But in whatever form it is presented, popular or scholarly, Baby Doe’s story has an astonishing vitality. Her name is as imperishable as the mountains she chose to live in for the greater part of her life. Her cabin in Leadville was for many years torn at and carved upon by souvenir-hunting tourists. Finally, it was a desolate ruin, until, in 1953, I spearheaded a civic movement to restore the cabin and open it as a tourist attraction. The cabin is now an almost exact replica of the home she lived in. Also, some of the fragile gold furniture and jewel box, salvaged from her heyday, may be seen at the Teller House in Central City. Until 1958 her famous suite could be seen at the Windsor Hotel in Denver, and her wedding dress and other Tabor relics are on exhibit at the Colorado Historical Museum. She is immortal. So let us have Baby Doe Tabor tell us of her life in nearly her own words—many she actually used in talking to Sue Bonnie and others I have imagined as consonant with her character and the facts of her story. _Chapter One_ “Oh, you are too beautiful to work, my lovely Bessie. I want you to keep your arms always as exquisite as they are now. Never spoil those curves!” I can remember my mother pushing me away from a scrub-board with these words when I was a girl. It was in the kitchen of our home in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, just before the great fires of 1874 and 1875. Papa was still quite rich, even though he had been badly hit in the horrible fire of 1859. Later he was nearly ruined by these last ones which practically destroyed our whole town twice in little more than a year. Mama was a darling. She had a gay, uncomplaining disposition, although she bore fourteen children and life was far from easy for her. She was very good to all us children but I think, in some ways, I was her favorite of the eleven who grew up. She always said she wanted me to have all the things she had missed and little did we think, then, how fabulously and how violently her wish would be fulfilled. My parents were Irish and were very good Catholics. Before St. Peter’s Church was erected in 1850, divine services were held in our home since my father, Peter McCourt, was a good friend of Father Bonduel. Father Bonduel was the first missionary priest of that wild lumber country. He had spent twelve years with the Indians of Lake Poygan before he came to Oshkosh, and his spirit was an inspiring one.