Laws to celebrate women in history
Event planned for March 23
Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site will be celebrating Women’s History Month March 23, with docent presentations, games, puzzles, prizes, and a Virginia City tradition: an Irish “Ladies
Fair” where visitors to the museum for this event can purchase vintage Jim Beam bottles, cookies and place bids at a silent auction.
This year’s Women’s History Event theme is “Immigrant Women in Western Mining Towns.” Although many women in early Western American mining history were born here to immigrant families, others were themselves immigrants. They came from around the world: China, Europe, Canada, South America, and Ireland. Some were trafficked like Chinese teenager Polly Bemis, who was sold to an Idaho mining camp saloon keeper. Others, such as Nellie Cashman, came to escape the Irish potato famine. Still others came to seek fortunes of their own like Nicaraguan Ferminia Serras, who became Nevada’s “Copper Queen.”
“Immigrant Women in Western Mining Towns” will be from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, at Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site.
Fourteen docents will be on hand to share stories of some of these women, host a silent auction, and hand out prizes. Train Crew members Beverly and Marty will be in the Engine House to answer questions about the historic Brill Car, the restoration of the site’s Slim Princess No. 9, and talk about women in railroad history.
Visitors who participate in this special event will have a chance to win prizes, and those who make purchases at the Ladies Fair will have the satisfaction of participating in a long-standing tradition of fundraising for repairs to the local church.
While the Irish Ladies’ Societies of the Comstock held these fairs to raise money to build and repair churches, hospitals, and orphanages, the museum will be earmarking money raised from this event for repair of Father Crowley’s 100-year-old Catholic Church, now the Laws Library and Art Center.
For more information, call the Laws Railroad Museum and Historical Site at 760-873-5950.
The story of Polly Bemis will be one of many shared during the “Immigrant Women in Western Mining Towns” event at Laws.