Mrs. Roosevelt was the first First Lady to hold her own press conference apart from the President. Jacqueline Kennedy, a reporter before she married John F Kennedy, was there. Martha Washington offered her silver service to make coins for the new United States.
Idaho widow, early pioneer rebuilt hotel three times
Winifred Noone Ellis was born Oct 3, 1848 on a farm near the village of Gort in County Galway, Ireland, the only child of her father's second marriage. Half brothers John and Patrick and a married half sister, all older, went to the United States. When her father died she followed them to America at 16 and lived with her sister in Springfield MA. Her brothers mining gold at Granite Creek in Boise Basin did well financially in partnership with John Ellis and Michael Leary. John Noone returned to claim his bride Napina Buckley. Winifred accompanied the newlyweds back to Boise Basin's goldfields.
Feb 1869 they sailed to Panama. After a primitive, rickety train trip across the Isthmus to the Pacific Ocean and a steamer to San Francisco, they landed March 15. While passengers disembarked someone dropped a cigar butt into a powder keg, causing a massive explosion. The Noones escaped unscathed and a week later continued their journey to Idaho on a steamer to Portland. Next came a riverboat up the Columbia River to Umatilla OR and a stagecoach for Boise Basin. The stagecoach upset in deep snow scattering passengers, baggage and mail sacks across a steep hillside. Everyone was more frightened than hurt. Once the stage was righted the journey continued, reaching Granite Creek in early evening March 28, 1869.
Granite Creek was a viable community then, population 1,000 with two general stores, a hotel, a brewery and a dairy. For 2 years young Winifred kept house for John and Napina, then married John Ellis Feb 20, 1871. In 1889 when Winifred was 41 John Ellis starting home from Placerville late one day in a blinding snowstorm got lost and died in the snow. John's partners supported her for 7 years but demanded a complete accounting of expenditures. Finally enough was enough. Winifred sued for money due her for her husband's share of the mining operation. She received $2,500, bought the International Hotel in Placerville, and took possession Aug 10, 1896. August 1899 fire destroyed the hotel and most of Placerville. Undaunted, Ellis and her daughters rebuilt the hotel. It was again reduced to ashes in June 1900. Ellis rebuilt the hotel again. In 1916 after 47 years' residency Winifred Noone Ellis moved from Placerville to a farm on Lancing Lane between Middleton and Star. Her family ran the Ellis hotel until it burned down again in Sept 1909 and wasn't rebuilt.
Granddaughter Betty Gega of Portland remembers Ellis was 5 feet tall and weighed 100 - 110 pounds, always active. Ellis had a large vegetable and fruit garden. Checking on newly planted berry bushes freezing in the heavy frost she caught pneumonia and died at 87. 65 descendants of their 8 daughters and 1 son had a family reunion at Placerville.
BOADICCA with augury and magic became at will a goddess to awe and inspire her people. Boadicca on the eve of her first battle released a hare invoking victory goddess Andraste. The direction the hare ran off in foretold whether or not the battle would go well, capitalizing on Roman ignorance. Rome practiced animal augury but didn't know Britain only allowed hunting hares on May Eve. Defying this taboo meant being struck with cowardice. Boadicca hoped hungry Romans would pounce on the hare and lose courage.
The STORY Of MINT
Mint originated in Europe as a room deodorizer, a strewing herb strewn on floors. In those days floors were dirt and never scrubbed or cleaned, despite litter. Mint or basil sprigs thrown on floors and stepped on created a fragrant odor. As in home gardens, mint spreads greedily worldwide. Cultivated as a medicine since ancient times, traces are found in Egyptian tombs. In Greek mythology Minthe was seduced by Hades (Pluto), god of the underworld. His queen Persephone became jealous and turned her into a plant, mint.
VIRGIN Of GUADALUPE
Dec 9, 1531 Mexico's patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, appeared to humble Indian farmer Juan Diego, walking past fallen stones of an ancient Indian shrine of Earth mother Tonantzin on Tepeyac Hill north of Ciudad de Mexico on his way to Mass in Tlatelolco. In Nahuatl, the native Indian language, the Virgin told Diego to build a church there. The bishop wanted proof. Saturday morning Dec 12 the Virgin reappeared, using Diego's cloak to gather roses where there were none. Opening his cloak before the Bishop, they found a vivid image of the Virgin imprinted on it. A shrine was built at the top of hill and a church at the bottom. The cloak hangs over the main altar in a gold frame for visitors to pass beneath on a moving sidewalk. Naming Mexican children Guadalupe honors the Virgin of Guadalupe, declared Patroness of Latin America by Pope Pius X in 1910 and declared patroness of America by Pope Pius XII in 1945. The name Guadalupe probably stemming from Arabic wadi, river, current, stream, riverbed, also may derive from lupus, wolf. Francisco J Perea's book 450 Years at the Shadow of Tepeyac says Guadalupe may derive from the Nahuatl tecoatlaxopeuh, she who crushes the stone serpent, or from coatlaxopeah, she who crushes the serpent. Coatlicue, a mother goddess wearing a braided rattlesnake skirt, underwent several cultural transformations to become Our Lady of Guadalupe. Catholic priests forbade Indians to worship their old gods. Indians trying hard to be good Christians missed Tonantzin and felt orphaned without her. Dec 12 is Virgin of Guadalupe Day, singing Las Mananitas to her.
MALINALITZIN 1501 - 1530
Malinali was born in Painala, 8 miles from Guazacalco (now Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz) Her parents, Cimatl and Tenepal, ruled Oluta and Jaltipan. Her father died when she was little. Her mother remarried and bore a son. Malinali was heir to the throne but the new couple wanted their son to be the chosen one. They sold Malinali, 10, to pochtecas (merchants) who in Tabasco sold her at 13 to Chocan Putun as a maid in waiting. Malinali learned the Mayan language quickly. When her exceptional talents showed, the suffix TZIN was added to her name, implying as landlady or simply distinctive for her grand investiture. Cortez, arriving in Mexico, received Malinalitzin and 19 other women as a gift. Cortez baptized her and changed her name to Marina. Her knowledge of Mayan, Nahuatl and Castillano (Spanish) made her Cortez' prime interpreter. Mexicans pejoratively shortened her name to Malinche. Some called her a traitor, others a liberator saving them from the Aztecs. Still others called her a promoter of change in which old and new world races, cultures, customs and religions fused. She bore Cortez a son in 1522. Cortez baptized him Martin, honoring Cortez' father. He became America's first and most important Mestizo. Malinche died around New Year's 1530 in Mexico City. A volcano in nearby Perote, Veracruz, is named for her.