Mari Grana – författare

When Mollie Babcock stepped off the train in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1890, she knew she had to start a new life. She'd left her husband and their medical practice in Iowa, and with only a few hundred dollars in her pocket and a great deal of pride, she set out to find a new position as a physician. She was offered a job as doctor to the miners at Bannack, Montana, and thus began her epic adventures in the Rocky Mountain West.The true story of a medicine woman who found opportunity in the wide-open spaces of America's frontier west, Pioneer Doctor: The Story of a Woman's Work, is not just a beautifully written and thoroughly researched story of a fascinating woman's life. It is also the story of an era when daring women ventured forth and changed history for the rest of us.

When Mollie stepped off the train in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1890, she knew she had to start a new life. She''d left her husband and his medical practice behind in Iowa, and with only a few hundred dollars in her pocket and a great deal of pride, she set out to find a new position as a physician. She was offered a job as a doctor to the miners in Bannack, Montana, and thus began her epic adventures as a pioneer doctor, a suffragette, and a crusader for public health reform in the Rocky Mountain West.Pioneer Doctor: The Story of a Woman''s Work is the true story of Dr. Mary (Mollie) Babcock Atwater, a medicine woman who found freedom and opportunity in the wide-open spaces of America''s frontier west. This remarkable tale has been creatively retold here by her granddaughter, award-winning author Mari Grana. Blending information from historical records as well as interviews with family and friends, the author has reconstructed Mollie''s steps into a dramatic narrative that brings to life the doctor''s struggles, her accomplishments, and the times in which she lived.Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, this is not just the biography of a fascinating woman. It is also the story of an era when daring women ventured forth and changed history for the rest of us.

Touted in his time as one of the “great men of the West,” Stephen Wallace Dorsey was a Reconstruction carpetbagger who went to Arkansas and finagled and bribed his way into getting elected to the US Senate after living only two years in the state before heading West to seek his fortune. From a fraudulent New Mexico land claim to taking up mining claims and real estate in Southern California, he used sheer cunning and guile to manipulate the system of the Gilded Age to his own ends. Dorsey was a major presence in early New Mexico—which was no-holds-barred frontier corruption—with his flair for excess. Excess is in everything he did, his manipulative 600,000-acre-land-grab, his political shenanigans, his excessive drinking, his extravagant lifestyle always on display. In his fraudulent dealings he was caught out—not by the law, but those more conniving than he was. His fantastic mansion in the middle of a still-today empty prairie in northeastern New Mexico was of state-wide historical importance before the state could no longer afford to keep it.

Touted in his time as one of the “great men of the West,” Stephen Wallace Dorsey was a Reconstruction carpetbagger who went to Arkansas and finagled and bribed his way into getting elected to the US Senate after living only two years in the state before heading West to seek his fortune. From a fraudulent New Mexico land claim to taking up mining claims and real estate in Southern California, he used sheer cunning and guile to manipulate the system of the Gilded Age to his own ends. Dorsey was a major presence in early New Mexico—which was no-holds-barred frontier corruption—with his flair for excess. Excess is in everything he did, his manipulative 600,000-acre-land-grab, his political shenanigans, his excessive drinking, his extravagant lifestyle always on display. In his fraudulent dealings he was caught out—not by the law, but those more conniving than he was. His fantastic mansion in the middle of a still-today empty prairie in northeastern New Mexico was of state-wide historical importance before the state could no longer afford to keep it.

Dr. Martha tells the fascinating story of Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman elected to the Utah state senate—in 1896. She was a polygamist wife, a practicing physician, and an astute and pioneering politician. In compelling prose, author Mari Graña traces Cannon’s life from her birth in Wales to her emigration to Utah with her family in 1861, her career as a physician, her marriage, her exile in England, her subsequent return, and her election to the Utah state senate. Her husband was the Republican candidate she, a Democrat, defeated in that historic election.

Dr. Martha tells the fascinating story of Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman elected to the Utah state senate—in 1896. She was a polygamist wife, a practicing physician, and an astute and pioneering politician. In compelling prose, author Mari Graña traces Cannon’s life from her birth in Wales to her emigration to Utah with her family in 1861, her career as a physician, her marriage, her exile in England, her subsequent return, and her election to the Utah state senate. Her husband was the Republican candidate she, a Democrat, defeated in that historic election.