Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 055-4 - October 2001 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 8 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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NCHS Bulletin October 2001 Q: How long after you completed Gold Cities was it before you started the book on Lola Montez ? DF: I had been thinking about it for a long time. My grandmother first came to Grass Valley in 1866. Lola had left there ten years before, so it was pretty fresh still in the minds of the people. My grandmother was always interested in theatricals. She attended all the plays in San Francisco and she used to tell me about Lola. She told me all the things the newspapers used to say. That’s what got me started. Q: How much time was spent in researching for your book? DF: Four years. Q: Why do you think Lola has become so famous in this area? It seems like she is more famous than what you would think just from who she was and what she had done. Why does she capture people’s imaginations so much? DF: Some really wonder about that, too. Of course, she was a “woman’s libber,” you know. Q: Do you think she was? DF: One of the first. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind on the rights of women according to her own style of life. No matter how much it shocked others, she was going to live as she wanted to live. Of course I’ve always felt that she played a role in getting Grass Valley started with the mining industry. This John Southwick that she took up with had the Empire Mine. 1852 was a very dormant time for the mines. The mines were there, but they had no capital with which to develop them. They were depending on English capital. She did a lot of entertaining and encouraged these people to invest in the mines. That isn’t too well known about her. Q: Do you think that her behavior has been censured because of the morals of the time and we don’t really know the truth about her, or do you think that the whole picture is told about her? DF: I never felt she was as bad as they portrayed her. co think she would be shocked today. Her costume was alway: the most very modest—excepi for her dance costume. Q: With her short skirt? DF: Yes. Q: You mention in your book that in those days the show of an ankle would make a man’s heart beat a little faster, and there was Lola with her knee-length skirt. DF: And her ballet-style dress, too. But other than that, I don’t know why they tried to paint her as a prostitute. I never believed that. I think she was true to one man at a time. And she’d have to be attracted to them, too. And, of course, she brought in a different style of life that our people knew nothing about. The miners of the day were intrigued with the dishes she would serve, the wine she would have, the fact that she smoked. I remember reading one article by a Mr. [Lemuel] Snow. He was a miner in Grass Valley who lived across the street from Lola and he said how dirty she was. I thought about it and it must have been because she was working in the yard. Q: He wasn’t used to seeing a “lady” working with the soil? DF: No, or being so dirty either. She enjoyed gardening. She had vegetable gardens and all, so I always wondered if that was it. I just can’t imagine Lola being dirty. Q: No, especially after reading those sections you took out of her book on charm and female appearance. She talks — about scrubbing your face with rosewater and brandy, and wasn’t there something about rubbing a wet sponge on the roots of your hair every morning? She just seems so meticulous. [Note: The newspaper interview ended without a response from Foley. Perhaps the editors ran out of space.) NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY P. O. Box 1300, Nevada City, CA 95959 Searls Historical Library 214 Church Street, Nevada City (530) 265-5910 Open from 1-4 pm daily (except Sundays and holidays) Firehouse Museum 214 Main Street, Nevada City (530) 265-5468 Summer: Open from 11 am to 4 pm daily (except holidays) Winter: Open 11 am to 4 pm on weekends (except holidays) North Star Mining Museum Allison Ranch Road, Grass Valley (530) 273-4255 Open May 1 to October 15 from 10 am to 5 pm Transportation Museum Division (530) 272-2085 Video History Museum and Thimble Theater ~™ Central Avenue, Memorial Park, Grass Valley Summer: 11 am to 4 pm (except Wednesday and holidays) -~ EXECUTIVE BOARD President Paul Hinshelwood Vice President Priscilla van der Pas Executive Secretary Elmabel Rohrman Treasurer David Comstock DIRECTORS Firehouse Museum Tony Smeaton North Star Mining Museum Glenn Jones Searls Historical Library Ed Tyson Genealogical Research Maria Brower NCNGRR/Transportation Museum Division John Christensen Video History Museum Division Ron Sturgell NCHS Books Division Mel Ciphers Bulletin and Newsletter Bedford Lampkin Membership Cynthia Horton Publicity Sharon Perrin Director-at-Large Pat Chesnut Director-at-Large Adele Santos Director-at-Large Nick Rohrman 8 NCHS Books 10105 Laurentian Way, Nevada City 95959 (530) 478-0231