle’s first child, a daughter christened Rosie Lee but always called Pearl, is still a mystery. In 1871, the Reeds moved to California, where Belle had another baby. The family relocated to Texas, where the new parents a earned a living stealing horses. One biographer states that Belle accompanied her husband during the robbery of Watt Grayson in Indian Territory. In that incident, a woman dressed as a man slipped a noose around old man Grayson’s neck and hoisted him “six or seven times” up a tree until he told where he had buried $30,000 in gold. Belle was widowed in 1874 when Reed was slain by a bounty hunter. Belle refused to identify the body, which meant the bounty could not be paid. Belle Starr was shot in the back with a shotgun by an unknown assailant in February 1889.