Introduction

An artistic, sympathetic imagining of the life of a 19th-century woman who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. - Kirkus Reviews

In this eloquent novel, Stein portrays the independent, eccentric, and resilient woman known as Baby Doe, a legendary figure from Colorado's silver boom. ...Stein's blend of love story, scandal, and mystical experience is satisfying and entertaining. - Publishers Weekly BookLife

A unique portrait of a time and place populated by fearless people, this reimagination of an uncommon woman is powerful. - Foreword Reviews *****

The Silver Baron's Wife traces the rags-to-riches-to-rags life of Colorado's Baby Doe Tabor (Lizzie). This fascinating heroine worked in the silver mines and had two scandalous marriages, one to a philandering opium addict and one to a Senator and silver baron worth $24 million in the late 19th century. A divorcee shunned by Denver society, Lizzie raised two daughters in a villa where 100 peacocks roamed the lawns, entertained Sarah Bernhardt when the actress performed at Tabor's Opera House, and after her second husband's death, moved to a one-room shack at the Matchless Mine in Leadville. She lived the last 35 years of her life there, writing down thousands of her dreams and noting visitations of spirits on her calendar. Hers is the tale of a fiercely independent woman who bucked all social expectations by working where 19thcentury women didn't work, becoming the key figure in one of the West's most scandalous love triangles, and, after a devastating stock market crash destroyed Tabor's vast fortune, living in eccentric isolation at the Matchless Mine. An earlier version of this novel won the PEN/New England Discovery Award in Fiction.

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

Prologue

March 1935

Leadville, Colorado

I push open the door to the cabin. I know she’s here, my long-dead Mama, even if I can’t see her. She’s the warmth I feel at the base of my spine, the sense of her hand almost brushing my shoulder. Mama’s spirit always hangs nearby. There, by the bed with its snarl of gray blankets.

I shake snow off my heavy cloak and hang my hat on a hook by the door. I’ve been sick all week now, and the steep walk up Fryer Hill has tired me more than usual. Today I had to make my way through high, white drifts of snow. I slipped and fell, at times even had to go down on hands and knees. God bless Mr. Zaitz for driving me and my few groceries at least part way, to our usual getting-off place, the curve at the end of Seventh Street. I’m 81, usually strong, except lately I’ve felt a terrible weariness I cannot shake. When I lean against the cabin wall to pull off my work boots and the sheets of newspaper stuck inside them for warmth, I stop to catch my breath.

Afraid to really look toward my bed and its iron headpiece in the shape of an egg. I’m afraid I’ll see the spirit of my mother and afraid that I won’t.

I empty the gunnysack. There’s turpentine and lard to clear my chest, stinging nettle to help me breathe, eight new brown eggs, thin slices of salt beef, pale yellow corn meal, and Colorado wheat flour. I put the eggs in a mix of coarse salt and un-slacked limes so they’ll keep fresh and sweet.

I know this storm will last a good long while, and outside, in spots, snow has already drifted higher than my small frame. I asked Mr. Zaitz’s boy Teddy, the one whose green eyes narrow in scorn whenever we cross paths in town, to haul up, no later than tomorrow, the remainder of my supplies. The love of my life, one of the wealthiest men in this country, set that boy’s grandfather up in business nearly forty years ago. Sometimes, when I see how shamed Mr. Zaitz is by his son’s behavior, I want to speak.

Mr. Zaitz whispers, “That’s Mrs. Tabor, Teddy. Don’t be impolite.”

The boy pretends not to hear.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone remembers anymore.

I push aside a jar of green tomato ketchup, knocking over a tall canister. The opened canister releases the smell of sage. I breathe deeply then drop snow into an iron kettle, clean handfuls of the white powder I stuck in my pocket as I neared the cabin. As I bend to stir the fire, I hear, or think I hear, the sigh of the canvas curtain behind my bed.

With one hand tucked in the small of my back for support, I turn.

Two calendars from Zaitz’s swing from wood screws on the far wall— one from this year and one from last. A dome-topped trunk stands sentinel at the foot of the bed.

I force myself to stare without expectation. The gray blankets and pale sheets don’t stir. But from the corner of my eye, did I catch the rocker moving? So slightly I could not be sure but so vividly I could not doubt?

“Is that you, Mama?” My heart cries out for her to answer.

I turn back to see the water in the kettle begin to bubble. This is the way creation happens. An untouched surface, chaos disrupting, and change. Some primal substance that is different but the same as what was before.

I drop the wrinkled leaves of sage into a china cup I’ve saved, as best as one can save a memory, a fragile physical thing. A whiskery brown crack runs from its lip to base.

I take the cup in both hands and walk toward the dome-topped trunk. I kneel, set the cup on the floor, finger the brass button nails, leather straps, and lock bearing the raised image of a hawk.

If only the Zaitz boy could see what lies under this hawk’s care: the Belgian lace baby caps and English silver tea set, my love’s porcelain shaving mug, the ermine collars and cuffs of my opera coat.

To my left, I see the rocker. It does seem to move, almost invisibly but still as though it is something alive, wanting to speak to me. I know they are already here, Mama and others like her, waiting for our eyes to see and ears to hear, waiting for the mind of the world to open.

I’ve marked their visits on Zaitz’s calendars:

I saw the spirit of Lily Langtry today, gold and pink on blue snow.

or

I saw the younger of my daughters, Silver Dollar, astride a big red, gold horse. So big it was, as big as four or five normal horses.

Leaving the trunk open, I raise myself with difficulty and look to the window behind my bed. The glass ripples within the pane, and beyond, snow still falls.

“If you’re in the rocker, Mama, I wish you would show me.”

Why should she begrudge me now? When I am so tired, and it is so cold, and I have tried so hard for so long. I sit in the rocker, almost taunting it. There’s a Bible underneath its seat slats, and I pull it to my lap then open it to read:

Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he showed thee his great fire. I close my eyes and remember. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

1. Have society’s expectations of women changed (or not)? How did Lizzie tackle the expectations society placed on her?

2. Do you think Lizzie loved Horace or did she marry him for money?

3. How did Lizzie develop her own spiritual faith after being excommunicated from the Catholic Church?

4. Do you think Lizzie went crazy at the mine or was she, as some theologians have said, a true American mystic?

5. Were you surprised that Lizzie stayed with Horace after he lost his fortune?

6. How did Lizzie’s mother affect her later choices in life?

7. How did you feel reading the last pages of the book?

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