How Baby Doe Tabor became a modern Mary Magdalene in the mountains of Colorado
(Originally published April 2017 on Medium)
If you know anything about Baby Doe Tabor, then you know that her story is a tragedy of theatrical proportions. In fact, it was so easily dramatized that it became an opera. There’s something grand and sweeping about her journey from working class beginnings, to an improbably grand life, to her end in a cold mountain cabin. There’s a whiff of Shakespearean tragedy about her.
She also indulged heavily in religion — specifically, Catholicism — in her later life, as every comfort and joy crumbled down around her. It provided both joy and denial as she navigated her life. It may have even led her to retreat to the wilderness in penance, much like stories of Mary Magdalene, famed repentant sinner of the Bible.
Mary, who is said to have retreated into the desert and have spent her last days in holy filth before ascending to heaven, presents many parallels to Elizabeth’s story. It is not inconceivable that Baby Doe herself thought of the Magdalene as she renounced many of her worldly goods and moved to the wilderness.
Elizabeth McCourt was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1854 to an Irish-American couple, Peter and Elizabeth. Peter and Elizabeth were especially apt to be fruitful and multiply; Elizabeth was the fourth of eleven children.The McCourts lived a comfortable middle class life for a while, though fires in 1874 and 1875 took much of their property and money. Elizabeth’s mother spoiled and shielded her daughter, who was the prettiest and most charming of the McCourt children.Baby Doe Tabor
In 1877, the popular and pretty Elizabeth married Harvey Doe. By now, she had become something of a bad girl. Elizabeth grabbed Harvey’s attention by winning a skating competition while wearing a dress that showed off her legs.That or something else must have worked, for the two were eventually married. Harvey was a Protestant, to the chagrin of Elizabeth’s parents. However, he married Elizabeth in a Catholic ceremony, upsetting his own family in turn.Harvey had mining investments in Colorado, so therefore it was natural that the new couple moved West. Alas, it soon became clear that Harvey’s prospects would not pay off. He drank, gambled, consorted with whores, and, most importantly, didn’t bring home much money.
He was, in short, a loser.
Elizabeth and Harvey officially divorced in 1880. Afterwards, Elizabeth (now nicknamed “Baby Doe”) moved to Leadville, Colorado. There, she met Horace Tabor. They met in a restaurant in 1880. She told him her story. He gave her $5000 on the spot.
That was only the beginning. Horace set her up in a series of hotels in Leadville and Denver and visited her frequently, despite the fact that he was already married. He eventually asked his wife, Augusta, for a divorce. Augusta, who had spent many years of her life with Horace and had borne him a son, initially resisted. She only relented after Horace offered her a healthy divorce settlement.
In 1882, Horace and Baby Doe married. By then, their union was regarded as a scandal. Baby Doe was shunned by society for her disreputable past and her role in the breakup of a respectable marriage.
That shame didn’t quite stick to Horace, who continued to oversee a healthy business and thriving investments, though he did lose a bid to become the Colorado Governor.
The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth (Lily) and Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar (often called “Silver Dollar”). Baby Doe was a devoted mother, to the surprise of those who thought of her only as a careless harlot. Still, she received few invites to society functions and often spent time at home with her daughters. The Tabor mansion, we may assume, was unusually quiet for the time.
In Baby Doe’s time, Mary Magdalene was generally thought of as a repentant prostitute. There’s no scriptural evidence of this, though it did not stop centuries of storytellers from making their own apocryphal interpretations. After all, it proved to be a compelling and tenacious story. Here was a flashy woman, a harlot, humbled before the deity, transformed into something entirely new and utterly strange.
In practice, the biblical Magdalene was often mixed up with Mary of Egypt. This Mary, too, had lived a dissolute life before she became a penitent in the desert.
Mary Magdalene is also said to have lived in the wastelands, naked and covered only by her unnaturally long hair. Later depictions of her make it look as if Mary, so long removed from civilization, is slowly transforming into some sort of holy beast. She is covered by hair that has become a tangled pelt.
Mary of Egypt’s story is filled with the kind of bizarre dream logic you encounter in many ancient tales. In it, St. Zosimas, a traveling monk, is said to have met a wizened, naked woman in the desert — Mary of Egypt.
This Mary performed a series of miracles, such as telling the future and walking over water. When Zosimas returned from a trip, he discovered that she had died and left behind an incorruptible corpse. He required the help of a passing lion to dig her grave.
As the centuries wore on, people began to confuse the various Mary figures — well, apart from the big Mary, mother of God, Star of the Sea, Holy Virgin, etc., etc.
Otherwise, it was easy to get mixed up. After all, are we talking about the Mary who spent time with Jesus? The one who lived in the desert? The one covered only by her long, tangled hair? The one with the lion? The one that mystified even a saint? Or, wait, aren’t they all the same person?
This “composite Magdalene”, for better or for worse, became a powerful symbol for women. She demonstrated a feminine religious experience that expressed the transformative intensity of faith and shame. She showed the many ways in which women could set themselves apart from the world.
Of course, the story of the penitent Magdalene does not hold much sympathy for the unrepentant or unashamed. You've got to really be sorry if God's going to forgive you. And yet, you sometimes get the sense that Mary Magdalene has perhaps not lost her sensuality. She has discarded her wordly things, to be certain, but she still luxuriates in her pain, her repentance. Look at the long, rambling hair she sports, a flag that declares her sorrow and utter otherness. Why can’t she keep herself quiet, as the nuns would do? Why can’t she just cut her hair and come down from the mountain?
These are not perfect analogues to anyone’s life but their own. Still, it is likely that Baby Doe, who grew up Catholic, seemingly lapsed, and then became ultra-religious, heard their stories over and over. They became lodged in her brain and, as her life went along its course, she could have helped but seen the parallels. It must have seemed like holy writ.
The Tabors were happy and comfortable for a while, but it wouldn’t last. Horace, who had put so much of the family’s funds into mining interests, lost their money in the Silver Panic of 1893. They wandered for a while, living in less glamorous lodgings and scraping by. Thanks to some well-placed friends, Horace eventually managed to get an appointment as the postmaster of Denver. It was humble work, but work nonetheless.
Then Horace died of appendicitis in 1899. Elizabeth was left alone with her two daughters, nearly penniless and still shunned by society. Soon after her father’s death, Lily married and moved away to Chicago. She had as little contact with her mother as possible. Indeed, Lily appeared to forget her former life through sheer will, though she still occasionally communicated with her mother and sister.
Baby Doe and Silver moved to Leadville, into a cabin next to the Matchless Mine. The Matchless was little more than a hole in the ground and worth about the same. However, Baby Doe held supposedly held onto it because of Horace’s dying words: “Hold onto the Matchless mine, it will make millions.”
Baby Doe did not hold onto the Matchless, however. This was practically impossible, given the state of her bank account. Instead, she handed it over to new owners, who let her live in a cabin on the property. As of today, the Matchless has not made its millions.
In her glory days as Horace Tabor’s second wife, Elizabeth was one of the most stylish women in the West, if not the most warmly received. Now, she walked around Leadville or Denver in old work boots and frayed clothes. Her words were garbled and confusing.
She appeared to have descended into a fevered realm somewhere just beyond reality. She had little money, few close friends, and a small, fragmented family.
Baby soon gained a reputation as an eccentric. She became more and more religious. Her continued denial of basic needs — sturdy clothes, heating, enough food to eat — became a mea culpa. Elizabeth now repented for the extravagance of her previous life as a quasi-nun living in a rotting cabin by a worthless mine.
How often did she kneel and pray for forgiveness in the freezing cabin? Was she even then remembering the rich fabric she wore, as if it were still running through her fingers? Did she ever wear red, as the Magdalene supposedly did, or had the old Elizabeth thought the metaphor would be too precise?
Silver Dollar did not agree with her mother’s newfound asceticism. She moved to Chicago and proceeded to live a reckless life, as if she were the inverse twin of her mother.
Silver attempted to become, variously, a poet, a burlesque performer, an actress, and a novelist (her book was called Star of Blood). Nothing came of her efforts. The writer David Karsner said “The best that can be said of Silver’s book is that it was printed — not published”.
She died in 1925, aged 36, scalded to death in her small, shabby apartment. Numerous sources claim that she burned herself while in the midst of an alcoholic binge. Some spread lurid rumors about Silver’s more salacious attempts to make ends meet.
Baby Doe refused to acknowledge her daughter’s death. She sometimes told people that Silver Dollar had become a nun, somewhere far away from Colorado. It must have seemed like a fitting alternate end for her daughter: a life completely unlike Baby’s, a holy one based on purity of thought, where Silver would not be troubled by the rise and fall of the market, or lose sleep over money and men.
In 1935, neighbors saw that there no smoke rising from her cabin’s chimney. There had been a rough snowstorm and so the neighbors decided to check on Baby Doe. They found her body on the floor, frozen. She was 81. It had been ten years since Silver Dollar died.
Weren’t they both strange women set apart from society? Weren’t they both penitent for the indulgences of their earlier years? Didn’t they both live in the wilderness, twisting apart their minds and bodies for the love of their God and the shame of their past?
Maybe Elizabeth took comfort in it. Even Mary Magdalene, reformed whore, could get into heaven if she was truly sorry.
There were no lions to bury Baby Doe. However, the people of Leadville did make an effort. They dynamited the frozen ground in order to dig her winter grave, though it was still frozen deep into the earth.
What remained of Elizabeth didn’t stay for long, however. The wealthy citizens of Denver, after decades of ignoring her, had raised enough money to send her casket back to the city. She was eventually buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
She was buried next to Horace.
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