Author tells stories of savvy, sassy Texas women

Fort Worth author Carmen Goldthwaite profiles 53 pioneering Texas women in her book, “Texas Dames: Sassy and Savvy Women Throughout Lone Star History” (The History Press, $19.99 paperback). Some of the women are fairly well known, such as educator/preservationist Mollie Goodnight, rancher/town founder Henrietta King, gambler Lottie Deno, writer Dorothy Scarborough, golfer Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Gov. Ma Ferguson. But most of the stories feature women whose names might not be so familiar. Maria Gertrudis Perez, as First Lady of Texas and interim governor during Spanish rule, paved the way for American colonists to come to Texas. Peggy McCormick was the “hostess” of the Battle of San Jacinto and stood up to Sam Houston to remove the stinking, dead bodies from her property. She later was swindled out of much of her land. Central Texas rancher Johanna Wilhelm, who didn’t speak English, became known as the “sheep queen of Texas.” When she counted her sheep, she did so in German and would toss a rock in a sack for every hundred sheep...more