More Vaction & Another Bathroom Story
We have been home 4 days in three in a half weeks. I love to go but now I am ready to stay home for just a little bit.
TRUE! nother bathroom story...on my honor....
I was in a big public restroom this weekend and in a stall when all of a sudden the lights go off. My first thought was, "I've gone BLIND!" Then I calmed down and thought there was a power outage. Then I realized the last two women who left flipped off the light. Whether they did this out of habit or on purpose it is a freaky thing and was pitch black in there. About the time I was feeling my way to the door I yelled to see if I was the only one in there and thought I was. I flipped on the light and a lady came out of the far end and looked like a deer in the headlights. Scared the crap out of her. I just cracked up.
I finally got caught up with you all which is a feat in itself since a couple of you (like hyiidra) seem to be on a no-doze fest and have done a blog-a-thon while I was gone. I love catching up. It's like reading mini-novels.
So I have to finish telling you about the vacation but first I want to welcome Mad Mae, just love the id. Maybe I should change mine.
Ok whoever Rachel Foulks is would you please write to my 360 mailbox and tell me. If you ask me to be on messenger, which I hardly ever open, I have some of you that I have turned down because your yahoo id is different than your yahoo mail. So if your id isn't any way connected to your yahoo mail please send your name to my 360 mailbox I implore you before I am totally bald.
Here is some more of my vacation. Are you getting bored with it yet? I can't help it. I can't be brief. It's not in my nature.
Day 4
We relaxed, read, gambled a little which is MrP's favorite part. I like the reading. I read four books. I finished Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man and it was possibly the best book I ever read. The others were just mystery and detective fiction. I love the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly and if you like a fast read the Lee Child books about Jack Reacher are great! There was an article in our paper about Child I would like to tell you about later. Anyway, I read till it felt like my eyeballs were dragging the ground. Hey, no internet can sometimes be a good thing.
I did my yearly duty of flooding the camper shower. MrP likes the tanks to fill up so he can flush the system out and they always fill up while I am in the shower. I did catch it before it overflowed and ran through the camper and out the back door this time though. You would think you would feel the water up to your ankles but you are so busy being a contortionist in that small space you don't realize until it is too late.
Day5
We went to The Old Homestead
This is the last of the infamous pleasure palaces left in Cripple Creek. The building was erected in 1896, following the great fire that destroyed most of the town, under the direction of Hazel Vernon, Pearl DeVere,Neil McClusky, Laura Evans and Lola Livingston. Almost every mining town that was thrown up fast with lumber burned because of the sheer numbers of people and oil lamps.
This house of ill-repute was a $50 a visit, $200 a night house that achieved fame that has only been accorded to European brothels such as the Trois Moulins in Paris. Three dollars a day was considered a good wage for a miner.
Hats
The Homesteads girls, in their Parisian gowns and leg horn hats were the scorched toast of the town, (love the terminology) only having in common with their sisters of the cribs, their profession. They say there was one woman to every 8 men. The women of this house had to go to the doc, have regular check ups and be give a clean bill of health to live and work here. While the men who visited had to fill out a form so their standing in the community, health and wealth could be checked out before they were even allowed in the door.
These wome were fined if they didn't do something right like have their medical up to date or didn't follow the rules of town. These rules stated that the women were only allowed in town from 11 am to 2pm on Mondays. This was when respectable women were home doing their laundry. They have several fines under glass there, signed by some of the women like Lola Livingston above, that were issued. One was $46 for some minor infraction.
Each woman had her own room and a separate bath in the hall.
There was a skylight, reminiscent of the European ones which were unheard of in America at the time. The bathroom also had a glass window where the girls would disrobe in the bathroom behind the window as a potential client looked on and decide if he wanted this particular girl. I guess this gave the girl some distance and form of protection from the man and also gave them the chance to get the money before any action transpired.
They have the original oriental rugs and there is furniture made of teakwood, cherry, tigerwood and all kinds of exotic and native woods.
The Edison phonograph, had a large morning glory speaker and the piano was a Knoboe.
There is a groaning chair the woman would sit backwards on and grasp a hand hold on each side of the high back to have their corsets laced and tighted so tight they would groan. They all coveted the 18 in. waist and some went to England to have a bottom rib on each side removed to make their waist even smaller. We've come a long way baby.
The gaming parlor had the original wallpaper. It was imported from England at $300 a roll. Whoa! The ceiling is also papered. It was cut, by an artisan and panels were formed over the old wainscoting. They say the paper contained arsenic. It was put on with oatmeal paste and the arsenic kept the bugs away.
The second madame who was Pearl Devere was key to the restoration. She came from a wealthy Chicago family who thought she was a dress maker and indead they think she might have been because they found some hand stitched dresses that they restored they think she might hame made. She was very artistic and painted. One of which is hanging there in her room.
All the money she made she spent on the house or gave to people in need like the wives and children of miners who had died in mining accidents. She was thought to be an entrepreneur and ahead of her time.
There was a gentelman who came to see her from out of town. he brought Pearl a pink dress. They said he wanted to marry Pearl but one of the girls heard an arguement she had with him in her room. He left and the girls thought she had fallen asleep but she died of an overdose of morphine. They didn't know if it was on purpose or an accident, since morphine was used as a sleep aid and pain reliever and just a good old high or who the man was. I love a good mystery. It makes my imagination run wild.
Pearl didn't even have enough money to be buried but they got an anonymous letter with enough money to bury her and she was buried in the pink dress the gentleman had just given her. the whole town came out for the funeral either out of curiosity or respect. It was the biggest funeral in Cripple Creek.
Some of this verbal history came from a woman who made herself known to the historians in the fifties. This is so cool! Most of what they know about the house and pictures and belongings they found was told to them by this woman who had been a working girl there. She even donated the bedspread and some things that had actually been in her room. But it was all told on the condition that they would never tell her name. What a juicy tidbit.
The housekeeper took over after Pearl died and ran the house for awhile but never became a madame.
The people who bought the house in the fifties lived there for a time and found all the original furnishings piled up in the basement. They later donated it to the city. I can't believe that so much was saved and never thrown out or sold.
There are different stories about Pearl and the house but I got this from the tour there at the house.
More History
TRUE! nother bathroom story...on my honor....
I was in a big public restroom this weekend and in a stall when all of a sudden the lights go off. My first thought was, "I've gone BLIND!" Then I calmed down and thought there was a power outage. Then I realized the last two women who left flipped off the light. Whether they did this out of habit or on purpose it is a freaky thing and was pitch black in there. About the time I was feeling my way to the door I yelled to see if I was the only one in there and thought I was. I flipped on the light and a lady came out of the far end and looked like a deer in the headlights. Scared the crap out of her. I just cracked up.
I finally got caught up with you all which is a feat in itself since a couple of you (like hyiidra) seem to be on a no-doze fest and have done a blog-a-thon while I was gone. I love catching up. It's like reading mini-novels.
So I have to finish telling you about the vacation but first I want to welcome Mad Mae, just love the id. Maybe I should change mine.
Ok whoever Rachel Foulks is would you please write to my 360 mailbox and tell me. If you ask me to be on messenger, which I hardly ever open, I have some of you that I have turned down because your yahoo id is different than your yahoo mail. So if your id isn't any way connected to your yahoo mail please send your name to my 360 mailbox I implore you before I am totally bald.
Here is some more of my vacation. Are you getting bored with it yet? I can't help it. I can't be brief. It's not in my nature.
Day 4
We relaxed, read, gambled a little which is MrP's favorite part. I like the reading. I read four books. I finished Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man and it was possibly the best book I ever read. The others were just mystery and detective fiction. I love the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly and if you like a fast read the Lee Child books about Jack Reacher are great! There was an article in our paper about Child I would like to tell you about later. Anyway, I read till it felt like my eyeballs were dragging the ground. Hey, no internet can sometimes be a good thing.
I did my yearly duty of flooding the camper shower. MrP likes the tanks to fill up so he can flush the system out and they always fill up while I am in the shower. I did catch it before it overflowed and ran through the camper and out the back door this time though. You would think you would feel the water up to your ankles but you are so busy being a contortionist in that small space you don't realize until it is too late.
Day5
We went to The Old Homestead
This is the last of the infamous pleasure palaces left in Cripple Creek. The building was erected in 1896, following the great fire that destroyed most of the town, under the direction of Hazel Vernon, Pearl DeVere,Neil McClusky, Laura Evans and Lola Livingston. Almost every mining town that was thrown up fast with lumber burned because of the sheer numbers of people and oil lamps.This house of ill-repute was a $50 a visit, $200 a night house that achieved fame that has only been accorded to European brothels such as the Trois Moulins in Paris. Three dollars a day was considered a good wage for a miner.
HatsThe Homesteads girls, in their Parisian gowns and leg horn hats were the scorched toast of the town, (love the terminology) only having in common with their sisters of the cribs, their profession. They say there was one woman to every 8 men. The women of this house had to go to the doc, have regular check ups and be give a clean bill of health to live and work here. While the men who visited had to fill out a form so their standing in the community, health and wealth could be checked out before they were even allowed in the door.
These wome were fined if they didn't do something right like have their medical up to date or didn't follow the rules of town. These rules stated that the women were only allowed in town from 11 am to 2pm on Mondays. This was when respectable women were home doing their laundry. They have several fines under glass there, signed by some of the women like Lola Livingston above, that were issued. One was $46 for some minor infraction.
Each woman had her own room and a separate bath in the hall.
There was a skylight, reminiscent of the European ones which were unheard of in America at the time. The bathroom also had a glass window where the girls would disrobe in the bathroom behind the window as a potential client looked on and decide if he wanted this particular girl. I guess this gave the girl some distance and form of protection from the man and also gave them the chance to get the money before any action transpired.
There were three parlors. The front parlor had a window on the street, a middle parlor was a music room with a piano and phonograph, and the back parlor was for gaming and imbibing.
<--original wallpaper
<--original wallpaperThey have the original oriental rugs and there is furniture made of teakwood, cherry, tigerwood and all kinds of exotic and native woods.
The Edison phonograph, had a large morning glory speaker and the piano was a Knoboe.
There is a groaning chair the woman would sit backwards on and grasp a hand hold on each side of the high back to have their corsets laced and tighted so tight they would groan. They all coveted the 18 in. waist and some went to England to have a bottom rib on each side removed to make their waist even smaller. We've come a long way baby.
The gaming parlor had the original wallpaper. It was imported from England at $300 a roll. Whoa! The ceiling is also papered. It was cut, by an artisan and panels were formed over the old wainscoting. They say the paper contained arsenic. It was put on with oatmeal paste and the arsenic kept the bugs away.
The second madame who was Pearl Devere was key to the restoration. She came from a wealthy Chicago family who thought she was a dress maker and indead they think she might have been because they found some hand stitched dresses that they restored they think she might hame made. She was very artistic and painted. One of which is hanging there in her room.
All the money she made she spent on the house or gave to people in need like the wives and children of miners who had died in mining accidents. She was thought to be an entrepreneur and ahead of her time.
There was a gentelman who came to see her from out of town. he brought Pearl a pink dress. They said he wanted to marry Pearl but one of the girls heard an arguement she had with him in her room. He left and the girls thought she had fallen asleep but she died of an overdose of morphine. They didn't know if it was on purpose or an accident, since morphine was used as a sleep aid and pain reliever and just a good old high or who the man was. I love a good mystery. It makes my imagination run wild.
Pearl didn't even have enough money to be buried but they got an anonymous letter with enough money to bury her and she was buried in the pink dress the gentleman had just given her. the whole town came out for the funeral either out of curiosity or respect. It was the biggest funeral in Cripple Creek.
Some of this verbal history came from a woman who made herself known to the historians in the fifties. This is so cool! Most of what they know about the house and pictures and belongings they found was told to them by this woman who had been a working girl there. She even donated the bedspread and some things that had actually been in her room. But it was all told on the condition that they would never tell her name. What a juicy tidbit.
The housekeeper took over after Pearl died and ran the house for awhile but never became a madame.
The people who bought the house in the fifties lived there for a time and found all the original furnishings piled up in the basement. They later donated it to the city. I can't believe that so much was saved and never thrown out or sold.
There are different stories about Pearl and the house but I got this from the tour there at the house.
More History
