Paper Dolls, 1900

Doll Carriage ad, 1902

Toy Catalog, 1897

Baby Doe Tabor (Lizzie McCourt)'s wedding picture
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Up for auction in Denver came the last tawdry possessions of Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt ("Baby") Doe Tabor, who was frozen to death last year after 35 years of guarding the abandoned Matchless Silver Mine, once worth $1,000,000 to her husband, the late wealthy U. S. Senator Horace Austin Warner ("Haw") Tabor (TIME, March 18, 1935). To an eager crowd were offered a dozen silver nut picks, a pearl-encrusted fan, 50 silk handkerchiefs, a quart of rye whiskey, dozens of photographs, a gold safety pin which once secured the diapers of Baby Doe's daughter Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar Tabor. A silver dollar made into a locket containing Silver Dollar Tabor's picture drew the highest bid: $26. Finally, the auctioneer hoisted a pair of long red flannels which Baby Doe wore for years before she died. "Here is your opportunity, girls! Winter is coming!" he bawled. A Denver housewife bought them for $1.25.


~~ Time Magazine, 1936, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762308-2,00.html

Flapper, 1920

Chicago News 1920-1925

Jan. 17, 1920: Prohibition begins.
Aug. 26, 1920: 19th Amendment gives U.S. women right to vote.
Sept. 17, 1920: Professional organization that became National Football League created in auto showroom in Canton, Ohio, by George Halas and others.
Feb. 8, 1921: Medill School of Journalism opens at Northwestern University.
May 2, 1921: Field Museum of Natural History opens in present lakefront location.
Oct. 15, 1921: Tribune, sued for libel by City of Chicago, wins case, which sets precedent protecting media's right to criticize government.
Oct. 26, 1921: Chicago Theatre opens.
June 10, 1922: Tribune Tower design competition announced as part of 75th birthday celebration.
Oct. 31, 1922: Benito Mussolini takes power in Italy.
Sept. 2, 1923: Tribune provides first reports to America on great Japanese earthquake.
May 21, 1924: Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks on South Side in first celebrated "crime of the century."
July 15, 1924: WDAP radio station renamed WGN by Tribune in honor of paper's slogan.
July 10, 1925: John Thomas Scopes, charged with teaching evolution, goes to court in celebrated "Monkey Trial." WGN broadcasts Clarence Darrow's defense of Scopes.
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See: www.ChicagoTribune.com

The writings of Lizzie and Silver

Silver wrote "Star of Blood" on yellow legal pads and the had a friend, down the hall, type the manuscript up. The original pages are at the Colorado State Historical Society along with a copy of the self-published book itself. She sent copies to all the local reviewers in Denver, got back a few letters, mostly due to her last name. She thought, by moving to Chicago that she might, among other things, advance her literary career. More likely, she moved to Chicago to get away from a man.


The calendar from Lizzie's cabin
Graphomania, a passion or urge to write. Was this the best guess of what was going on with Lizzie? The Colorado State Historical Society has over 12,000 pieces of written matter by Lizzie, a few by Silver. Was this the source of Lizzie's mania?

Amor, Gustav Klimt, 1895

Bernice Bobs Her Hair

Saturday Evening Post, May 1920
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Imagine: Silver visits her local beauty salon and picks up a copy of the latest Saturday Evening Post. In it, a young writer has published his first short story: "Bernice Bobs Her Hair". With her literary ambitions, of course she reads the story and vows to find more of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing.

"Flappers and Philosophers", F. Scott Fitzgerald's first book of stories, published in 1920. Most of these stories first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.


Harleys, 1910

The first historical mention of something resembling a Ouija board is found in China around 1200 B.C., a divination method known as fuji "planchette writing". Other sources claim that according to a Greek historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540 B.C. his sect would conduct séances at "a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from an unseen world." However, other sources call both claims into dispute, claiming that fuji is spirit writing, not the use of a spirit board, and that there is no record of Pythagoras or his students actually having used this method of achieving oracles or divinations. In addition, the claim of ancient Greek use is called into doubt by questions of historical accuracy, as Philolaus was never the pupil of Pythagoras, and indeed was born roughly twenty-five years after Pythagoras's death. The first undisputed use of the talking boards came with the Modern Spiritualist Movement in The United States in the mid-19th century. Methods of divination at that time used various ways to spell out messages, including swinging a pendulum over a plate that had letters around the edge or using an entire table to indicate letters drawn on the floor. Often used was a small wooden tablet supported on casters. This tablet, called a planchette, was affixed with a pencil that would write out messages in a fashion similar to automatic writing. These methods may predate modern Spiritualism.
During the late 1800s, planchettes were widely sold as a novelty. The businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed. The patentees filed on May 28, 1890 for patent protection and thus had invented the first Ouija board. Issue date on the patent was February 10, 1891. Bond was an attorney and was an inventor of other objects in addition to this device. An employee of Kennard, William Fuld took over the talking board production and in 1901, he started production of his own boards under the name "Ouija". The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, claiming that he himself had invented it. Countless talking boards from Fuld's competitors flooded the market and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the "Ouija" name and concept right up until his death in 1927. In 1966, Fuld's estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, who continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About 10 brands of talking boards are sold today under various names.
~~ Wikipedia

Lizzie broke up every relationship Silver was in while still living in Leadville. Her objections are still not clear, but it seems she thought all of Silver's suitors were golddiggers, or in this case, silver diggers, after only one thing, the Matchless Mine. Considering her behavior with her beloved daughter, and consistently choosing the well-being of the mine over Silver's, Lizzie must have been suffering from some type of obsessive condition, eventually delusion maybe? If she hadn't dressed in rags the last 30 years of her life would we still think she was crazy? Her behavior was too much for Silver. She moved to Denver to get away from her mother's steel grip on her and perhaps secondarily to further her writing career.

Hairdos from the 1920s
Did Silver participate in the fashion of her day? She died in 1925 and was working in the theater. Even with very little money, she must have followed the styles of the day. The few photos that exist of her show her in a wide-brimmed sun hat and a bathing suit. Everything else we must imagine.

Silver's father, the silver king himself, Horace A.W. Tabor. He died of appendicitis when Silver was 8 years old.

Silver's older sister, Lily Tabor as a young child.

Lizzie in the 1930s

Lizzie walking the streets of Denver, early 1930s. Although she lived in poverty and dressed in rags, she had held onto a few valuables which she stowed in trunks kept in Denver. She had to pay monthly rental fees on this storage, which she came up with even when she had little to eat.


Lizzie's cabin at the time of her death, 1935. The cabin was ransacked and torn apart down to the floorboards by people looking for the fortune they assumed she was protecting there. They found nothing. The Matchless Mine was the only thing Lizzie was protecting up on that hill. All of her papers and valuables were safely stowed away in trunks in Denver.

The Ballad of Baby Doe

US Opera Site, Synopsis and Performance History

The Ballad of Baby Doe ~ opera ~ 1956

Red light district, Leadville, Colorado

Silver got her first taste of drink and parties while still in Leadville. It was here she started a relationship with the much older stable owner which caused her mother to send her to Denver. In Denver Silver pursued a writing career, applying to various newspapers. She finally got a job but spent most of her time covering society events. For a short time after this job she started her own gazette. She also wrote a novel, "Star of Blood" which her mother helped her publish. She took the novel around to reviewers and publishers hoping to get noticed. The only reviews the book got were due to her name and the noteriety of her parent's past history. She was seen as a novelty act, not to be taken seriously.

Chicago, 1925

Chicago, 1925
What else was going on in Chicago in 1925? The depression, Al Capone, bootlegging. Did Silver have trouble getting alcohol? Where did she get it from?

Silver's job history

How did Silver support herself? There is evidence she lived under assumed names. She worked in the theater but did she ever really work as a prostitute? I suspect she attached herself to different men, sometimes taking their name in order to put it on a lease or a rental agreement. Much of how she lived is conjecture. So many of her letters to Lizzie still exist it is possible to piece together a trail of rooming houses. And because of her addiction(s), she may have had to do things she didn't want to do. And we can't really believe everything she writes to Lizzie. It would probably be fair to say she embellished the facts when writing home to Mama. And even these facts she does tell Lizzie do not paint a picture of a happy life. And clearly, she was running away from someone when she moved to Chicago. I just wonder if whoever that was finally caught up with her, or if she encountered someone new there who also abused her.

Because Silver starting drinking at such a young age, she may have, on a day to day basis, taken whatever presented itself to her, whatever was free. There are reports she also used "happy dust". Toward the end of her life, one of her most important relationships was with her doctor. Was her doctor supplying her with drugs? What else might she have been hooked on by 1925? She'd been in the hospital on several occassions, broken bones and even a scalding in January of 1925. What had made her so weak by September of 1925 that another scalding killed her rather quickly?

At some point, after she moved out of Leadville, Silver stopped caring what her mother thought about her. Lizzie had intruded once too often in Silver's life, chastizing her for her drinking and her carrying on. Lizzie, the object of much rumor when she was young, was now faced with an avalanche of bad news about Silver from every town busy-body. Silver would often come into town and stay overnight with friends, partying, leaving Lizzie up in the shack at the Matchless. Once, Lizzie did come down the hill and burst into Silver's room at the hotel and demand that all the men she found there, leave immediately. Silver was mortified.
What was Silver up to then? Are these reports accurate? Was she really a rebelious daughter or had her addictions already taken over? Did the young men flatter her, provide her alcohol? Was it fun for her, or just necessity?
It wasn't that long ago she'd been involved with the Leadville stable owner. How did it effect her? Did she see sex as the necessary evil to get what she was really after? How did growing up without a father / strong male influence, affect her? Could her addictions and her reactions to her mother's admonishments and her failed writing career predict the path she ended up on? What other choices could she have made?