Calamity Jane was an amazing woman for her time. A pioneer and frontierswoman, she worked alongside of greats, such as Wild Bill Hickok. In today’s world, there are a lot of Hollywood legends surrounding her life, but here is a simple article written in 1902 about the “aged” Calamity Jane (she was roughly 50 years old at the time of this article) and the loom of the poorhouse. She was never placed in the poorhouse. Instead, she died a year later, in 1903, at the Calloway Hotel near Deadwood. She was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok.
FRIENDS TO LIFT HER BURDEN
Calamity Jane’s Sorrows Touch the Hearts of Old Associates
There is a movement on foot for collecting money to be used as a charity fund for Calamity Jane, who is now in the country that lies around Yellowstone park, says the Butte Inter Mountain.
“A move was recently started over our way to have Jane removed to the Park county poorhouse,” said a Butte man, “and she flatly refused to go. I do not blame her in the least for doing so and I am in favor of collecting enough money to make Jane comfortable in her old age.
“Think of the many kindly acts she has done for others when she had means. Why, it is a shame to even allow the necessity for such a suggestion as sending her to a poorhouse.
“Calamity Jane is a pioneer. In the early days she was one of the best known characters in the west. No one came in contact with her who did not feel the benefit of her kindly acts and encouragement. Just now she is over in the Yellowhouse country trying to sell her unique book to tourists.
“But the successful day of Calamity Jane is past. Her books no longer sell well. Time was when tourists considered it an honor to buy Jane’s books and it was considered a lack of progressiveness to make a trip west and not purchase one of these unique souvenirs.
“Now all is different. The old timers, many of them, have died, and the younger generation coming up is too busy to pay heed to this woman who helped blaze the way of the pioneer. She now has no way of making a livelihood and it is up to the charitably inclined to see that she does not die in the poorhouse.” [Source]
