Is there a place in heaven for Stagecoach Mary?

 So she liked to drink, in the wild saloons of the Wild West. So she smoked and she cussed and she knew how to put a bullet where she wanted it to go. A woman had to be tough out there to survive. I think there's a place in heaven for Stagecoach Mary, aka Mary Fields. 

I don't know her birthdate. Chances are, she didn't either. See, she was born a slave in Tennessee, most likely around 1832. And from there, her wild adventure of a life began. Emancipation after the Civil War. Then work on the Robert E. Lee Mississippi River steamboat. From there, working for a judge, then for his sister, Mother Amadeus, a nun at a Roman Catholic convent in Ohio. 

Some years later, in 1884, we find our Mary at St. Peter's Mission in Montana Territory, where she had hastened upon the news that her beloved Mother Amadeus was sick. She was hearty, potty-mouthed and very helpful. Too hearty and too potty-mouthed for the local bishop, and her days at the Mission were abruptly terminated. 

So she opened a tavern. Went bankrupt. She was now sixty. A single, black woman in her upper years in 1895. Her prospects for success at anything were highly unlikely. But Mary was no dainty flower. She and her rifle secured a job as a mail carrier via stagecoach through wild Montana. Thus she became the first African-American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service. Her firearm skills came in quite handy fighting off wolves and bandits. For snowstorms and blizzards, she had to rely on dogged determination to get the job done and to survive. 

But rough and tough Stagecoach Mary, still loved by the nuns if not the bishop, and the town of Cascade, had a soft spot. It was said she loved children and they loved her. When she wasn't risking her life delivering the mail, she hired out as a babysitter, at least for the children of parents willing to overlook her rowdy reputation. 

There have been a few films about her -- but if anyone ever deserved a big-screen epic movie, it's her and I hope somebody takes it up someday. In the meantime, it's cool to know she at least has an asteroid named in her honor. 

I of course have NO idea what Stagecoach Mary liked to eat. But here's a link to a video that explores some of the saloon foods she might have tried. 

 https://www.tastinghistory.com/episodes/porkandbeans