Dottie Lamm, “Queen of Denver” and more
“Straight From the Heart,” by Dottie Lamm ( Dorothy V. Lamm)
Not long after her husband became Colorado governor in 1975, Dottie Lamm began writing weekly columns for The Denver Post.
She told readers what it was like to be first lady while trying to raise young children and find time to pursue her own passions.
She wrote about events and issues, particularly those that affected women. She was frank about her life- threatening cancer and domestic problems that other first wives might have kept hidden. And never once, she writes, was she censored by her husband. Little surprise, then, that the couple has been married for 57 years and Lamm is still writing.
She’s already published two volumes of her columns.
“Straight From the Heart” is a collection of writings chosen because they “emphasized heart over head, feelings over analysis,” she writes in a preface. The book includes not only excerpts from her 25 years of Denver Post columns but subsequent editorial offerings as well.
There is a sense of nostalgia in reading many of the columns. Lamm began writing in the early days of the current feminist movement. She tells of her consciousnessraising group and objections to women being anything but full- time mothers. We’ve come a long way since then, what with most mothers holding outside jobs, but in the 1970s, that was a real issue. Back then, she wrote about challenges that girls face in a sexist world, and then later wondered if we’ve left boys behind.
Lamm writes about aging. In 1984, she tells of the horrors of turning 47 and reaching middle age. Then, in 2017, she writes of turning 80 and looking at the future: “What do I do with the time I have left?”
Lamm writes from the heart, with honesty, but as her later writings show, she hasn’t lost her fight. During the 2016 election, she tells of her concern that Trump might win the election. “It would be a disastrous direction changer if Donald Trump is elected president. Are we up to the task of saving democracy?”
Rereading Lamm’s columns is like coming across old friends — friends who make you think about the issues that matter.
“Queen of Denver,” by Shelby Carr ( History Press)
New York had The Four Hundred, residents deemed to be part of the “fashionable society” during the Gilded Age. Denver had its Sacred 36. ( And, frankly, the 36 sounds like it was a lot more fun.)
Louise Sneed, a Southern belle, married Denver’s most eligible bachelor, Crawford Hill, in 1895 and set out to establish the city’s smart set. She eschewed Denver’s staid old guard, with its emphasis on church and charity and tea parties, and entertained at lavish parties featuring liquor, flirting and fun for fun’s sake. She rollerskated and introduced the turkey trot to Denver. She was also presented at court.
Louise was part of a transitional generation that was less concerned with pedigree than with having a good time, writes author Shelby Carr in “Queen of Denver.” “Society to me means the opportunity of being with congenial people … . A social leader must be kindhearted and considerate and gently bred,” Louise said. Despite the oft- told story of Louise’s conflict with Margaret Brown, she was considered kind by almost everyone who knew her.
Well, everyone, maybe, apart from Bulkeley Wells, a wealthy mining engineer. He and Louise had a lengthy affair. After Crawford died, Louise expected Bulkeley to marry her. Instead, he wed woman young enough to be Louise’s daughter. Louise destroyed him. Penniless, he committed suicide.
“Queen of Denver,” set against a background of society in America, is the first biography of Louise. It is a sympathetic portrayal of a woman whom local history has pictured as ruthless and elitist. Louise ruled Denver society for 40 years, until she sold her mansion at 10th and Sherman and moved into a suite in the Brown Palace. She lived out her days, a relative once told me, as a messy old woman with spots on her front.
“Empty,” by Susan Burton ( Random House)
Susan Burton always had an obsession with food. She began life as a picky eater, and by the time she was in her teens, living in Boulder, she went from anorexia to bulimia and back. An eating disorder, she writes, is a life- long challenge, like alcoholism. It might even be worse, since, unlike booze, food is a necessity.
Burton’s story is likely to have diverse reactions from readers. Some will find the writer too self- absorbed and want to say, “Deal with it!” But anyone with an eating disorder will have found a friend in Burton.
“Empty,” which is beautifully written, is told in excruciating detail. While candor is good in an autobiography, there is a limit. Burton tells the most intimate details of her life and seems to find personal tragedy in what others might consider teenage angst. No detail of her life is insignificant enough to be dissected in print.
In fact, while her parents’ divorce is difficult to deal with, Burton seems to have had a rather nice upbringing. She was an excellent student who was accepted at Yale, a member of a swim team, popular and apparently didn’t lack for money. Still, underneath it all was this obsession with her weight. She was thrilled when, during the throes of anorexia, her stomach actually went in.
In high school, she began bingeing. By the time she reached Yale, she was sneaking around to ice cream and pastry shops to fill up. With the bingeing came selfhate and the inevitable vows to stop. She eventually did, only to swing back to anorexia.
Of course, all of this was secret. There is shame attached to an eating disorder that makes it different from other addictions. Nobody writes books or plays about binge eating. You can’t even tell good stories about it. “Nobody ever starts a story with, ‘ I ate a whole cake and you won’t believe the crazy ( stuff) I did next,’ ” Burton writes.
Coming out of the shadows is a major step in confronting an eating disorder. As Burton writes, “I’ve moved not from illness to recovery but from secrecy to telling.”
“Thunder in the West: The Life and Legend of Billy the Kid,” by Richard W. Etulain ( University of Oklahoma)
Vicious killer or Robin Hood? Ever since Billy the Kid died in 1881, writers, historians and Billy aficionados have pondered that question. In fact, writes Richard W. Etulain, Billy was neither black nor white but gray. He was a killer ( 21 killings in 21 years) but was also a generous, caring man.
It seems odd that this minor gunman barely out of his teens captured America’s fancy — so much so that he is probably the country’s best- known badman. For 40 years after his death, Billy ( whose real name was Henry McCarty Antrim) was portrayed as an evil desperado. Dime novels depicted him as a killer.
Then came Walter Noble Burns’ 1926 “The Saga of Billy the Kid,” and Billy turned into a syma pathetic character for the next 40 years. Books redeemed him, and so did movies, starring actors such as Johnny Mack Brown and Audie Murphy.
The portrayal of Billy changed with the times. In the turbulent days of the Vietnam War, Billy turned into an antihero and later became what Etulain calls a “bifurcated” figure.
“Thunder in the West” is not just a biography of America’s most famous outlaw but also a study in how the young killer has been viewed against the background of a changing America.
“Colorado’s Daring Ivy Baldwin,” by Jack Stokes Ballard ( History Press)
When I was in junior high, staying with a friend in Eldorado Springs, I met Ivy Baldwin. He was a wizened imp of a man with twinkling eyes who captivated my friend and me. He died a few months later and was largely forgotten. Until now.
Jack Ballard’s “Colorado’s Daring Ivy Baldwin” captures the life and accomplishments of the aviator, aerialist and aeronaut whose daring once captivated the world. He began as a high- wire artist and later became a balloonist, working with the army in the Spanish American War and
World War II.
When he was 41, Baldwin made the first of his many tightrope crossings of South Boulder Canyon. When high winds stuck during one crossing, he hung by his knees from a cable that was nearly 600 feet from the canyon floor. His last crossing came when he was 82.
Ballard has done a credible job in resurrecting one of Colorado’s more interesting characters.