Madame Mustache: The Wild West’s Most Badass Gambler

0:01 Welcome to Randy Dave rabbit Holes, where we take the history of the West off the rails. If you like your history unhinged, you are in the right place. I'm Shae and I'm Jody. Let's fall down the rabbit hole, all right, Shae, I am so excited that we opened up our Sorry, I can't I'm so glad. We can't stop laughing at you right now. We opened up our research to the whole West. Because today I've got a story for you. There is so much that's up our alley, gambling outlaws, a woman way ahead of her time, and of course some truly terrible men. Are we going to bring up the elephant in the room that's on your face? Yes, I came prepared. I'm in costume today. I have a mustache stuck up her nose. Well, it's from that pizza box.

0:56 I don't know if you're you know, a frozen pizza red baron. So yeah, I know. I can't remember the brand of it. I probably should, but it comes with this and you could wear it, and it was ideal because today, as you'll hear, this mustache, it's not just for men. There's mustaches for ladies. Our character in this story strong enough for a man but desired for a woman. Yeah, that's right. Actually, she, as you'll hear, was not a fan of this and probably would not appreciate me coming in costume. But here we are. We are talking today about Eleanor Dumont, Dumont. Dumont. Was that French? It is?

1:39 It is so French. I thought, so Dumont is what I read at first, And I have family in Montana the last name Dumont, Dumont, so I was like, Oh, I wonder could they be related. No, not at all, and it's Dumont. I bet my family is Native American that has the name Dumont. But I'm guessing that's not original. I thought you said that they're not. Actually they're not actually any Native American. No, these are by marriage. They're very oh okay, it doesn't take very long up their lineage to be one hundred percent. They're very okay. But they by marriage. My aunt is not. But I'm sure they acquired this name somewhere. Back to the story. Eleanor Dumont or better known as Madam Mustache. Yes, she actually that was actually her nickname, Madame Mustache. And no, she did not ask for it or did she appreciate it.

2:37 She was, however, a high class gambler, businesswoman, and absolute boss at the card table. She made money, ran high end gambling parlors where miners basically handed over their gold, and did all of this alone, traveling from town to town across the lawless West as a single woman. Almost her entire life was this the eighteen hundreds. Absolutely is we are with the outlaws. She actually, this isn't in my story, so I'll go ahead and just throw it out there. She taught Calamity Jane how to shoot or not from the beginning, but gave her some lessons so to sharpen her aim. Now she was in that era with those people. Unfortunately, she got the nickname Madam Mustache.

3:22 Where Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, all those people got great names, She got a mustache. I just listened to an episode of my favorite PNW podcast, Wiji Brad's, about Calamity Jane. And apparently, back in that day, a calamity can also be a reference to venereal infections. Oh no, And so there was a lot of debate about where she got her name, and that might have been one of them. Because she was well known that if you bought her a drink or two, she might be happy to go to bed with you. Interesting, I can see why they hung out out. Yeah, there's moments in time where they're probably very much in the same space. Yeah, but if you ask Colambity Jane, she would probably tell the story that she taught Yeah, this Madam Mustache how to shoot, because that's what Columby j liked to do. She was a big fish story lady. Okay, back to my tail.

4:19 So she had the nickname she had been amongst these humans, Wyat or Calamity Jane, Billy the kid that era, that's her era. So love it because this is history and no badass woman is allowed to just win. Nope, things take a turn. Well let's just say in the end it isn't as glamorous as the beginning. But get ready, because this one's got money, crime, whiskey, and murder. Yep, murder. I love it. We are going unhinged, basically all the things that make history fun. So let's start at the beginning. To start, we don't know a lot about Madam Mustache, but we do know she was born as Simone Jewels in eighteen twenty nine, but we don't know where already a great name, yes, Simone Jewels, Yes, well, she leaves that name behind, unfortunately, and becomes eleanor Dumont. But she reports that she was born in Paris, but people are like or New Orleans, so she it's up for discussion whether she was born in Paris or New Orleans. She leaves her home in Louisiana at the age of eighteen, so we at least know that there is history in New Orleans. We're just not sure if she's actually born there. Wait, I thought it was pronounced narlens nhalns naalns. Well. I wonder if she would have she liked to talk about her French background, would she have used no la something?

5:46 She said that a lot. I bet she said that a lot. She's born in eighteen twenty nine and leaves Louisiana at the age of eighteen years old, all by herself, a single girl at this point, and heads out to Sam Francisco. She eighteen eighty nine, No, eighteen twenty nine when she's born, so eighteen forty nine or I'm sorry forty seven? She oh, wow, okay, so early leaves Louisiana. She makes her way straight to San Francisco, where the gold rush is happening, and she gets off that train and she walks straight to the local saloon where there they have card games, card tables, and she becomes a dealer. Not just does she get really good at gambling, she becomes a female, a woman dealer in the local saloon in San Francisco. Say what, she became quite well known.

6:33 They allowed women to do that? No, no, nope, but she for somehow she finangled her way to the table and was very good at it. I don't know if there was a hole in the day, like nobody showed up. I didn't wear a low cut dress. Well she did, yeah something. She got the job, did very well at it, became very successful, but became very well known and became a target. So the saloon let her go. And when they let her go, they said, you you should probably also leave town, just so you know, because you're in danger. Was it because people were bristling at the idea of a woman doing this job or do they feel was it people who lost the game and lost money and were From what I can tell, it's mostly the people that lost the game and they wanted to blame her because she's a woman. Okay, so they didn't just lose fairly.

7:18 There was a woman dealing the cart, sure, and women are underhanded and dishonest. Of course, I don't think the reputable folks of the town were complaining about her being a female dealer as far as I could tell. Yeah, well it's the it's the cowards that always need somebody to blame, right, And you know, when you lose a lot of money gambling and you can get addicted and then you've got nothing in your destitute, you're going to look at her like she stole your money. So they let her go, said you should probably leave town. We think you're in danger. So she boarded a train with all the money she had saved. She by this time it accumulated quite a bit of money, took all of her belongings and went to Nevada City, California, where gold mining was thriving, and instead of panning for gold, she figured out the real money was taking the miner's gold, and so mining the miners, mining the miners at the card table. So gambling halls were nasty, dark, full of sweaty, drunk people, lyce ridden men, is what I read. Oh, yes, they weren't just stinky, they had lice. They wanted to have sex with women there too, right. I think that's probably why they're like, Hey, a bath is five cents, Why don't you do a nice bath before I take you up to the crib. Right, It's so relaxing. It's for you, not me. Right, yeah, well also for me.

8:35 So these these card tables were also Wait, hold on, it's still like the West is very much loves to trick you with place names. Nevada City, right, I know they're in California. I know, I keep going. Now, when did she get to Nevada City? I wonder if that was along the lines of the people that got to a place and thought they weren't a different place and so named it. Oh, I wonder much like Christopher Columbus, Yeah, or like Joseph Smith or whoever. I don't know if it was Joseph Smith who led the Mormons to Utah thinking it was California. Oh, I don't know it was Jeffah Smith or if it was Brigham Young or one of the other Mormon people, but uh, yeah, led led his flock to Salt Lake City and it was like, welcome to California. This is where Heavenly Father has sent us. Oh, I didn't realize. I didn't know they were headed to California.

9:27 I thought they just went this looks nice. You know where I learned that fact? I was from a movie I watched this week called The Heretic with Hugh Grant. Oh, yeah, I was gonna watch that. Was it worth it? Uh? It was a little confusing at parts, very kind of cerebral scary movie, like there's not there's not jump scares, and that's kind of my more my game. Yeah, it's very Uh, it's it's interesting. I think you'll like it. Yeah, I will not recommend substance with me. No, everybody's been talking about how good that is. Is it? Oh? I thought it was awful. You know what, it's a terrible movie that I watched last night. Huh, Alien Versus Predator. Requim why you're saying what I fell asleep for? I did this too, But then I had to see the end and it was just to me, first of all, it was it didn't make sense, like this is a this is way off topic. This is a woman who gets to change bodies, back and forth between a young one and an old one. But she has to do it every week. But you're the same person. You just get two bodies. You just spoiler alert, Yeah I haven't seen it. Well, we could cut this too. But the thing is is like when she's the young one, she does all these things that make it hard for the old one. I hate saying old one. She's like forty five my age old one to me more, she's only slightly older than me anyway. Uh, and then she does things that pisses off the other one. I'm like, no, no, no, you're the same person in two bodies. Don't act like you don't know what's happening here. Okay, that would be.

10:55 And then so like she comes back into this body and she looks around, she's like, you've left this mess, You've done these things. I'm mad. I'm like, no, you're literally the same person. You did this, And then I could never get past that. Okay. So and then it's filmed a little differently. There's probably a style to it. It's I don't appreciate it. I'm I find out Corney probably is a very artistic thing. Well, now you've set me up to go in expecting to be disappointed. So maybe maybe I like it. I may have improved the movie for you. There you go, heretics good. There's some things in it that don't make sense that really left me scratching in my head. And then the ending is very much left to interpretation. Oh okay, of those things I might have done, so that one, that bit kind of leaves you like, there's like, wait, how did that and how and what architect built this house? But Hugh Grant's character fantastic, he's so good. I like you good.

11:46 You don't have to keep the mustache out. I was in the park and I'm just kidding it. It's really starting to annoy me. Is it starting to get soggy being up your nose? No? Not yet. I was surprised have a very runny nose. Okay, now where were we? Okay? So she went off to Nevada City. Oh okay, this is where I really start to enjoy her as a human. So we talked about how these are terrible places. They're dark, they're smelly, they're full of drunk, lice ridden men. Right, But for Lar, she had a different vision for her gambling establishment. She was like, absolutely not she opened her own parlor called then it Un, which is blackjack in French means twenty one. Okay, then it un anyway, then so twenty one and we'll go. But that was the name of her establishment. Very high class, right, and then she served champagne instead of whiskey. Oh fancy, and the toe in it. Yeah. I mean that's kind of lame for the time, but could have improved this drink with the toe if those are wondering. If people are wondering, why look back at our other episodes. Sorry, another sidebar, So somebody did I tell you? Somebody commented on one of the posts for last week's episode about the Sourtoe cocktail and said that she is a member. So I was like, oh my god, you have to email me, tell me everything. So well, we'll see. Oh my god, I want to hear many tails someone. Actually we may get to hear from an actual member of the Towertcker.

13:18 I don't think you're supposed to suck on the toe. You're just supposed to let it touch your lips. Okay, okay, the toe kisser, I know it's I'm very proud of you for being braver than Jody Era. Keith said he would do it. He agreed to. We're going to do it next next summer drive through trip. Ye okay, sorry, Okay. So not only did she serve champagne instead of whiskey, she hired respectable women to work there, women with more than one dress, women with very nice dresses, more than one and they had to be nice. And they were not sex workers. They were to work. They were car dealers, They served the drinks. They were high class, they were not for sale. And they were the only women allowed in there because she didn't want distractions. Okay, So she didn't let women gamblers in there because she didn't want them taking away from what she was trying to do, Okay, And when you're dealing with these type of men, she didn't need the distraction. So the women, though, were there to entice the men to spend more money. Basically kind of, they weren't there like with their tatas out. They weren't showing cleavage. They were high class women. They were there, they were reputable, they were But those men probably always had that thought the block of their mind that like maybe maybe if I continue to say, maybe I show off how much money did but can chill given. Yeah, she ran a really tight ship. You weren't to mess with these women. They worked there and they were to be respected. So she didn't allow any sex work, not at this time. Okay, we'll hear about her venture into

14:49 that later, but at this time she was keeping those businesses separate. She wanted to make sure to make money at the gambling tables by gambling and having a a well run gambling establishment. You'll hear in the end to the everyone you know, outside of probably some people that lost a lot of money and the people in San Francisco, they really respected her. She paid out when you won big. She paid out what she had to pay. She didn't try to scam you, which I guess other establishments were doing, trying to get away with not giving you your winnings but taking your losings. Interesting, Okay, she was well known for being on the right side of that. So you're saying that this is a woman who probably could have made a casino in Atlantic City work and not go bankrupt. Correct, She would have been able to manage that business. She's a dumb woman, Yes, dumb woman. She would have been a dei hire but also successful. Right, She wouldn't have run a casino into the ground. I mean, I guess that's what di Ei is, but you know, letting those who can do do. Back to sorry Anti DEEI, where we hire people because we like their white faces and they're loyal. Okay, back to the story. So she did not, like I was saying. She did not put up with nonsense, No rowdy men. You were kicked out cheaters. You were publicly humiliated. If she caught you as a cheater, she'd tell the town. You'd be publicly humiliated. She was running a business, not a drunken brawl, and for a while, it worked and she made a lot of money. So

16:19 this is where we now get to learn about her nickname, Madame Musta. Yes please, but first, since we are not gambler's shay, we need to take a break. Now the must I will spend us twenty dollars on video blackjack at the casino bar. It's time to hear from our sponsors and we will be right back. Which you never know, it might be an online casino. It could be. It could be, but we're not the gamblers. No, okay, welcome back. Hopefully the ads did not try to entice you into losing all of your money gambling, but if you do, twenty one is the way to go. When Eleanor was younger, she was known for being an elegant, beautiful woman, but as she got older, she developed a bit of a mustache.

17:10 So you see these pictures over time, and they're not really pictures. They're drawing, drawing sketches of her. Obviously, there's a couple looks like photographs. But it's funny. If you go online and look up Eleanor Dumont, you will find the same photo of her with and without a mustache. So I'm like, wait, which one's edited, the one with a big furry mustache or the one with no mustache. It's obviously the same picture. At that time, like beauty regiments for dealing with a hairy upper lip had been going on for centuries, there were bleaches and shaved. I have wondered this because it did bother her, and by the things that I've seen, it was pretty extensive mustache. It wasn't just a little bit of a my peach fast right exactly, the turn dark over age right right, significant mustache, And so I don't know why. And you know, there were shaving happening. These men were shaving, like yeah, it's not like she couldn't have access to a straight razor, right exactly, So bleached like right for not liking it in this name, she Uh, I'm surprised she didn't do anything interesting. I mean, women had been bleaching their body hair for hundreds of years, right, Yeah. I was wondering, where's the maintenance here? I mean it was she was doing her hair, she was dressing very nicely, interesting she was.

18:27 So I'm wondering if maybe she didn't really mind it that much, and she like somebody like, maybe she took it as a badge of something. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's reported she didn't like it, but she did nothing about it. But she got older, of course she developed bit of a mustache, and because men of the eighteen hundreds were just as masture as they are now, they started calling her Madam Mustache. It was actually a game where she was dealing and somebody lost money and he got mad at her, and he's like cursing at her and then called her Madam Mustache, and of course the whole place heard it, and they're like, oh, and there they went, and she became mad and mustache from that time rude. Did she love it? Absolutely not. Some sources say she laughed it off, others say it really got under her skin. But either way, history is annoying because this woman literally built an empire, and yet somehow the mustache is what people remember her for. And she did this all alone. That's why I just keep thinking the whole time. At this time, you're in the wild West.

19:28 It's eighteen hundreds, and you are a woman amongst all these dirty, dangerous men, right and becoming successful and keeping yourself for the most part safe, not completely, but for the most part. It's a woman can't have anything on her own or any successes of her own right, otherwise it's threatening. And so we have, you know, there's this tendency to try to find a way to somehow put her down, to put her back in her place, right, because yeah, idea of a woman having some sort of power that is normally held by a man is threatening. And that wasn't just the eighteen hundreds. It continues. So, like I was saying, she's built this entire empire, she owns an establishment normally owned by men. She's running it in a way that's not attracting all the CD she's keeping it clean, and yet people remember her from her mustache.

20:28 But Eleanor never stayed in one place too long. She set up gambling parlors across California, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada. Wherever gold was flowing is where she went. Oh, so she followed the gold mining rushes that happened throughout the eighteen hundred yep. As the towns dried up, so did her establishments. And so she just followed the gold and kept following it. Wow, And I imagine there was a lot of people that also did that, So she was well known by the time she got there. So by the time she would find a place to set up shop, everybody was ready to go because maybe a lot of these miners had come from the last mining town and they're like, oh, yeah, Eleanor over there. She runs a tight ship in a great place, and there's always lovely looking ladies there. As soon as she was in town, she was set up ready to go because she had that reputation. But here's the thing. Being a single woman in the Old West, it's not easy being rich single woman extremely dangerous. She was robbed multiple times, harassed, constantly and had to be tough as hell to survive. Yeah, because I'm wondering, like back then, especially if you're in industry like gambling, where you have large amounts of cash, you probably can't park them all in a bank. And then if you're moving from town to town to town, it's not like there's electronic right records, so you can go to San Francisco to get your money, but you have to have large amounts of cash on hand at all time because you have to be able to pay out those beds. So it's either you have money in banks across the west, or you just have a big safe,

22:01 or you have it in your bra you have it in your shoes, you have it in your waist, you have it. Right. But I mean, she's she's going to be dealing with thousands and thousands of dollars that they've brought in and yeah, so yeah, but that part just shocks me. I mean, it's just so dangerous for her to have been doing that without money. Well, yeah, and think about like every time she moves town mm hmm, she's traveling with all of that money and people know left's oversight. Yeah, there's less people around to keep her safe. They all know when you know the town's closing up and where they're all headed and right, it's just crazy to me. So she did. She did have some run ins, but she was She was able to survive it, and she just kept moving, setting up new businesses, raking in cash, just staying ahead of the chaos. She was smarter than most of them, from what I can tell. She was ahead of the business, ahead of the crime. But because no good story is complete without one catastrophic mistake, she got married. Oh that'll do it every time, yep. And so she met a man in one of her establishments.

23:07 He was a bartender. His name was Jack McKnight. Those bartenders look at you every time. He was the literal worst. He convinced her. So she had taken the time. She's getting on in her age, right, doesn't want to be traveling all over it's been dangerous. Time to settle down. How do I do that and stay making money? Especially if this town's gonna dry up just like all the others. So she bought a ranch. She wanted to get into cattle ranching, something where she could stay in one place and still make money. So she wanted to settle down basically, not necessarily with the man. She did this on her own. She wanted to do it on her own, but right, but just settle down and not be Yeah yeah, doing the traveling. Turns out she's really good at a lot of things. Ranching is not one. She struggled hard. It wasn't working. Oh my god, the dog just farted. Oh does it smell like a cattle ranch? That's that's the effects.

24:02 Those are special effects. You put special effects up of poop smell in the air, just to bring the story on to life. Yeah, are you? Are you feeling more in it? I am? Oh god? Why didn't you feed him? He was bugging me when I was trying to write this morning, and so I gave him his like the treat ball full of peanut butter. Oh yeah, oh my eyes are literally it's wrong gas. It's not made its way across. You can keep it. You were so cute but so stinky. How does that come from such a tiny thing? Tiny cute things, silent but deadly, and he's like asleep. Okay. As a rancher, she was not quite as successful. She was really struggling. So this bartender convinces her he's a very successful rancher in his past life.

24:56 And he's out here bartending, I guess, and for fun. I don't know, but he has some tofals I needed a human attraction. He's convinced her that he can really get her where she wants to be with her cattle ranch. So all you have to do is give me access to all your money, absolutely by marrying me, because that's what I do at that point. And yep, now the ranch is his, that's all signed over to him. Yep, all the money is his. He promptly within months, sells the ranch, takes every single penny she has, and leaves town. She had absolutely nothing after all those years of what she did as a single woman, avoiding marriage and all its pitfalls for this reason. And Mary's one wrong guy and he took everything. But Eleanor, being Eleanor, she did not just let that slide. She went and took care of business. She tracked him down and shoot him. She sure did, yeah too, shots to the chest. Okay, okay, I'm getting ahead of myself. I got to keep my pants on, but please tell me the story. She tracked him down and personally shot him. That was the next sentence of my story. So you got it twice in the chest. Sorry, I don't mean to sound so gleeful over somebody murdering somebody else, but well, you sound like maybe the sheriff of that town, because he was, like, I think he deserved it. She was never arrested. The sheriff said, no witnesses, no evidence, and no one admitting

26:29 to it, so no arrest all right. Also he deserved it. So she went back to Nevada City without a husband and without a single dime. She was not able to recoup the money that he took. I don't know what happened to it. She shoots him and that's the end, and she is destitute and broke. So despite her revenge and retribution, she is not She's covered her loss. Yeah, and so he's dead and so are her finances. So what come becomes of her? Well, we're gonna find out after the break. Oh man, Yeah, me all worked it. I know. I feel like a really good television show where they leave you on a cliffhangers. So we'll see you when you get back. Welcome back. I hope the ads we left you with were as adventurous as this episode. Yes, if you're in the Pacific Northwest. I'm thinking about what they've been playing. So it's a lot of commercials for b e c U. Nice, I love the ecy. They'll be like three commercials for b ECU and randomly one week, even though I'm in Washington, I was getting all these advertisements for utility companies in Alaska. Oh, it's the Northwest. Sure, if I ever moved to Alaska, I will know what you know. Tape options, cable service provider to go with.

27:56 Got it? Yeah, Well, if you're Wonderingor was never able to really get back, get her feetback under her, with everything that she'd worked so hard for gone, she returned to what she knew and was successful in. She set up a brothel. This time, so Eleanor picks up her stuff and heads this time to Bannock, Montana. And this time she took up a little bit of a different establishment. This time she went for the sex work okay, and she set up a brothel where the women were dressed in high end clothing. They were dressed to the nines, their hair perfect, their makeup perfect, they were bathed. These were high class, more than one dress, in more than one dress, and she expected again like her other establishments, that the men that entertained themselves there would behave a certain way. She had really high standards for this. She did take her the ladies, I guess when business was slow, put them in her little with a on her on a wagon a carriage, and drove them through town, showing off her and how beautiful they were and drying a tract attention so to get customers a little billboard. So I just picked up this book. I think it's called Like Doves of the West, and it's about prostitution in the West. And they were saying, yeah, that was there was like very There were several different levels of houses that sex workers worked out, right, So you had your really upperclass ones like this, where the women were well based, they were well mannered, they were educated, and men went

29:30 there and had companionship and titillating conversation. They were intelligent women, yes, And then they got that at the end. And so this is where the upperclassmen would go. And then you had your next one down that was not quite as fancy, but still maybe those women had more, like I keep saying more than one dress, because that was one of the things is that a lot of sex workers literally had one dress, right that they would just continue to mend over and over and over again and wash, and then you went further down and further down. But that is one thing that they did mention in this book is that some of these establishments would put their most attractive ladies in a wagon and take them around town. But they would also hold grand balls at their establishment to show off the women and show off what a well run place, wonderful crisis was for entertainment. Right. It wasn't your it wasn't going to ruin your communities, it wasn't going to bring the CD. It was a high class version. Yet. And I guess another thing some of these houses would do is they would take some of their the women who worked there, and they would go out to They would follow some of these mining communities occasionally and just set up shop for like a couple of weeks, make a bunch of money, and then go back to their their house. Oh yeah, in their main town, which I kind of like Nevada. Now, yeah, I was following someone on social media a couple ladies and that's I mean, they're stay at home moms except for like one week a month. Yeah, And they go work in the bunny house and they come back and that supports

31:01 their entire family. Yeah, and then they can be amazing mothers and support their kids, to be there for their kids all the time. There's a lot of testing and safety and all these things. Yeah, right, I have no issue with it whatsoever. I don't either. I don't know that I could do it, but I know that I support it. I see the value in it, especially for these moms they are They get to spend so much quality time with their kids. Okay, so you were at where she puts them in a wagon and prayed them around. I wonder if she started that because it was a big deal for her. I didn't know other people had done it in the next year because I have two books on prostitution in the West, and so I think the next year is going to be a lot of stories of prostitution in the West for me, because it's fascinating.

31:41 It is fascinating. All this survival stuff of the West is fascinating to me. So many ways to have survived and not survived. So she loaded them up, she drove them around like a live billboard advertising the goods. And this worked. It did tick off. The women in the town now, the non sex, the wives, the mothers. They did not enjoy this running through their town with thous like Women's Temperance League sort of people. Yeah, but by the late eighteen seventies, Eleanor's luck had run out. The gambling scene had changed and she was getting older. People weren't as eager to throw their money at her. So in eighteen seventy nine she ended up in Bodie, California, one of the roughest mining towns of the time. She tried to start up her usually usual gambling operation, but it didn't work out, and she was broke alone and out of options. She had been desperate for money since she had lost it all to mister McKnight. In fact, she had never been able to recoup or get her feet under her Even with her other ventures in Bannock, Montana.

32:46 It was enough to stay alive, but she was never filling her coffers like oh I had been before. Everything had changed kind of we're getting past that era of life, and so the way she was making money wasn't as profit Well. What year was this that she ended up back in California. By the end, it's eighteen seventy nine. Okay, okay, Wow, that's all happened fast. Well, eighteen seventy Yeah, she went from like she went from eighteen to fifty here, So she leaves town at eighteen years old, and so she's born in eighteen twenty nine, so she spends from eighteen to forty eight all of these forty seven that she went. Yes, and so she's spent all of her up to fifty years old doing this. Okay, but now it's all changed a bit and she's not able to really fill her bank account anymore. So now that she's in Bodie, she's borrowed four hundred dollars from a well known gambler and went out gambling one night. This is equivalent I think to ten or twelve thousand dollars today. Okay, So he loaned her this money. She's a well established winning gambler, so the odds were good that he would get his money back, but unfortunately she did not. She lost every bit of that in one evening and now she was destitute.

33:56 She had nothing, in fact, owed four hundred dollars. Now she walked to the local emporium, she purchased morphine. She acquired her favorite bottle of red wine, and she went out a mile from town, sat under a tree, took the morphine and drank the bottle of wine. A goat herd her found her the next day, her head laying on a rock, her body laying there quietly, and a note, and the note had admitted what she had done. She'd purchased the morphine, drank the wine and said she was just really tired of life. That's how I'd want to go anyway, right now, That's what I was thinking, like, go to sleep. I'm so tired all the time. That's yes, right, And you know, narcotics such as morphine make you happy on your way down, happy and happy, be happy to sleep, yep yep. So the next day people found out that she had actually passed away and how, and they gave her a proper burial. Turns out, even in death she was highly respected. Some of the quotes from the locals, poor madam mustache. Her life was as square as a game ever dealt. The world played again her with all sorts of combinations, but she generally beat it. The turn was called on her at last, for a few paltry hundreds, she missed the turn. None of the old boys were there to cover her bet for her, and she passed in her checks game to the last. Poor Madam Mustache, and she had the reputation of being honest in her dealings and even always paying her debts. Upon this, she prided herself and woe anyone to claim she did not

35:28 play fair. It is said that of the hundreds of funerals held in the mining camp, that of Madam Mustache was the largest. The gamblers of the place buried her with all honors, and carriages were brought in from Carson City, Nevada, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles to attend her funeral. It's a long way to go by horse, yes it is. And for that, like you're going there to honor her, you're not going to come home with money. You're not going to come home with money. It cost you money to go, Yeah, a lot and time. Yeah, one hundred and twenty miles. In that era, it's not an air fine fight in the one back. That's a couple of days ride. Yeah, So that's it. Eleanor Dumont an absolute legend of the West. She was too smart, too independent, and too ahead of her time for the world she lived in. So what are your thoughts, Shay, Oh amazing. I know I loved it. I love hearing these stories about women that made a life for themselves and made a business like this in a man's world, right, and just the perseverance and the strength and the quality of character. And it just sucks that she unfortuately was a band that took her down, right. Yeah, Like she was so careful all the way up to that was the tipping point. He must have been quite convincing, this is I was thinking he must have done a really, he must have been charming and convincing for her to have fallen for that. She had been amongst men, yeah, this whole time she'd beaten them in card games and business.

36:56 He worked for her, right, So yeah, maybe there was a level of trust she had in him, an intimacy of you know, yeah, of friendship that he was able to take advantage of. Right. He convinced her that they were, you know, in love, and that was not the case. No, she one got by, a sneaky one got by. She managed to keep them at bay. And well, I mean, so problem is, as you get older, you started gett even more insecurities, right, and i'd imagine, you know, as you're getting closer to fifty. She wasn't quite fifty at that time. She died at fifty forty nine to fifty. She could see that, you know, as we all do. And just like the movie I was talking about, you're just let women become less valuable as we age. Yeah, unfortunately in society, our value goes down as we age. Yep, it's true. And she had seen that and was trying to get ahead of that, like she did everything else, and come up with another way to make money and keep herself you know funded. Yeah, and turns out she wasn't good at that one task, so she tried another way to do it, and it was the wrong choice.

38:02 That's a shame. That was a great story. I absolutely love it. This is why when I was reading it, I was like, oh, yes, this is why we do this podcast. I love these stories. Yes, this is like the excitement for a story that I feel like we've been maybe searching for for the last couple of months. Yeah. When we're trying to deal with you know, sometimes we have to block out the external world, right, yes, right now, I think since November we've both been a little bit down in a ditch of despair. It's hard to talk about history without talking about politics. Yeah, and politics are rough right now. Yes, so there no matter what in that story, there's politics somewhere right, there's societal roles, there's all of these things just still trouble us today. Yeah, And it's hard to talk about them and not refer to well, especially when you think about, you know, the suffrage movement that has worked for decades to try to advance women's station in life, to try to be more of an even playing field. And it's been decades of hard work and blood and sweat and tears, and things have happened in the last couple of years that have pushed it back, oh decade significantly, and that's really disheartening.

39:23 It's disheartening, and it feels to me, I know I've talked to you about this, that I feel like I need to take action somewhere. I owe it to those women. I was born in a time, born in a time where it was not legal for a woman to have her own bank account, that a man had to be on that as a signer. That's in my lifetime and the only reason I can have a bank account on my own. I don't, but I can is because of them, And I feel like sitting here doing nothing is such a slap in their face. They were out in those streets, they were out with those signs. They were getting ridiculed by people in their societies, ostracized, they were getting arrested and having to pay bail and any legal things that come from it. And I'm sitting here basking in the sun of the rewards of that and doing nothing to protect it. Right, shame. Well, we can highlight stories of women who rose above their quote unquote station in life to do things that normally men would do. Yep, that's right, and remember them. Yep, that's right. It is one thing we can do, at least with this podcast. And she did it with good in mind. She wasn't in there going I'm going to get rich in the gambling scene by scamming people, getting people so drunk, I'm steal their money, offering people who are winning too much. Here, I'm going to do this on the up and up, and I'm going to do a good job and I'm going to make money. And she did. Yeah, amazing story. Thank you

40:55 for sticking a mustache up your nose for it too. I really appreciate that. Yes, I couldn't wait. Actually it was in my pocket. I turned to do something and looked up and she has this mustache on her face. I'd lost my scrap. Well, thank you so much everyone for hanging in there with us. Really appreciate you guys, all the people that are still continuing to listen to us and are listening to our episodes every week when they come back, when they come out. We really really appreciate that. It really means so much to us. Really appreciate all the people that reach out to us. Like this week, a listener named Laura reached out and said that she has just signed her mom and herself up from my April nineteenth Stadium High School tour, and then she followed us on the social media's and we've been messaging back and forth. And I want to also thank the Live Laugh Larceny podcast Oh Yes Yes, which a couple weeks ago featured my listener's story on their podcast about it's a must listen. It's a must listen. It is a little bit of me bringing my shame to life, my gut issues to life. Shamed dies and light. It lives in the dark, so put it out there. Hey, everybody poops, everybody has had stomach issues at some point.

42:14 So if you're wondering, so go listen to Live Laugh Larceny. It's it was the episode. I think it was entitled. Now that's what I call Listeners Stories. Now, that's what I call listeners Stories album three or something like remember that. That's now that's what I call pop music three. You know, the right. That's how they set it up. Very funny. They are so good. They took that story with limited information that I gave them and they made it perfect. The chef's kiss. The only thing they got wrong is chicken fried steak is not chicken, But that's okay. I still like the way they did it, where you're like mother and child come together on the plate. I know, I've always thought of this, and when they said it, I was like, I was I thought the only one, only one that I thought this was like morbid. I'm like, first of all, and chicken nothing, no, it's it's but that's fine. Other than that, everything else and egg and then fry it. And I'm always like, oh, that's that's that's my cop that's yes, well, and then if you served it on a plate with eggs too, it's weird.

43:19 But they did an amazing job. And I love their podcast. If you need something light to listen to, that's just gonna make you laugh. They do an amazing job. Love Live Life Lay and they are friends with our friends Caitlin and Cassie Fromicides, who we will actually be. We're going on a pod Gal's trip here and by the time this comes out, we'll probably be about to take off on it, and we are going down to Portland. We're gonna go on the Shanghai Tunnel Tour, which we're very excited, and we're kind of scared because I'm scared of being shanghaied, even though it's a term we're not really supposed to use anymore. Oh really, dang it, you're gonna have to fill me in. Yeah, I mean, it's again a racist term, see, and I feel like it's a defensive to those shanghaiing people. But apparently it was only because the people were being kidnapped to be sold to Oh you, indentured servants on ships that were trading with China, got you. That's why it was called that gotcha.

44:17 So what do we call it? Then? Just keeping that doesn't seem like good in a h stronger verbiage. I don't know, but we're gonna do that. We're gonna stay at the Crystal Hotel. Oh yes, I've're gonna stay there, but I've been there. We're going to do lots of fun things. Who knows what adventures that weekend. It's just one night. Oh, we're gonna go stay in Astoria. Oh yes, yes, and we're going to go to the Astoria underground shops that are I had no idea existed. I'm very excited. I know we've been there and did not even there's so many times had no idea this existed. It looks amazing. So guys, if you want to hear more stories about amazing women from the West, why don't you email me with your ideas. I love hearing from you, guys. Shay as h Ea at Rainy Day rabbit Holes dot com.

45:03 You can reach out to us through the website, but I might be slower to respond that way because it gives me a message that I have a message, and I go check the message. I'd rather just check the message, email me directly and then please if you can follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, leave us a review if if you feel up to it. Hopefully it's a five star review. Somebody has left a one star review, but they didn't put a review in with it. They just gave us one star rating. And there's somebody who left us a two star rating, and I'm very upset. Well, yeah, give us some feedback, Yeah, give us feedback. Everybody else has been five stars. Nice. So we have a four point six rating, which I think is for good. That's not bad, that's really good considering the really low Yes, they can really take it down. Yeah, it's probably have a lot of good. They were probably being too political, probably, but again it's so hard to do right now, I think that there's I'm not I think we're past the point of being precious about it. No, like not having a side at this point, about this point, we can't not air our opinions to a point. So because people are being harmed, ye, and that makes us sad. So anyway, it's weird. Good people, good people, and we don't like bad things happening to good people, right, Okay, and that's it, all right? Well, thank you guys. Remember, you can find out more about everything at Rainy dayrabbit holes dot com and we will see you next time. See you down the rabbit hole.