| Not all who struck riches in the gold camps and | | | | "With my own hands I chopped stakes, drove |
| mining towns of the Old West were grizzled | | | | them into the ground, and set up my table. I |
| prospectors. Here's an interesting story about one | | | | bought provisions at a neighboring store and when |
| hardworking mother and wife who went west at | | | | my husband came back at night he found... |
| the time of the fabled '49ers and enjoyed riches | | | | twenty miners eating at my table. Each man as |
| for a time. | | | | he rose put a dollar in my hand and said I might |
| Her name was Luzena Stanley Wilson and I | | | | count on him as a permanent customer. I called |
| discovered her story in a wonderful book by | | | | my hotel 'El Dorado.' " |
| historian Lillian Schlissel, "Women's Diaries of the | | | | Professor Schlissel's excerpt of the diary doesn't |
| Westward Journey." As was true with many | | | | say how Luzena's unnamed husband may have |
| women of the West, she was a practical, | | | | reacted or what he said about his wife's |
| hardworking wife and mother who alertly found a | | | | enterprising approach to the mining camp. But the |
| way to bring order to the chaos of the mining | | | | book does say that during the following months, |
| camps. She met a real need -- feeding and caring | | | | she and her husband made about $25.00 a week |
| for the miners -- and turned their hardships into | | | | serving from 75 to 200 borders. In addition to |
| gold through her own hard work. | | | | that income and her popularity, the miners began |
| Luzena, her husband, and their three children | | | | to look to her as someone they could trust with |
| arrived in Nevada City, California, in 1849 after a | | | | their livelihood -- and began leaving gold dust and |
| long journey by wagon train across the Plains and | | | | gold nuggets with her for safekeeping. She |
| mountain ranges. It was a rough trip lived under | | | | became not only the town's leading innkeeper but |
| rugged conditions, and the good news was that it | | | | the nearest thing the mining camp had to a |
| prepared the family for the sort of rough life | | | | banker. "Many a night," she wrote, "I have shut |
| they found in the mining camps. In her words, | | | | my oven door on two milk-pans filled high with |
| Luzana said the town was made up of two tents | | | | bags of gold dust and I have often slept with my |
| lining two steep gulches, and the gulches were | | | | mattress lined... I must have had more than two |
| "alive with moving men." | | | | hundred thousand dollars lying unprotected in my |
| As they worked at getting a shelter of some | | | | bedroom." |
| sort set up from their wagon, Luzena noticed | | | | Sadly, Luzena Stanley Wilson's ambition, hard |
| immediately that the miners needed someone to | | | | work, and determination fell prey to disaster. |
| fix meals and offer them some sort of decent | | | | Their prosperity came to an unhappy ending |
| living facilities. She discovered that decent lodging | | | | within 18 months when a major fire swept |
| and good food were at a premium, with most of | | | | through the mining camp. The Nevada City |
| the prospectors and miners of the camp eating at | | | | settlement was wiped out, leaving some 8,000 |
| the settlement's single hotel. | | | | miners and prospectors homeless and destroying |
| According to the narrative in Luzena's diary, she | | | | the budding fortune Luzena and her family had |
| took quick action. Her husband went out the | | | | going for them. According to Schlissel's book, the |
| same day they arrived to find some wood for | | | | Wilson's moved on and were lost in the history of |
| building the family shelter and put a roof over | | | | the Old West. Either Luzena's dairy keeping days |
| their weary heads. Luzena told of what she did | | | | ended or her continued journal beyond the |
| while he was gone: | | | | disaster of the fire was lost. |