Frontier Spirit by Jennifer Duncan

Author:Jennifer Duncan [Duncan, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67246-7
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2004-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

An Atlantic City, New Jersey studio portrait of Belinda wearing a bathing costume and displaying her wedding ring.

7

Martha Louise Black

FIRST LADY OF THE YUKON

Martha Louise Munger Purdy Black, socialite and outdoorswoman.

Her first memory is of fire. Red sky, black clouds, flaming winds. Her face soot-stained and eyes stinging on the frantic flight to the lake. All around the wagon, horses stampeding and people running, bearing crying children, bundles of belongings, even occupied stretchers, their fear filling the suffocating air as the fire consumes their homes. She is five years old. It is October 9, 1871, the second day of the Great Chicago Fire, and along with almost one hundred thousand others, her family has lost everything.

When asked what he would save should his house be on fire, French writer Jean Cocteau replied, “The fire. “The child Martha might agree. Her sympathy for those suffering does not dampen the excitement of that wild ride. Sleeping on the shore for three nights, she revels in the outdoor life she’s dreamt of, baking potatoes over a hissing campfire and waking to the waves lapping. When they move into tents because of the cold, she is stirred by the adventure of beginning life anew, the whole world flipped topsy-turvy.

She is, after all, safe in the arms of loving parents, with the confidence an impressive family tree bears. Those that fortune favours will always walk through fire unscathed.

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