Welcome to our episode about the Unsinkable Molly Brown - a real woman who actually went by Maggie Brown an whose life pretty much had nothing to do with the musical named after her but not really because she went by Maggie, not Molly.
Welcome to our episode about the Unsinkable Molly Brown - a real woman who actually went by Maggie Brown an whose life pretty much had nothing to do with the musical named after her but not really because she went by Maggie, not Molly.
So Carrie, where are you?
Kathy:I at my sister's house, I was just,
Andrea:It's like, are you in the bathroom?
Carey:the shit and I was like, oh shit, it's, and they said something that reminded me of the podcast, I don't know. And I was like, oh crap. I'm supposed to be doing a podcast. So instead of driving home for 20 I just did it here. That was my forehead. This is really
drea-molly-margaret:we
Lisa:Carrie looks like she should be in a booster seat. You need a booster. look so short. I don't think you've ever looked
Kathy:I know
Carey:I know
drea-molly-margaret:I know you guys make me feel really short, but I, I guess you're all a lot tall, not a lot taller. Kathy's not that much taller, are you? I dunno how tall you are. Everybody else makes me feel short.
Lisa:You should be around my
Carey:on what, it depends on what shoes you're wearing.
drea-molly-margaret:Oh yeah, I had these, I swear for Nick's birthday I wore, I swear to God. They're like, there's gotta been like five, six inches,
Kathy:like as tall as I was.
drea-molly-margaret:I know
Lisa:inch heel, is that what
drea-molly-margaret:they're not heels. They were wet. I'll go get them. But you guys
Meags:Are they platforms? They must be
drea-molly-margaret:their
Carey:I mean, what I mean, does Andrea have shoes at art platform?
Meags:Yeah, it was, that was what I was
Kathy:right? I mean,
drea-molly-margaret:Not go out shoes right back.
Lisa:Is she really going to get those juice?
Carey:She's gonna get her
Meags:Is
Lisa:Well, it's a, she keeps reminding me it's a podcast and it's not a visual medium.
Meags:this means she could put a picture of her shoes on the internet and I can't take that away from her. The joy is too big. It's too great.
Lisa:See your shoes. I used to be able to wear, I used to love heels. I got really into it in my early thirties, but I, my feet hate them. Now look at those
Meags:pretty fabulous
drea-molly-margaret:I know they're pretty, they're like really tall.
Lisa:so, so describe them for our listeners,
Andrea:I will describe them. They're tall and they, they're platforms, but like they're platform. What is your sh your two, your shoes, your your Toes show. So So they're sandals and they're really tall and they're like, I don't even know how tall they're, but they also are furry. They're like animal fur, like cat.
Carey:Chee, they're furry, cheetah, printed, open to platform shoes.
drea-molly-margaret:Yes, exactly what Kathy said. it's, they're hard to walk in actually. They're so tall. All right. How has everybody been?
Kathy:I've had a whirlwind of a couple of weeks. I got a job offer to move to New York.
Carey:What?
Meags:What.
Kathy:Yeah, Manhattan, New York, not just like other New York.
Lisa:Wow.
Kathy:I, I, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't think I'm moving to Manhattan cuz I don't think I can afford it. Like
Carey:serious.
Kathy:at the apartments, even though it would come with a good raise, looking at the apartments, it's like, holy shit.
Lisa:Yeah, when my brother worked in Manhattan, he, he lives in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan. Now he works from home, but that's what
Kathy:Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it, it, it's cheaper if you move out to the boroughs, but. Not that much cheaper. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, you know, with like$2,100 a month, we'll buy you. It's a very, very small one bedroom. Actually not, I mean it's really a studio that they decided to put a wall up to. And they described the bedrooms as. This will fit a queen size bed or This will fit a queen size bed. And when they say that, they don't mean like you got any nightstands, You have like a, I dunno, I guess you open the door and just jump into bed, but
Meags:Yeah. Yep.
Carey:Probably not a door.
Kathy:Right,
drea-molly-margaret:a door?
Meags:Well,
Kathy:to use screens and curtains a lot. It's yeah, really. I mean, it is like$2,100 for 500 square feet is not unusual from what I've seen.
Carey:Yeah,
drea-molly-margaret:That sounds right.
Meags:Yeah.
Carey:sounds cheap
Kathy:that, that, that's a big if, but it was nice to be asked for
drea-molly-margaret:That's very exciting. Congratulations.
Kathy:yeah. Yeah, so I mean, I, I was really considering it until I like sat down and mapped it out and they have this crazy thing where real estate brokers, So you have to pay. In order to get into a place, you gotta pay your rent, your deposit, which is a month rent, and then the broker fee, which is a month's rent. And you would think, oh, I hired a broker. They're going to show me apartments. I'm gonna walk around New York. And they're gonna sh no. You tell the broker where you wanna go and they open the door. And for that, if you rent that apartment, they get a month's. So we are all in the wrong business. We all need to go be real estate brokers in Manhattan. I can't even imagine how much money they make, but it, it, it just boggles my mind that they don't do anything and they get a month's rent. So,
drea-molly-margaret:Here, lemme come open these doors for you.
Kathy:that's just, you know, it just seems to be the way it is in New York that like everything just costs a little bit more you know, they're just gonna charge you
Meags:pack that many people onto one tiny island,
Kathy:Yeah. Yeah.
Meags:You gotta have a lot of systems and processes and stuff. Every time. Every time we go through the city, my kids are like, holy cow. so many people. And I'm like, right. Like, exactly. There's so many people. That's why we like to walk, you know, look down from the George Washington Bridge on it and just keep trucking
Kathy:Yeah, well, I mean, pretty much, I, I think I could only really afford Harlem, which is like not a cheap place any longer. Or
Meags:no cheap places.
Kathy:there's this place called Inwood, which is at the very top of the island and. more affordable. There's also, as you guys might remember, Roosevelt Island from my insane
Carey:Yes. Yes. It's, it's quite developed now.
Kathy:that is developed and you can actually live there. Not only can you live there, it's an air to commute to New York, you know, like,
Meags:Well that's like
Carey:pretty, it looks pretty cool actually.
Meags:a few friends who lived in, where did my cousin live? I feel like Jersey City. But that's, that's a boat. So like you take the boat over every day.
Kathy:that's a, that's a, like Staten Island is cheaper, but you gotta take a boat and every, my boss that I've been talking to is like, you don't wanna live in Staten Island. Nobody wants to live in Staten Island. So I take him at his word.
drea-molly-margaret:I'll. To Long Island pretty soon. For work?
Meags:Long Island.
drea-molly-margaret:Long Island. I love that. It's all one word. Long Island.
Kathy:where George Santas comes from.
Meags:Ugh.
drea-molly-margaret:Are you sure? Are you sure?
Kathy:yeah. I'm not really sure.
drea-molly-margaret:I'm like, I feel like that guy was conjure from the sand.
Meags:Yeah.
drea-molly-margaret:just like.
Lisa:Every day
Kathy:I mean, why do you make up being a Baruch college volleyball player? What the. Never even heard of Baruch College.
drea-molly-margaret:I know he's got a lot of imagination, that's for sure.
Meags:Oh my God.
Kathy:twice. So I mean, that's pretty fucking amazing.
drea-molly-margaret:he's kind of Jewish, but not really at all.
Meags:Oh my God.
Lisa:What he say Jew ish. It's like, oh seriously? That's not even
drea-molly-margaret:that's so
Kathy:Right. Right. And he's still not elected. I, I wonder what the Democrats are doing. Like, did anybody do opposition research?
Lisa:I, can keep thinking, I'm like, who ran against him?
Kathy:even the smallest campaigns have somebody who, you know, you're like,
Lisa:that's their job.
Kathy:I mean, that's just like the
Lisa:That is their job is to investigate. I mean, that's ridiculous.
drea-molly-margaret:I was telling someone that the, yeah, that they definitely missed their, they missed the ball there, you
Kathy:Oh, they totally effed it up and, and the Republicans were super excited cuz this this gay Jewish guy and you know, it was, then they're like, oh, we're so.
drea-molly-margaret:Now he's like, oh wait, he's not Jewish. Oh, we're not sure he's gay,
Meags:Aye. Aye. Aye. Y.
Kathy:Which is a super weird thing to lie about. So
drea-molly-margaret:I know it's true.
Lisa:Well, everything. He's almost everything he's been lying about. It's weird. Like you like the
Kathy:Yeah. Like he didn't work at Golden and Sachs. That's like, you can verify that. I'm sure you could call up hr, there's no privacy laws and be like, Hey, did George Santos work there? And they'd be like, no,
drea-molly-margaret:That's what happened. Yeah.
Lisa:You know, Like when I did the one political campaign I worked on and the state guy I was helping out. He's wearing the state senate. Yeah. I went down his opponent's resume and was calling the schools he listed and everything to make sure he went there. And I mean, that's just basic stuff that you do.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah.
Kathy:Yeah. You give it to like an intern or something like that? Yeah, I would just say it. It's, I don't know what happened, but.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah.
Kathy:is bad and he's member of Congress. So there you have it
drea-molly-margaret:So Lisa, what, what is your, are you gonna focus on a member of Congress today? What is our, what is our topic today?
Lisa:No, I'm not talking about Congress at all though. I am talking about a woman who almost ran, presented then
drea-molly-margaret:Oh, are you gonna tell us about her? To, who the fuck is it
Lisa:Well, I'm gonna,
Meags:Maybe she's gonna give us hints and make us guess.
Lisa:Well sort of, cause I'm gonna tell tell you her name and you guys are gonna tell me what you think you know about her. All right. So I'm gonna talk about, she's an American socialite and her name is Margaret Tobin Brown. Have you guys ever heard of her or know who she that
Kathy:Hmm, not a clue.
drea-molly-margaret:No.
Lisa:I think you guys do know about her. You just dunno cuz everybody refers to her as Molly Brown.
Kathy:Oh,
drea-molly-margaret:know who that is.
Kathy:I'm not
Lisa:You know who Molly Brown is? Never heard of the unsinkable
Kathy:Unsinkable, Molly Brown. She was the passenger on the Titanic
Lisa:She was a passenger on Titanic and she did not sink. That is correct.
Kathy:I think she, she wasn't, she played by Kathy Bates on the movie.
Lisa:She was in the Titanic movie. Like there's Like some old sixties movie and it was starring, oh, what's her name? The actress whose daughter was
Carey:Winston
Lisa:who? Kate Winslet? No you know Princess Leia's mom what's her name?
drea-molly-margaret:Carrie
Kathy:Reynold.
Carey:Debbie Reyn.
Lisa:Debbie Reynolds. Yes. Laid by Debbie Reynolds back in the fifties, I think.
drea-molly-margaret:Is the Molly Brown, is that a, is that a Oh God. A musical also, is
Lisa:Yes. But that is basically a charactature of this person like, Much more to her than than what the musical portrayed her to be.
Carey:why don't you tell us about.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa:for those of you who know who have heard of Molly Brown, where do you think she was born?
drea-molly-margaret:Oh, oh, oh. New
Carey:Missouri.
Lisa:No. No, not New York. Yes, Missouri. Most people think she was born in Colorado, but she was born in Hannibal.
Meags:Ah.
Lisa:she was born on July 18th, 1867. She was the youngest of three siblings, plus she also had two half sisters that were older because her parents who were John Tobin and Joanna Collins, they were both widowed when they met. Each had one child from prior marriages. So they both immigrated here from Ireland and, but they were also abolish abolitionists and they participated in the underground. So up in northern Missouri, that'd be pretty important spot to speak up there in Hannibal. So she also attended grammar school through the eighth grade, which for the time and that area was pretty, pretty big deal to go that far in school. But education was really important to her family and the school is actually run by her.
drea-molly-margaret:Hmm.
Lisa:But then as a teenager, she went to work in a tobacco factory in Hannibal and some places called it a cigar factory. So something to do with smoking there are also stories about like why she moved to Colorado. Like she just went out there to make a bunch of money, but actually she moved out to Leadville, Colorado because her big brother was there and asked her to come and keep house for him.
drea-molly-margaret:I've been to Leadville.
Lisa:Have.
Meags:Is it nice?
Lisa:What's there? What's in Leadville these days?
drea-molly-margaret:There was like a, the thing that I remember is there's like, Local kind of clothing store, but like where they made their own shit so in town. And so, but it's definitely one of those kind of up and coming kind of gente sort of
Carey:but it's like an old mining
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah. It, it was, but now they're trying to bring it back through tourism, you
Carey:Sure.
Lisa:why her brother was there was because he was working some mining business, but she worked at a mercantile store where like the musical and like all the stories about her say that she worked in a saloon, which is far from that. She worked in the drapery department and then she also helped with the local Catholic church and the Irish community there. So not a saloon girl at all. That is, But it's not as exciting,
Carey:Well didn't, sometimes stores also like they were kind of the same.
Lisa:I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's in not too generalized about the Irish community or Catholics since I am a both of those. But you know, I'm sure there was also, if it was owned by an Irish person, I could see them selling, also, selling beer at the Mercantile store.
drea-molly-margaret:Just beer.
Lisa:Beer,
Carey:whiskey.
Lisa:beer, whiskey, whatever. Whatever you get out
drea-molly-margaret:Carrie, were you saying Carrie something? Oh, I've,
Meags:You're
drea-molly-margaret:you. You're muted. I was like, why is Carrie not saying anything about the Irish drunk people?
Kathy:God, I am that annoying conference call person. You can't see their whole face and I forget to unmute, but Yeah. I mean if you're intimating that there might be some Irish people who sold booze on the side, I would be shocked.
Lisa:Oh, but you know, so anyway, she actually was very helpful to the Irish people because she worked to help them out because these Irish families would show up thinking, They were gonna work these mines and become independently wealthy. But during this period of time, most of these mines were owned by companies or like shareholders. And so they ended up basically being employees of big companies and of course working for little money cuz they're Irish and in very harsh, dangerous conditions. So, so she became involved with soup kitchens and other charity efforts help support these Irish. But Maggie Tobin had dreams of marrying rich cuz she wanted to help her family get them out of poverty. But she ended up marrying for love. She met a man named JJ Brown, who was very outgoing and social just like she was. Everyone said they were the perfect match for each other, but he was described as respectable prospects. But no future. I don't really know what that means.
Carey:Hmm.
Lisa:we had respectable
Carey:Rude
Lisa:No future. And you guys are gonna love this. So she was 19. How old do you think JJ was? If she was 19?
drea-molly-margaret:50.
Lisa:32.
drea-molly-margaret:Oh, gosh, that's nothing compared to that other lady,
Kathy:Nothing compared to my marriage either.
drea-molly-margaret:married her
Carey:was, I was just assuming that, that Lisa had a, had like a whole thing going where it was like really young women and really overly
Lisa:just just keep picking women who married real old men,
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah, that would make a, that
Kathy:think it's awesome that she broke the mold.
Lisa:She what? Broke the
Kathy:She was She was the original milk.
Lisa:Yeah. So she but then they moved to this other town in Colorado. So they go from Leadville to this town called Stumptown, Colorado. I mean, Colorado's got some great town names, Leadville Stumptown. Just thought that was funny. But they weren't wealthy, but JJ made a living as a mining engineer. So he made a decent living and they were wealthy enough to hire a servant, a maid, to help around the. And, but they also hired tutors because they both felt that education was really important. They'd educate themselves on different cultures and languages and they even like had the tutor help the maid, like teach her how to, how to read and write.
drea-molly-margaret:did they have kids? Did you say anything about children
Lisa:just about to
drea-molly-margaret:Well, I was only wondering cuz you said they had tutors and I was like, well, who do they have to tutor?
Lisa:themselves. They wanted to be more.
drea-molly-margaret:Oh, okay.
Lisa:Yeah. So then after a year marriage, they had their first child, Lawrence Palmer Brown was in 1887. They called him Larry. And they had a daughter who was born in 1889. Her name was Catherine Ellen Brown, but everybody called her Helen. And she also raised three of her nieces whose names were Grace, Florence and Helen. So she, with her money, she was able to, you know, making this decent living, able to bring her family out west to Colorado. But then in 1893 there's something called the panic and the silver market bottomed up, and that's basically what was in Colorado at the time was silver. but then JJ was a primary shareholder in the IX mining company and they actually owned a mine that struck gold. And it wasn't just some random lucky strike. JJ was pretty, you know, intelligent man when it came to this stuff. He did research and his engineering skills always combined together, you know, plus years of work found this gold. So that's how they became millionaires.
drea-molly-margaret:Ah.
Lisa:And then they moved to the great big town of Denver. So,
drea-molly-margaret:wait, how many kids was that All together? Like hers
Lisa:two, they, they had two together and then she helped raise three nieces
drea-molly-margaret:Okay. So she had five kids, kind of, mostly for real. Okay.
Lisa:she doesn't spend much time raising them. Just I'll get there. So, Nothing. She, I mean, I don't know, I'm not saying she was a bad mom or anything, but, so in Denver the Browns were seen as new money, you know, all over the country. You know, various growing cities. You'd have these, the great industrialization. During the Civil War, there was a lot of new money out there. But in Denver it's a pretty new city. So like what is really considered old money in Denver and apparently is if they had your money for like over 10 years, you're considered old wealth. And the Browns, you know, didn't have their money yet for 10 years. So they were new wealth, which just funny. But their house is one of the first in Denver. What
Carey:kinda splitting hairs.
Lisa:a little bit. It's kind of annoying, but but their house
Kathy:Yeah, at that, I mean at that age you think that, I mean, it seems like old money to me if you earned your money in 1890 or whatever, 19, 12 or 20, but I guess it's all relative, but like how did people who had money before the Industrial Revolution make a lot of money?
Lisa:Right. Family money, like shipping and what was that, the Vanderbilts, well, I guess they were considered new money,
Kathy:Yeah, I mean like before that was it like, whoa, I was a founding father, so I'm old
Lisa:Yeah, pretty much like people that like settled the town.
Meags:landed Gentry who brought their
Kathy:Oh yeah. Right.
Meags:the, old country.
Kathy:Southern plantations.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah, I was thinking slave
Lisa:there's that.
Meags:Yeah.
drea-molly-margaret:you know.
Meags:Yeah.
Lisa:So her house, the, the brown house in Denver, which I believe I think was like Pennsylvania Avenue. I didn't write that down, what street it's on. But they were the first house in Denver to have both electricity and indoor plumbing. So they were moving along.
drea-molly-margaret:So good things to have. Good things
Lisa:These are important things to have. The turn of the century doesn't, shouldn't everybody have at least indoor plumbing?
Kathy:I should probably check the apartments in Manhattan that I've been looking at. They perhaps
drea-molly-margaret:sure they have indoor plumbing.
Lisa:Make sure that
Carey:And air condition.
Lisa:in your own
drea-molly-margaret:funny story about that. I have a funny story about that cuz
Kathy:Actually, there's a lot of apartments for rent that have a shared bathroom, so like, you know. Yeah, yeah. And, and it can you imagine
Lisa:It's like you're, it's like you're living in a dorm, you
Kathy:Right, right. But you're paying$1,500 a month or something like that.
drea-molly-margaret:I got a cabin, I got a cabin in somewhere in Texas and It was through Airbnb and I got there and I was, and my friend was already there and she was like, yeah. It's actually Larine. doesn't. Its.
Kathy:Outhouses are the worst. Did I tell you guys about the guy I knew in Alaska who stuck to the toilet? It's awesome. Yeah, so you know, in
Lisa:I guess it was
Kathy:fucking cold. at night and a lot of people live in dry cabins, so they gotta go out to outhouses and like building your outhouse is a. Kind of a thing of pride. I mean, people do it and they, they put a lot of effort into it. They care. And so my, my friends had built this outhouse by their, by their cabin. And unfortunately when they built it, you're supposed to build a, like a styrofoam barrier around the rim so that like when you sit down, you don't freeze to the toilet bowl or whatever. Ever, ever they have. You've gotta have some kind of barrier. Well, apparently they didn't do it right. So my friend goes out one night, he sits down, goes to the bathroom or takes a dump or whatever, and then he goes to get up and he's stuck and he can't move. Like, I mean, really, if he lifts up, it's going to be painful. So he had a kerosene lamp and I thought this was brilliant cuz I would've never thought of this. He dumps the kerosene out and rubs it all over his ass and is able to, like, it's warm enough that he's able to like, pry himself off of the, the toilet. But this was like a 20 minute venture and it's 30 below outside, so he's just like freezing it and, and now he doesn't have any kerosene or a lamp or anything. So, yeah, I mean, It's good to
Carey:All right. That story stated with me from. First time you told it to me when you probably still live there. And I literally relayed that to somebody last week, that story.
Kathy:No kidding.
Carey:Yeah. We went to see this really interesting guy who was lecturing and he so there are people that, that actually it's a race on foot, the Iditarod on foot, so it's a thousand miles on foot in the winter in Alaska. And this guy won it on his. I lost fourth or fifth attempt and he's, he's childhood friends of this, of this person that I know here in Houston. And so this guy flew him down to give a couple of talks cuz he is like really inspiring. Anyway, so beforehand we were ta I was talking with some people that, that I knew and I was like, yeah, I was telling them about the guy that stuck his as in the toilet.
Kathy:Could they relate
Carey:Yeah, and I was like in the kerosene, I was like, can you use kerosene and like release his ass cheeks.
drea-molly-margaret:All
Kathy:brilliant. I would've died in the toilet. What a terrible way to die.
drea-molly-margaret:So Lisa, you don't have to worry about that for Molly Brown cuz she has a
Lisa:He's got indoor pun cleaning and electricity, so,
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah. So we don't have to worry about her. Her ass getting stuck to the toilet
Lisa:Yeah, I'm sure they had a lot of fireplaces and such as, well, I know you just, it made me think like in history, like how many times did somebody die being stuck to a toilet and people just made up other reasons why they died? Oh, it was just a heart attack
Carey:Spare
drea-molly-margaret:Maybe that's what happened to Elvis.
Lisa:Well, he wasn't the toilet. He wasn't on the toilet. But anyway, so Denver, we'll go back to Denver. We're in Denver at turn of the century, is having social problems with growing slums due to industrialization in the recent silver crash. So Maggie got involved with reforms in Denver to install public public baths in the courthouse Now. Does this mean actual baths or toilets? I don't know, but I thought that was interesting. it was just like, I've heard of public baths and I thought it was more like sanitary type stuff, but was, did they really put like a bath in a courthouse? I don't know. But anyway, fascinating. If I had time, I would've researched it more. If I was running out of time, what
drea-molly-margaret:I said I'm just gonna pretend it's toilets and,
Lisa:I
Kathy:No bad houses were a big deal when plumbing wasn't around cuz that's. Where you went and got clean.
Lisa:But why would you put it in the courthouse?
Kathy:I don't know. Maybe you have to clean off before you go to court.
Lisa:There you go. Speaking of which, Kara, I'd love to talk to you about how they ended on Friday. I missed the end. This is totally random, but the march.
Kathy:Murga is, he's gonna get a hung jury.
Lisa:Oh, you, I know, because they kind of messed up. Anyway, we'll talk about that. I think Carrie and I should have our own little podcast episode. Oh, it's just crazy story.
Kathy:It's gonna be a great movie,
Lisa:to, to your public out there, you know, tune in for later episodes about the murder doc trails.
Kathy:Oh, that's what I'm gonna talk about next week. About what a psychopath he.
Lisa:Okay, great. I'll be ready. Okay. So anyway, so Maggie, Maggie's doing good. She is trying to help Denver become a better city, so she's also taught advocating for public parks and other city improvements. And she also worked real closely with this controversial reformer named Ben Lindsay. He was a Denver judge and politician who pioneered for the creation of the first juvenile court system, western Mississippi. So that was interesting. And then so, but then with all this money, they decided they should travel. In 1902, JJ and Maggie traveled to Ireland. France, Russia, India, and Japan. And she decided to give writing a try cuz she wrote travel articles detailing her observations of India's cast system for the Denver papers. Interesting. So then, but in, I don't know, I guess the travels didn't go so well or he, I think JJ was kind of done with traveling at that point and just wanted to be at home. Live a quiet life. But Maggie was getting some popularity with her writing at the time and her political endeavors. And in 1909, they signed separation, a separation after 23 years of marriage. So as Catholics, they never got divorced, believe been divorced, but they were legally separated for the rest of his life. Well, they're,
Kathy:My, my grandma and grandpa were that way.
Lisa:Oh yeah.
Kathy:Yeah, they wouldn't get divorced because my uncle was going into the seminary and as a, as Catholics at that time, he couldn't have divorced parents, so they just, they just separated. They never, and, and they never went through with the divorce. Yeah. I mean, Catholics are tough.
Lisa:So he was
Meags:Tough. Crazy
Kathy:yeah. Cultish clinic,
Lisa:just, you know, it's balancing. So, so you have to think, I mean, the age difference, Maggie's, like in her prime years traveling, you know, with kids, she's had her kids or whatever and has this money, she's traveling and JJ J's getting old and he's just sitting at home. But she was able to keep her home that you can still go visit today in Denver and she also got$700 a month for traveling expenses. Um,
drea-molly-margaret:gonna ask a stupid question. Is her name Molly or Maggie? Is it Maggie?
Lisa:Maggie, she never went by Molly, ever.
drea-molly-margaret:But so where did Molly come?
Kathy:Yeah. How is she known by as that?
Lisa:That is basically writers that after she died, started calling her Molly and it became like a, like a, I'm not gonna call it a fairytale, but like a,
Kathy:Yeah. Right. It's kind of like a legend.
Lisa:Yeah,
Kathy:trope almost anymore.
Lisa:and I don't, I, I don't know why I, there were like various things. I couldn't, everybody seemed, everything I read was a little bit different. I didn't really understand exactly the source. You can say it. Basically Hollywood Made, made her that name and stuck.
drea-molly-margaret:Okay. All right. Thank you for
Carey:aren't they? Her name is Margaret, right? I think they're both common nicknames for Margaret.
Lisa:Right, but she, no one ever called her that and no one when her lifetime, she was never called Molly.
Kathy:That's a, Margaret's a weird name. It's like Elizabeth. There's like 12,000 different ways to refer to somebody.
Lisa:Lisa, Lisa, Lisa is short for Elizabeth and
Kathy:Yeah.
Lisa:is one of many right.
Meags:Yeah. Well, so, so my first, my first name Megan, is the Gallup Domin for Margaret. So yes, there's a million ways to be a Margaret.
drea-molly-margaret:I think that would name be a good name for a song, A
Carey:Yeah, A Million Ways to Be a Margaret.
Meags:Yeah, But, but yeah, but like my grandmother went, she, like, depending on who's talking about her, they, they call her Meg, they call her Aunt Maggie. They call her like it's the same kind of thing where like all these different names come up. And for it was very confusing to me as a kid and. My dad was always just like, it's just how it's like, oh, okay. Like.
Kathy:and I were first together. My, my sister was doing she was doing shower invitations for our wedding shower and She put oh, I, you know, she was like, oh, how should the invitation look? And I, and you know, I said, oh, well it should be Elizabeth, blah, blah, blah, blah. So who's Elizabeth? I was like, well, Liz,
Lisa:They tell a story about our, my, our wedding invitations. Joe's mother's maiden name Janssen is spelled, they spell it with o n. They went with my stepfather somehow wrote Ian for all of Janssen's that went to the, we had like a clicker for a. So they all got their names dispelled and she has like eight brothers at the time. It was crazy. I was like, I cannot believe, cannot believe you did the Carl. But anyway so back to good old Maggie, Maggie Brown. So her husband died in 1922, so, but she decided to go on another trip with her daughter Helen. And then with her friends JJ and Madeline Astor. In 1912, her trip was to take her to Egypt Ramen Paris. However, she had news of her grandson being ill, and so she hasten her return and she booked passage on the first available trip. Guess what the name of the ship was that she booked her passage on? Anyone? The Titanic very.
Kathy:we're.
Lisa:She was on the Titanic. So this ship, Casey, y'all have never heard that Titanic represented new heights and innovation and achievement. It was a wonder to modern science built by the British white star lines at a cost of 10 million. It was boasted that it was practically unsinkable.
Carey:practically.
Lisa:practically, unless you know you're running a big old iceberg on your screwed,
drea-molly-margaret:And you can always watch the Titanic. You can always watch the Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. It's a terrible
Meags:Or, or you can avoid it on purpose. I've made it my whole life without ever watching it.
Kathy:how do you really
drea-molly-margaret:I loved it.
Lisa:Oh, I went, I saw it in the movie theater. I thought it was kind of beautiful to some of the scenes and the costumes and everything gorgeously done. I like the history part of it. Right. But yeah.
Kathy:is this like a personal goal now to
Meags:Well, yeah. You know, you get so far that you're like, screw it. I'm never watching this.
Kathy:Right
drea-molly-margaret:I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna make sure we
Meags:mostly just because everybody's always like, oh my God, you haven't seen that? Plus it really upsets the millennials. They get really like, ah. It's like, listen, none of y'all have watched anything that I consider to be seminal and important, so I don't wanna hear it.
Lisa:I ask, have they ever seen 16 candles?
Meags:Well, that's what I mean, like, or like they've only seen Breakfast Club. It's like you haven seen some kind of wonderful, like you're not, you're missing out. Like you're not, you're not doing enough.
drea-molly-margaret:have they seen clueless?
Meags:I dunno. I.
drea-molly-margaret:says, St. Clueless and mean. Guys,
Kathy:I saw Clueless with Kathy in her living room in Houston. Remember we had a movie day that we were like watching cheesy movies and we didn't go outside. Yeah, it was like clueless and 10 things I Hate About Your Boyfriend and.
Carey:Didn't you and I also carry, watch all of the godfathers in a
Lisa:we did that.
drea-molly-margaret:we all, we all did that. We were all Stu. No, we were all hungover.
Carey:turn over was what we were.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah.
Kathy:God, it's the best. It's like 10 hours of Italian Mafia.
Meags:Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a lot. We, we went and saw the first one when they re-released it in the theaters last year, and that, I have to admit, was pretty cool.
Lisa:Yeah.
Kathy:God, it's such a fantastic movie One and two, three kind of sucks, but one and two are fantastic.
Meags:mean, one is like,
Lisa:I just,
Meags:everything.
Lisa:I just remember we like took a break to eat dinner and everybody was laughing about swimming with the fishes and it was really funny.
drea-molly-margaret:I remember that.
Lisa:Anyways, she did not swim with the fishes, by the way.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah. What did she do? What did she do?
Lisa:So you know, there were several warnings of icebergs in the area and they were ignored by some people in the Titanic, and they struck ice on April four. and it was reported in the Newport Herald that Maggie was stretched out on her brass bed, and she was so absorbed in what she was reading that she gave really little thought to the crash that struck at her window overhead and threw her onto the floor.
Carey:Hmm.
Lisa:she
Kathy:I was reading a good book,
Meags:Like I, this is from the same guys who couldn't get her names straight. All right?
Carey:I call bullshit.
Lisa:is according, this is a par, the Newport Herald.
Meags:She was actually frozen to her
Lisa:so she looked out her door and she saw all this confusion. Someone said, go get a lifesaver. So she got it and made her way up to the the deck, and she said, someone said to her, you're going to, and she was picked up and dropped four feet into a lowering life. So she was in lifeboat number six that was equipped to hold 65 people, but it pushed off with only 21 women, two men, and a 12 year old boy.
Kathy:Oh man,
Lisa:And of course, it's the women in the lifeboat that did all the rowing for hours. it's a little nut. But at, so they rode and rode at 4:30 AM they saw the Carpathia and they were eventually brought on board and Maggie was assisting, you know, passing out the blankets. And, you know, she's had all this experience running like soup kitchens and group things. So she's helping everybody get situated. She also assisted in translating cuz she knew several languages from all of her travels. But then she realized how like most people on their, you know, mostly women had just lost everything. So she started approaching the first class passengers in the Carpathia for donations, and before the Carpathia made it to New York, she collected$10,000, which in that time is a huge amount of money. The story goes that Maggie got off the ship and said, typical brown luck. I'm unthinkable. However, Maggie probably did not say. And it probably started with a Denver gossip columnist called Poly Pry. So her name became, cuz of Miss Polly Pry Unsinkable, Mrs. Brown, that's how she was originally
drea-molly-margaret:Mm mm.
Lisa:So her assistance with the passengers put her on the national stage and gave her more opportunities for leadership. She for example, there's a big, I dunno if you guys ever heard about this big ludlow incident in Colorado where, Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, which was owned by Rockefeller. They they were striking and they were killed by hired Guardsman that the company, you know, had hired Maggie.
drea-molly-margaret:like. By the pickin people or you know,
Lisa:No, they weren't people that Rockefeller's, if not Rockefeller himself, the people in charge of this company hired and they decided to start shooting the strike. So I know eventually, like the federal government was also called in. It was a big mess. So Maggie went to Ludlow with urgent appeals to help on both sides. Each side kind of saw her as an ally, but she was struggling to maintain mill ground. She didn't wanna join the radicals who were staying. The governor needed to resign, but she did challenge Rockefeller on his harsh business practices. She began speaking about minor's, right? And Rockefeller eventually softened due to the negative media attention and agreed to make concessions. But then she began spending less time in Denver and more in Newport, Rhode Island where was the pinnacle of high society in the early 20th. We all heard about Newport and their wonderful cottages.
Meags:It's pretty spectacular. Has anybody else been.
Kathy:I mean, it, it sounds pictures.
Meags:That's where we had my My, our mini moon, because after we got married and we finally got Drea back on the road to Texas and everything else done, we drove my car from Maine to Virginia where my husband already had an apartment. And so we stayed in Newport because like we did not. We were not going like on a whole honeymoon, so we called it our mini moon. But it is super duper beautiful and I meet girls at work all the time who go to Salve Regina, which is one of the colleges that's right there. And it's like spectacularly beautiful. Like, and it's like, man, I don't know how I missed that one. I mean, I know how I missed that one when I was looking. It snows there, but it, it's a really nice one. So yes, the, the, the Cliff walk and the Breakers and like Yeah. The, the, it is really, truly spectacular. It is definitely someplace that's worth checking out, especially if you like landscaping and houses and oceans and stuff
Lisa:Yeah.
Kathy:do.
drea-molly-margaret:Is it like Nantucket?
Meags:It's different than Nantucket because it's like the really, truly rich people
Kathy:Oh, wow. Versus the poppers in Nantucket,
Meags:Well, exactly. But like, but like, I mean, really it's like an old money, new money thing. Like
Kathy:Oh yeah. Right,
Meags:of, the kind of cottages you have in Newport are like, like Downton Abbey type shit. like, you know, it's like, it's like we're gonna keep this whole house and staff so that we can come for two weeks and celebrate the 4th of July and sail the boat up and then we're just gonna let it sit all the rest of the time. But like we, we went to one
Kathy:I'm never gonna get that working. government.
drea-molly-margaret:But you will get a pension.
Meags:unlikely. Yeah, we like, there were, we took some house tours, like there's a lot of the super cool, interesting historical stuff there. I, I'd put it right up there with the Biltmore in terms of like, stuff that is both historically cool and like, holy shit, it's beautiful. Which is good cuz that keeps, that, that keeps both members of the party happy.
Kathy:Good nose. Yeah. Right, Right,
drea-molly-margaret:All right. Sounds like another girl trip.
Lisa:Sounds good. so Newport, Newport Newport was actually the first American town to have a golf course, a tennis club, and regular use of cars. It's a little fascinating tidbit, but it was also female dominated as the men spent all of their time in New York City. So Maggie really
Kathy:New York
Lisa:so Maggie was drawn to the independent women in Newport, even though her fortune was in, was small in comparison, but she was accepted by these women, including Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, who was the president of the National Women's Suffrage Associa.
drea-molly-margaret:Hmm.
Lisa:Alva became involved in the National Women's Trade Union League. That's a lovely name. But this group was different than other labor groups, as it included the upper class women and working class women. They were advocating together for minimum wage and an eight hour workday. So she started traveling across the country advocating for women and labor. And she authored dozens of newspaper articles and became increasingly close to the radical side of the Women's Party, led by Alice Paul, which pushed hard for national, national suffrage movement once again. I don't know why they call it suffrage. It makes it sound so sad, but
drea-molly-margaret:Is this, is this before they got the vote, the right to vote? Or is this
Lisa:Yes. This is during, yes. I will get to, we're, yes. We're about to wear the, get the right. In July, 1914, Maggie worked with Alva Belmont to organize the conference of great women. And Maggie of course spoke at the conference. She spoke of the plight of Colorado minors and rallying for the rights for all movement, which would counter the great of big business and universal suffrage. It propelled her to pro. She was basically, there were, she was, it was proposed to her that she run for Paula, for the US Senator of Colorado. And she started that campaign. But then World War I broke out and she's got funny, instead of being the senator, I'm just gonna shift my focus. Now I'm gonna go to France and help those people out. So she kinda left that to the side and of course she didn't win. And she went to France representing the American Committee for devastated France, all these nicknames. So she went so at the end of the war, She came back and then women's suffrage passed in 1920 and then JJ died in 1922. And Maggie kind of kinda had like this midlife crisis. She joined the cultural renaissance. She performed on stage in Paris and New York. And then at some point she was in Palm Beach and apparently there was a hotel fire there that she survived that hotel fire as well. So she,
drea-molly-margaret:I bet she was rescuing people while she was at it.
Lisa:she probably was, I couldn't find much. But,
drea-molly-margaret:Dragging dogs, cats, and kids out.
Lisa:so in 1932 she was awarded the French Legion of Honor, which is the highest decoration in France for her humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors during World War I, as well as the Titanic. And so Maggie was kind of the embodiment to some of the new women of the twenties. She was free, liberated, and self. In 1932, she was living at the Baran Hotel, which is famous for housing inspiring actresses like Ingroup Bergman and Candace Bergen. But that's where she passed away in her sleep. And some people say heart attacks, some people say stroke, or maybe she froze to the toilet. don't know.
drea-molly-margaret:It's
Lisa:You're covering it up, but they But anyway, she died at the age of 60. So that is a story of Maggie Brown, who later became known as Molly Brown. So I do wanna say that I got a lot of this information from Molly brown.org and my favorite, the History Checks podcast,
Kathy:There's a Molly brown.org. Wow.
Lisa:there is a molly brown.org, which I believe is part of, there's two museums. So if you wanna like go visit there in Hannibal, there is Margaret, Molly Brown Museum. Her where she, the place where she was raised, born. And then there's the home in Denver that you can tour as well. So I'm sure it's a lot nicer than the one in H,
Meags:I feel. The unsinkable, Molly Brown was right next to Nelly Bly on the shelf when I was a kid of like
Kathy:Yeah. Right, right,
Meags:women that you could do a book report on. I feel like I, I spent a lot of time with both of those, like I feel like those were co core members of that grouping,
Lisa:Yeah,
Meags:so I'm glad to know more about both of them.
Lisa:Leah, she like, I feel like Molly Brown, they just made her off to be this goofy, crazy character. Character kind of thing when she really, she did a lot and worked hard to help people. So, I don't know. Sounds pretty cool to me.
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah,
Meags:Yeah, for
Kathy:Very good.
drea-molly-margaret:I think it's nice to, like, it's interesting to see what people do when they like with their money once they get it. You know, like, like some people. Just don't know how they're gonna behave. If they are in New ish, they could just be assholes like in the great gasby. Or they could be cool like her. I mean, I know Great Gasby was fiction, but still it's the same. Same thing.
Meags:I think that if you added up the amount of fact in all these articles about this woman whose name, they can't get straight, I think. I think using the term fact is fiction is pretty Oh.
Kathy:Yeah, you're right
Lisa:Yeah, I mean early 19 hundreds, you know, newspapers are just trying to sell a lot of papers. yeah, they
Meags:yeah,
Lisa:made things sound good. Little bit of facts thrown in for good measure.
drea-molly-margaret:A fact here and there and a fact there.
Meags:yeah, you wouldn't want, you wouldn't want too much.
Lisa:She was
drea-molly-margaret:What, Lisa,
Lisa:Said she was on the Titanic. That was true. Everything else just, you know,
drea-molly-margaret:how many people survived the Titanic altogether? Do we know?
Lisa:I don't, I don't have that in front of me.
drea-molly-margaret:That's okay. It's not really important. we know Maggie
Carey:Important to those people,
Lisa:She did survive. Most people that died were in third class. I know that.
Carey:706 people.
drea-molly-margaret:survived outta how many,
Carey:well.
Lisa:Oh, I think it was 2000.
Meags:of 2,208 on board.
Lisa:Ah, see, 2000 I think.
Kathy:That's not.
Lisa:So if you guys are ever in Branson or, or in Forge. There is actually, there's a beautiful lake next to Branson. You just wanna go hang out in a pretty area of Missouri and then just sneak in to the cheesy part and go to the Titanic Museum. You can walk in with an identity and then you walk out and you find out if you survived or not.
Kathy:There's a museum about the Titanic in
Lisa:There's,
Kathy:of Missouri.
Lisa:yes, there's another one in Tennessee.
Kathy:That's confusing to
Lisa:Yes. And at the time when we were there they had violins. There are replicas, I guess I should say,
Kathy:people playing the violin. Were people like jumping off the side to
Lisa:my son who plays the violin, who has to read everything in a museum, he is sitting there reading everything about these violins and I'm like, oh my God,
Carey:If you, if you're one of the people that doesn't survive, do you have to jump into the lake?
Lisa:no, but I think you should get your money back. But you know,
Kathy:Branson sounds like a wild place.
Lisa:Oh, don't get me started.
drea-molly-margaret:It's like Ned Flander's version of Las Vegas. That's how I've always described it. It's just.
Lisa:Yeah, I've been to both and I don't know.
drea-molly-margaret:Well, I've been to Branson and I went, it was very, like, I went in high school and it was not my idea. I went with my, my co-ed boy scout group and there was this family there though that went, and they were, the Leonards and the whole family went on this, this trip and I had never seen anything like it. Like we're sitting at one, like one of the shows like, you know, they have shows every night and they're all. Good, wholesome kind of things. These guys are sit these, and this, his family
Lisa:did they pray beforehand? Did they pray beforehand? They either pray or they do the national anthem before every show.
Meags:oh, my.
Lisa:At least the ones I've been to. I've been to two and it was a, I mean, when you, what?
Kathy:Kathy asked, why not both? And I said, because they hate God. Or I'm sorry. They hate the Lord.
Lisa:I dunno. I think it's a time thing I.
drea-molly-margaret:I, I don't know. But what I do know is that this whole family, like two teenage kids and two, and their parents are all standing in a row singing every fucking song together, like teenage kids. Can you imagine your teenage children sitting with you and your husband and like singing along? No shame, no shame. Like they're just like, Just like, oh my God,
Kathy:Left the hotel
Meags:I bet you they, they ended up going to Texas a and m. No sarcasm. No, no, just wholesomeness right through their fricking
Kathy:Yeah, it's Baylor. It's Baylor all the way.
Meags:fiche didn't take me to Baylor. I only have a and m as a reference.
drea-molly-margaret:I didn't know anybody that went to Baylor. I would not have been really probably close friends with anybody that went to Baylor. I would've been like, they'd been like, we.
Kathy:So my, one of my niece's good friends goes to Baylor right now, and, and they've been comparing notes about the difference between going to school on the East coast and going to school at Baylor and Riley's like, yeah, we learned all about, you know, like something liberal, you know, they, they talked about and, and. Yeah, the kid from Baylor's like, yeah, we'll never talk about that. And Riley was like, you know, everybody's really into like announcing their pronouns and the Baylor kid's like what?
drea-molly-margaret:Yeah. So anyway, that was my experience with Branson and I was like, whoa, this is, this is not my jam,
Lisa:Yeah, it's, it's changed probably somewhat. There's a lot of, like, it's not all about shows. There's actually some really cool like go-kart places and rock climbing places and stuff there. But yeah, I, I, we went there once because it was a convenient. Uh, spring break, last minute, planned spring break trip.
Kathy:Sure. Would you feel comfortable smoking weed there?
Lisa:I would not,
Kathy:Well, that's my yardstick, so
Lisa:no. I'll be interested. It's now legal. It's now legal in Missouri.
Kathy:Yeah, I know,
Lisa:I'm curious what it'll be like there now that it's legal. I don't know.
drea-molly-margaret:be curious.
Kathy:go back and tell us, tell us if everyone's high and, and it's a whole different experience. I'm sure then.
Lisa:Yeah, I'm sure it is. I don't know if I'm going back there ever, but you know, I'll let you know.
drea-molly-margaret:Was there, I feel like there was also like a. An amusement park. Was there an amusement park there?
Lisa:There's silver dollar Cities there. I have not been.
drea-molly-margaret:I went there
Lisa:Did you,
drea-molly-margaret:With the Leonard. With the Leonards and a bunch of other people. I don't remember. I mean, actually I remember I had fun. I mean, I had a fun trip. It was just that sticks out in my mind. Cause I was like, Hey, I would not have gone any like on any kind of trip. I would never have invited my parents to go on a trip with me. Like with a bunch of other kids. Right? Like
Lisa:No, I remember seeing the commercials for Silver City when I was akin. I thought it'd be so cool to go there, cuz they do glass blowing and roller coasters and all that stuff all in one place. My mom was always kinda like, yay,
Kathy:It's better than it sounds or it sounds better than this.
Lisa:Right.
drea-molly-margaret:All right, you guys ready to wrap up?
Kathy:Yeah. Sorry, it was a little chatty during your thing. I know. I I was spurred on
Lisa:to be Jenny. Molly Brown's an interesting story and you added to it.
drea-molly-margaret:Lisa, do you, do you need to, and I'll cut all this out. Do you need to stay on longer and talk about anything? Because I know we haven't talked to any, like, business stuff
Lisa:Yes, we can. I can, and my kids aren't here, so.
drea-molly-margaret:Okay. Well you guys are welcome to stay or go. I just was like We haven't talked like Lisa and I haven't talked about anything.
Kathy:You are our producers and business people. I leave it in your capable hands.
Meags:Yeah, as a talent, I'm just gonna say goodnight.
Kathy:Yeah, I know, right? That's good. I'm.
Carey:As the, as The beauty. As the beauty. I'm also out.
drea-molly-margaret:Your hair does look quite lovely this evening.
Carey:Oh, you think?
drea-molly-margaret:It does. I like
Lisa:beautiful.
drea-molly-margaret:All right.
Lisa:Carrie's hair looks quite blonde by the.
Kathy:Yeah, I know. I, I, I'm kind of getting used to it, but I like it. I, I, so my niece told me that the cut is called a woof. but to me it's
Meags:Wolf like the animal?
Kathy:modified mullet. I got like, I got some long, I got some short I got some, yeah.
Meags:They call it a wolf cut. Yeah.
Kathy:Yeah. Yeah. So I've never had a haircut with a name before except maybe the Dorothy Hamel, so I'm, I'm
Lisa:Oh, didn't we all have a
drea-molly-margaret:such an unfortunate, such an unfortunate hairstyle,
Carey:It only looked cute on Dorothy Hamel, but everybody tried it.
Meags:Yeah, true. Very true.
drea-molly-margaret:All right. Love you guys. Goodnight. We'll
Meags:night.
drea-molly-margaret:to you later. Bye.