The Ladies of the San Juans

Wiping her brow with the sleeve of her dress, she looked up from washing her husband’s shirt, taking a deep breath of the mountain air. It sure was warm today! She then looked down at his well-worn shirt, lovingly as she missed him, caressing his shirt with the tips of her fingers. She paused and asked herself, will he come home today? The love she felt for him turned to worry, as she let negative thoughts swoon inside her head, when squeals of laughter outside took her out of her revery. 

She looked up and turned slightly to her left. The kids were playing with their dog, chasing the poor creature around the large, scenic landscape that was their home. Will her kids see their father tonight? Again, the worrisome thoughts seem to surround her at that moment, grabbing a hold of her tightly in her mind as the thoughts of men, whether single or married, may not come home ever again. 

A lady living in the San Juan Mountains was not for the faint of heart, nor someone that is of a delicate nature. While the San Juans are a mountain range in the heart of Colorado, they also have a taste for the wild way of life, and an uncanny beauty that nothing could beat. Living here was for the adventurer at heart, a desire to make a name for yourself. It allured men to seek their fortunes for themselves, perhaps for a better life, a life of ease and comfort. Or for those married men, it provided a means to support the family, especially if they struck it rich.  

Children lived in the San Juans as normal as you and I live in cities or towns. They played, they laughed, they went to school as education was important, especially for the mothers. To these children, this was their normal. A normal way of life getting dirty in these towns or camps, playing with their friends or their animals and learning the importance of precious metals.  

The girls performed everyday tasks such as cooking and sewing, and most importantly, preparing themselves to have their own families someday. When times were tough, as in no precious metals discovered, they would pitch in to help the family by finding simple jobs, such as seamstress work, doing laundry, perhaps babysitting. When these girls grew up, some married miners and some left to seek other destinations to live, perhaps fall in love and get married, or even further their education and become a teacher or a nurse, with the limited careers available to women at the time. 

What would a woman do for love? Sometimes women fell in love with a miner or a future miner and yearned for adventure herself. Perhaps they were eager to leave a simple, boring town for a taste of a life with unlimited possibilities, something different, and maybe a little excitement, potentially danger. The men these women married had to be driven to become a miner, or maybe they were born with a sense of wanting more in life, a zest for untold riches, adventure, or so they hoped. The men would leave the wives behind until a town was established, due to precious metals discovered. 

Once it was established, the men would have their wives come and join them in the camp. A woman was eager to see her beloved, but once she was reunited with her husband, off he went back to the mines, and this could create loneliness, a need for female companionship, as so few women lived in the camps. Women would have children, and they were busy fulfilling their lives with raising children, establishing schools and churches.  

Sickness and death came knocking on doors of these hardy families, as sanitation was difficult to maintain. Disease would be brought in from afar and wipe out the weak and fragile. Even though medicine was available, it was hard to get it to the camps in time, and many suffered without it.  

It was unfortunate if the husbands died, as it could create a great deal of hardships for the widows. Some of the widows could become teachers, laundresses or if they had enough money, open a boarding house. But these women were dependent on their husbands as sole providers of the household, plus raising children kept these women busy.  

The last group of ladies of the San Juans are the ladies of the night, using the world’s oldest profession as their careers, their livelihoods. Sometimes I wonder if these women were lonely, looking for love and comfort, by spending time with men. Or perhaps these women were abused as children and thought this was the way to live their lives, as their normal. Perhaps they were runaways, running from a life full of desperation, and using that desperation as a means of making money.  

It was not glamorous as they were shunned by the townsfolk. It was hard for these ladies to show their faces in town when other people would want them to leave the camp forever. They were exploited, suffered sexual abuse from the miners, took drugs to get through a night and some did die young. Can you imagine spending an evening with a stranger, not knowing what he will do, but what you must do? 

Unfortunately, they caught diseases from some of the men they spent time with, and this too shortened their lives or even caused them not to be able to have children. To be a lady of the night was asking for a hard way of life, a life with limited possibilities, to never know what love is, and not carry a legacy with meaning and purpose. 

These women knew the risks and yet went willingly and followed their husbands to start a new town with vast opportunities for growth and enrichment. But not only that, the women proved to people that they could survive and thrive in these lonely places. They have left us a history of their joys and sorrows, their triumphs and difficulties, and taught us they could do it. 

“The San Juan Mountains are the wildest and most desolate place in Colorado.” 

Lastly, did you know that Colorado was the first state that allowed women to vote? The ladies of the San Juans has left us a powerful legacy of an enduring spirit, of hope in sometimes the most desolate places and an inner strength of what a lady of long ago could do in the heart of the San Juans.

What moved you in today’s story?