Florentine Chicken for Fredy

This last weekend was Holocaust Memorial Day. Our meal tonight is to honor one of our LGBT heroes of that awful experience. Please read about Fredy Hirsch after the recipe.

 

Chicken thighs simmered in a creamed spinach with tomatoes and a touch of roasted garlic is just the thing to impress and provide a five star restaurant experience at your table tonight. 

 

Ingredients

• 1 whole garlic head
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 4 chicken thighs
• 1 onion chopped
• ¼ tsp salt + ¼ tsp pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup 1% low-fat milk
• 1 cup unsalted chicken broth
• 1kg chopped spinach thawed & drained
• 3 roma tomatoes diced
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°. Cut the top off garlic head; discard top. Rub cut side of garlic head with olive oil. Remove white papery skin from garlic head (do not peel or separate the cloves). Wrap garlic in foil. Bake at 400° for 55 minutes or until tender; cool slightly.

Separate cloves; squeeze to extract garlic pulp. Discard skins. Place garlic pulp in a bowl; mash with a fork. 
 

While that is roasting, you have plenty of time to do your cutting: Dice the tomatoes, slice the mushrooms, chop the onions.

Set out the chicken thighs and dust with cornstarch to dry out the skins. This will give a nice crunch.

Place the thawed spinach in a colander to drain and blot with paper towels.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan; cook 5 minutes on the skin side just to give a nice color and crunch to the skin, remove and cover with foil. 
 

Reduce heat to medium-low. Add butter to pan; swirl until butter melts. Add the onions and mushrooms. Stir and cook for about 5 minutes until onions start to turn clear and water is cooked out of mushrooms, giving a nice dark color.
Add in the flour; cook 15 seconds, stirring constantly. Stir in garlic pulp, milk, and chicken stock; bring to a boil. Cook 3 minutes or until slightly thickened. 
 

Stir in spinach and let cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the diced tomato and place the thighs back into the mix. Cover and let simmer on low for about 15 minutes or until chicken thighs have reached a temp of 160 degrees.
 

Plate the chicken to a platter and spoon out the spinach mixture to serve as a side. Wonderful aroma, beautiful colors and a very healthy dish to serve.

For our music: Here is something for our sick world!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4LCoYj5LLQ
Happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

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Nutritional Information

• Calories 488 Fat 12.6g Sodium 563mg

Fredy Hirsch 
 

Fredy Hirsch was an athlete and PE teacher. He was Jewish and gay. As a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camps he saved the lives of hundreds of children. While most academia try to whitewash him from history, the few that still remember this young man do so with love and a sparkle in the eye.
This brave young man stood up to some of the most evil the world has ever seen. By force of his personality, secured just enough opportunities to save many of the youngest victims of the Holocaust. 
 
Hirsch was born in Aachen, Germany, in 1916.

After the passage of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, Hirsch moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, probably illegally. According to German historian Dirk Kämper, the author of the first biography of Hirsch, he may have also been motivated to escape the increasing persecution of gay men in Germany.

There he lived openly with his lover Jan Mautner, a slightly older medical student, between 1936 and 1939.

Their relationship was well known in the city, according to Holocaust survivor Ruth Kopečková.

Fredy organized and ran youth camps and worked to help young Jews hoping to emigrate to Palestine. When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939 and banned Jews from public places, Hirsch found a playground where the children could still exercise and managed to smuggle 18 of his youngsters out of the country to neutral Denmark.

Hirsch was one of the first Jews to be transported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in December 1941, where he was forced to help build that camp. His managed to get an appointment with the housing department. Later, Hirsch became the deputy to Egon Redlich, the leader of the Youth Services Department; (Redlich personally disliked Hirsch, but respected his competence and leadership ability).

At Theresienstadt, the children lived separately from the adults. Fredy knew he must insist on the children maintaining self-esteem, discipline, regular exercise and strict hygiene—even holding cleanliness competitions—in order to maximize their chances of survival.

Hirsch recruited adult prisoners to become involved in education and persuaded the guards that it would be in their interest to have the children learn German. In fact, the teachers taught other subjects, including history, music, and Judaism, in Czech, as well as a few German phrases to recite at inspections. A chorus rehearsed regularly, a children's opera was performed, and the walls of the barracks were painted with Disney characters by Dina Gottliebová.

Because the block was so orderly, it was shown off to SS men who worked in other parts of the camp. SS men who directly participated in the extermination process, especially Dr. Josef Mengele, visited frequently and helped organize better food for the children.

The Germans did not actively oppose his activities because they felt that it helped maintain order.

Children 14 and older had to work; Hirsch tried to get them jobs working in the vegetable gardens because he believed that this work would improve their health. 

Survivors often remarked on Hirsch's self-confident attitude, good looks, and careful appearance, which had a stabilizing effect on other prisoners. He paid attention to his posture and appearance, keeping his hair combed and boots polished, and reportedly continuing to grease back his hair as was the fashion of the day. Hirsch was able to establish a good relationship with SS guards even though he was Jewish and openly gay. According to Yehuda Bacon, "he spoke German as well as the Nazis, he had charm and a tip-top look. He knew how to talk to the SS. He was dressed like a soldier." Pavel Stránský, who had been an educator on the children's block at Auschwitz, testified that "[t]he SS treated him almost like a human being".

Using his influence with the Germans, Hirsch obtained better food for the children and food parcels addressed to prisoners who had died. The soup for the children was thicker than for other prisoners; allegedly it was from the Gypsy camp and contained semolina. The children's barracks also received additional coal and was slightly better heated.

Hirsch convinced the Germans to hold roll call inside the barracks, so the children were spared the hours-long ordeal of standing outside in all weather. After another transport arrived in December 1943, there were about 700 children in the family camp; Mautner was also on this transport. Hirsch tried to make contact with these children but was caught. Allegedly for this violation, he was deported to Auschwitz on 8 September. 

 

There again, Hirsch used his influence with the Germans, to obtain better food for the children. The children's barracks also received additional coal and was slightly better heated.
Hirsch persuaded them to allocate a second barracks for children aged three to eight so that the older children could prepare a performance of Snow White, which the SS had requested.

The children appreciated Hirsch's efforts on their behalf, and threw a surprise party for him on 11 February 1944, his 28th birthday. A delegation from the Reich Main Security Office and the German Red Cross visited the family camp. The visitors were most interested in the children's barracks. The most notable visitor, Adolf Eichmann, commented favorably about the cultural activity of the children at Birkenau.

It seems ironic that Fredy Hirsch, who fought the system of the concentration camps would not die by the hands of the Germans!

One story goes that Hirsch was asked to lead a revolt because he was so popular and it was clear to the prisoners Germany was losing the war.

He knew that a revolt without weapons and adequate preparation would spell certain death for all the children under his protection. It was said that Hirsch then committed suicide by swallowing Luminal (phenobarbital) pills.

However other survivors who knew Hirsch personally, were certain he did not commit suicide. Hirsch had simply requested a tranquilizer to calm himself, but the doctors, whom Mengele promised would be allowed to live, sought to prevent the uprising and gave him an overdose. 

 

We may never know what ended the life of this dedicated 28 year old gay man. Fredy's partner Jan survived Auschwitz, as well as at least one other camp and being shipped back to Theresienstadt. He became a doctor and found a new partner. But he did not escape unscathed: he had contracted tuberculosis in the camps and died in Prague in 1951.

Hirsch remains deeply etched in the memories of the survivors who knew him, some of whom are sure that he saved their lives. “People loved him,” one researcher reported. “Their eyes sparkled when they talked about him. Not one had any problem talking about his sexuality. People miss him, and they accept him as he was.” 

 

And there were more – not to mention the countless numbers whose exact fate remains unknown. Gay men; killed simply because they loved another man.
If you take one thing from all this, as we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, note the Nazis didn’t just kill individuals. One of the gay men who died might have gone on to invent something incredible, they might have become a great diplomat or leader who avoided another murderous war, the younger ones might have gone on to become scientists or doctors, who found a cure for cancer, dementia, ebola, heart disease, or HIV. The common cold – who knows?
The Nazis didn’t just kill individuals: they killed the future.

Balsamic Glazed Meatloaf

In this extreme cold weather we always look in on our older neighbors. One in particular had mentioned how much she missed a good meat loaf. Well right away I thought of this simple version.

Don't add too much! When you mix in bread crumbs with egg and a broth, let the mix sit for 10 minutes so the crumbs can absorb the liquid. Brush with a tangy glaze and let rest when it is out of the oven. This gives a good time to do your microwave vegetables! Get into that habit and everyone will rave about you value meals!

Ingredients

• 1½ Lbs ground beef
• ½ Cup bread crumbs
• ½ cup beef broth (No Salt Added)
• 1 egg beaten
• ¼ cup minced onion
• 1 tsp Worcestershire
• ½ tsp salt + ¼ tsp pepper
• ¼ tsp sage
• ¼ tsp celery salt
• ¼ tsp garlic powder

Glaze:

• ¼ cup ketchup
• 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbs brown sugar

Instructions

Cut up the onion.

Combine all meatloaf ingredients in a bowl, slave uses a short wooden spoon. Let sit on counter while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with cooking spray. Turn the loaf mixture into that and shape into the form of a loaf, leaving room on the sides.

Make an indention on the top to hold the glaze.

Stir together the glaze ingredients and spoon over the top. 
 

Bake in a preheated oven until the internal temperature reaches 170 degrees, about 65-70 minutes.
When time is up, remove from oven and let rest while you do your microwave vegetables. Slave also made some simple mashed potatoes for this meal.

Notes
I recommend using a thermometer to determine the cooking time the first time you make this recipe. I typically shape mine relatively flat and oblong and it usually cooks in about 65-70 minutes. A more traditional 4x4x8 loaf will take about 90 minutes.

A lined baking pan held most of the meatloaf along with the mixed vegetables and mashed potatoes. Cover with foil. That way the person you are taking this to can place in oven to heat up when they chose to eat!
For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkesTBLwPSI
This takes so little effort and gives such great rewards!
So happy to be serving my Master Indy!

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

A Hamburger Stew In memorandum: the Loving Men of Jamestown

This simple, hearty stew is dedicated to the long lost loving men of Jamestown Colony. Learn about the men of four hundred years ago in a short article after the recipe.

A simple stew you can quickly throw together. It just tastes like you have been slaving away all day over a steaming cauldron. Perfect for when Old Man Winter is being disagreeable. 

Ingredients

• 1½ lbs ground beef
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 large can (28 ounces) stewed tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup baby carrots cut in 2 – 3 pieces each
• 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced potato
• 2 cups beef broth low sodium
• ½ cup uncooked rice
• 2 tsp salt + 1 tsp pepper to taste

Directions

Do your cutting: chop the onion, cut up the carrots and slice the celery, set aside in a bowl.

In a Dutch oven on the cook top, cook beef and onions over medium heat until meat is no longer pink (about 8 minutes); drain well.

Add the tomatoes with their juice, carrots, celery, potatoes, broth, rice, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. 

 

Reduce heat; cover and simmer 30 minutes or until vegetables and rice are tender.

Uncover; simmer 20-30 minutes longer or until thickened to desired consistency.
If you wish a thicker stew: Stir about ¼ cup of beef broth into 2 Tbs of corn starch, then mix this into the stew to thicken.
This is a good time to heat up any crusty bread to go with this hearty meal.

I've found the song for the loving men of Jamestown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP5ASsi-5aM

• Freeze option: Freeze cooled stew in freezer containers. Heat through in a saucepan, stirring occasionally and adding a little more broth if necessary.

It also is a dish that is very healthy for diabetics and anyone who is carb conscious.

Nutrition Facts

1 cup: 191 calories, 7g fat (3g saturated fat), 35mg cholesterol, 689mg sodium, 21g carbohydrate (8g sugars, 2g fiber), 12g protein.

This is a gluten-free meal. 
 

So happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

===========================

In memorandum:

The Loving Men of Jamestown

Does anyone remember what little you were taught about Jamestown Colony? Back even before King James commissioned a new translation of the Bible (King James Version) the English needed a colony on the North American Continent. It was to be a buffer to stop the growth of Spanish rule rising from the south.

In June 1606, King James I of England granted the Virginia Company a charter allowing them to create a settlement in North America. The group of 105 settlers and 39 crew members set sail in December 1606 and settled Jamestown on May 14, 1607. The settlers knew it was to be an all male enterprise. The Company made it clear that it would be a long time before any women would arrive. We can not know all of what motivated these men.

About half of the men of the Virginia Company were wealthy gentlemen and their personal servants. Neither would have known much about farming. There were a few farmers and artisans on the ship, but not nearly enough workers to plant and grow the food that the men would need.

Historians believe that these men intended to survive by hunting, gathering berries and roots, and by trading or taking food from Indians. We know that this enterprise offered the chance that after 7 years, they could buy land! That was not possible in England.

Still we wonder if they realized that the men would naturally group together, forming deep relationships and living together like families. These were men in their prime, of course there was going to be sex! This was only reasonable to assume.

Historian Larry Kramer summed the situation up like this:

“Jamestown was initially an all-male settlement. ...in subsequent years...male colonists outnumbered women by roughly six to one in the 1620’s and four to one in later decades... It is difficult to believe that a group of young and notoriously unbridled men remained celibate for an extended period of time. It seems likely that some male settlers deprived of female companionship would have turned to each other instead.

“Settlers in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake often paired off to form all-male households, living and working together. ...it would be truly remarkable if all the male-only partnerships lacked a sexual ingredient... IT SEEMS REASONABLE TO ASSUME, that much of the sex that took place... was sodomitical.”

In the book: Sexual Revolution in Early America, by Richard Godbeer he states:

“My own research for my book, The American People, has revealed that not only were male-only partnerships quite in evidence, but services were often conducted to join the partners “Under God,” and that, of equal interest, was their adoption of Indian children to raise as their own.

I hope it will not be too much longer before scholars will be able to deal with the fact that Jamestown was in fact not only America’s first colony but its first homosexual community.”

The first two English women did not arrive until late in 1608, and more came in subsequent years.  Men outnumbered women, however, for most of the 17th century.

Friends, lets face it, the first English colony was a hot bed of gay sex!

A book titled A Map of Virginia, describing the early history of that colony through the eyes of its settlers, was published in Oxford, England 1612, under the editorship of John Smith, with contributions by himself and other eyewitnesses.
Chapter two relates that within ten days after June 15, 1607, when the ships which had brought the colonists departed back to England, the remaining settlers were "oppressed" by "extreme weakness and sickness." The "cause" was said to be that while the ships had remained the settlers'

allowance was somewhat bettered, by a daily proportion of biscuit which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give or exchange with us, for money, saxefras, furs, or love. [A printed marginal note identifies this passage as "The sailors' abuses."]

The document suggests that "love," seemingly meaning sexual favors, was one of those items which the first American settlers exchanged, along with money, sassafras, and furs, to keep themselves alive. In that interpretation, the term "love" apparently referred to sexual contacts between men. Since there were no women among the Virginia colonists in 1607, the "gratification" of the "animal instinct" cited above would make this the earliest documented instance of carnal relations between Englishmen in the New World.

Is another interpretation plausible? Did "love" simply refer to "affection"? Was it likely that seventeenth-century English sailors would have traded stolen biscuit for the settlers' affection, or given biscuit away because of their affection for the settlers?

Oh Grow UP!

The existence of what may be a casual reference to a sexual exchange between males, in an account published and publicly distributed in England, at that time, begins to be explained by its historical context.

Colonist John Smith and his close associates wrote their version of events "against the wishes of the Virginia Company," and together had it printed with the help of a group of sympathetic clergymen.

The "discourse," it was said, "is no Judge of men's manners," and was "only a reporter of their actions in Virginia, not [intended] to disgrace any, accuse any, excuse any, nor flatter any."

Does the casualness of the reference to the exchange of "love" for biscuit suggest that such life and death barters were common knowledge among some seventeenth-century Englishmen? You decide.

We do know that things did not go well!

An unfamiliar climate, as well as brackish water supply and lack of food, led to disease and death.

Disease, sickness, and famine quickly set in. Jamestown was located in a very unhealthy part of the Chesapeake. The James River is a tidal river, meaning that the water ebbs and flows in relation to the tide. It is, therefore, a slow moving river and bacteria and germs thrived in the water. Swampy land bred mosquitoes, which carried malaria.

They were dying from swellings, fluxes, fevers, by famine, and sometimes by wars. Food was running low, though then Chief Powhatan starting to send gifts of food to help the English.

At the end of the first year, there were only 34 men still alive. The colony survived, but only barely. Over the next thirteen years, more than 6,000 people would emigrate to Jamestown, but only 1,300 would survive.

That winter of 1609-10 is known as the "Starving Time." During that winter the English were afraid to leave the fort, due to a legitimate fear of being killed by the Powhatan Indians. As a result they ate anything they could: various animals, leather from their shoes and belts, and sometimes fellow settlers who had already died. By early 1610 most of the settlers, 80-90% according to William Strachey, had died due to starvation and disease.

We look back from our modern viewpoint and wonder how they ever made it. Was this truly an Impossible Dream. Here we have an example of how these loving men strived for something better. Yet so many historians today still try to erase much of the character of these souls. Let us remember them, as brave men, clinging together with love as they made history. 

 

These loving men of Jamestown deserve to be remembered as LGBT heroes.

One-Eyed Charley Roasted Potatoes

Tonight's meal is dedicated to a Gold Rush Legend stage coach driver called One-eyed Charley! Read about this wild west character is a short article after the recipe. This is being presented for our first pot luck dinner of the year. 

 

It will sound strange but this meal was fixed originally in a dutch oven on an open campfire. Here by using modern techniques and helpers we present a taste of the Wild West without resorting to sitting on rocks! Potatoes, onions a bit of garlic roasted in root beer! Yes you read that right! Try it, you will be amazed at the flavors you can pull out of that pot!

 

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb. sack mini red potatoes
• 3lbs bag of yellow onions caramelized
• 5 large garlic cloves minced
• Root Beer soda
  

Instructions

Night before: An easy way to caramelize the onions is to wipe out the slow cooker and spray it. Melt 1 stick of butter in the microwave, set aside. Carefully using a mandolin, slice the onions into the cooker. Use the whole 3 lbs bag because any extra will go to good use! Stir in the butter and cover. Cook on low overnight, stirring once or twice. Cook for a full 12 hours to get a nice light mahogany color. The onions will be naturally sweet and you don't have to stand over them stirring for hours! 
 

You will be using about 1 and a half cups for this dish. Let the rest cool and store. You could bag it and keep in freezer for a year. Caramelized onions are like gold in soups and casserole or even just spooned on a hamburger!

When the onions are nearly ready:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cut up the garlic and set aside.

Wash the potatoes and thick slice them into a large bowl.

Stir the garlic into the onions then stir that into the potatoes.

Spray a baking dish and pour in the potato/onion mixture.

Pour the root beer in until it reaches about halfway up the potato mixture. 

Cover and let set about 10-15 minutes.  Do not forget this step!

Bake at 375 degrees F., uncovered,  for about 40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. 

You may need to add a little more root beer while cooking to make sure it the dish doesn't become too dry.

What a wonderful dish to bring to our first pot luck dinner of the year!

For our music –esp for Charley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU8tQpCZEzg

So happy to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

 

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Charley Parkhurst, A Gold Rush Legend

 

An illustration of Charley Parkhurst. Earning the nickname “One-Eyed Charley” after being kicked in the eye by a horse, which was perhaps startled by a rattlesnake.

Please note this seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice using the new pronouns. Any mistakes are not mean as disrespect. They are only from an old dog trying to learn new tricks, please forgive.

Charley Parkhurst was a legendary driver of six-horse stagecoaches during California’s Gold Rush — the “best whip in California,” by one account.

The job was treacherous and not for the faint of heart. This was before the Civil War and before the railroads. These drivers had to pull cargoes of gold over tight mountain passes and open desert.

They were in constant peril from rattlesnakes and desperadoes. It was not an easy life, but Parkhurst had the look for it: “short and stocky,” a whiskey drinker, cigar smoker and tobacco chewer who wore a black eye patch after being kicked in the left eye by a horse.

And there was one other attribute, carefully hidden from the outside world. When Parkhurst died in 1879 at age 67, of cancer of the tongue, a doctor discovered that the famous stagecoach driver was biologically a woman.

“The discoveries of the successful concealment for protracted periods of the female sex under the disguise of the masculine are not infrequent, but the case of Charley Parkhurst may fairly claim to rank as by all odds the most astonishing of them all,” The San Francisco Call wrote not long after ver death, in an article that was reprinted in The New York Times under the headline “Thirty Years in Disguise.”

Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst was born in 1812 in New Hampshire. Abandoned by parents, ve was consigned to an orphanage, from which historians believe ve ran away wearing boys’ clothes. Charlotte wound up in Worcester, Mass., where ve got a job cleaning horse stables. There also found a mentor, Ebenezer Balch, who taught ver how to handle horses.

“The story goes that while in the poor house Parkhurst discovered that boys have a great advantage over girls in the battle of life, and desired to become a boy,” The Providence Journal in Rhode Island wrote in an article after ver death, as reporters on both coasts tried to piece together ver life. In fact we still do not know much about this interesting soul.

After working as a stagecoach driver on the East Coast for several years, Parkhurst journeyed west. At that time many traveled by ship to Panama, traversed a short overland route, and then boarded another ship to San Francisco, where they arrived in 1850 or 1851.

In California, Charley quickly became known for the ability to move passengers and gold safely over important routes between gold-mining outposts and major towns like San Francisco or Sacramento.

“Only a rare breed of men (and women),” wrote the historian Ed Sams in his 2014 book “The Real Mountain Charley,” “could be depended upon to ignore the gold fever of the 1850s and hold down a steady job of grueling travel over narrow one-way dirt roads that swerved around mountain curves, plummeting into deep canyons and often forded swollen, icy streams.”

Charley was considered one of the safest stagecoach drivers — not a daredevil, like so many of the contemporaries — and had a special rapport with the horses. Parkhurst drove for Wells Fargo, at least once moving a large cargo of gold across the country.

A 1969 article about Parkhurst in the Travel section of The New York Times evoked some of the perils they faced: “Indians and grizzly bears also were a major menace. The state lines of California in the post-Gold Rush period were certainly no place for a lady, and nobody ever accused Charley of being one.”

Parkhurst’s story has long been shrouded in myth and thinly sourced anecdotes.

In “Charley’s Choice,” a 2008 work of historical fiction, the writer Fern J. Hill imagines that as a child, Parkhurst told of dreams of driving a stagecoach. When the friend replied, “You can’t, you’re a girl,” young Charlotte decided then and there to live as a man.

And in another novel, “The Whip,” by Karen Kondazian (2012), Parkhurst is cast as a straight woman who wanted her freedom.

“I would have done that,” Ms. Kondazian said in a telephone interview. “You can kind of use her in any way you want, because we don’t have the total facts about her.”

Some historians say that had Parkhurst lived today, ve might well have identified as gay or transgender.

“Being gay at that time was seen as negative,” said Mark Jarrett, a textbook publisher who included Parkhurst in a new book intended to comply with a California law requiring social studies curriculum to recognize the historical role of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“It was illegal, it was a crime,” he said, “so people didn’t go around professing what their real identities were. They were hidden identities.”

In the late 1860s, as the railroads grew across the country, stagecoach driving became a dying profession. Parkhurst retired and opened a saloon for a time, and also worked as a lumberjack in Northern California.

After Parkhurst died, The Santa Cruz Sentinel wrote, “Her accumulations were regular and her wealth considerable at the time of her death, which took place in a lonely cabin, with no one near and her secret her own.”

Parkhurst could claim one other distinction: An 1867 registry in Santa Cruz County lists a Charles Darkey Parkhurst from New Hampshire as having registered to vote — more than 50 years before the 19th Amendment gave women the franchise.

Even in the 19th century, however, there was admiration for Parkhurst’s feat of disguise. “The only people who have occasion to be disturbed by the career of Charley Parkhurst are the gentlemen who have so much to say about ‘woman’s sphere’ and ‘the weaker vessel,’ ” The Providence Journal wrote. “It is beyond question that one of the soberest, pleasantest, most expert drivers in this State, and one of the most celebrated of the world-famed California drivers was a woman. And is it not true that a woman had done what woman can do?”

In spite of what little we truly know about Charley we have more than enough to include this story in any mention of LGBT heroes and legends.