Name: My Girlhood Among Outlaws
Author: Ball, Eve
ISBN: 9780816503285

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My Girlhood Among Outlaws

by Lily Klasner
edited by Eve Ball

University of Arizona Press, 1972
eISBN: 978-0-8165-4722-7 | Cloth: 978-0-8165-0328-5 | Paper: 978-0-8165-0354-4
Library of Congress Classification F802.L7K55 1972
Dewey Decimal Classification 917.89640340924

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Lily Klasner learned the harsh realities of frontier life at an early age. Born in Texas in 1862, she was only five when her family lost most of their provisions in an Indian raid while trekking to New Mexico; their ranch on the Pecos became a stopover for outlaws; and she assumed leadership of the family at thirteen when her father was murdered.

In My Girlhood Among Outlaws, Lily recalls her experiences with Billy the Kid and other desperadoes, and sets the record straight on popular misrepresentations of events. Of particular interest to historians is her preservation of the diary of famous cattleman and family friend John Chisum.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Eve Ball has lived in the Ruidoso highlands of New Mexico, close to the Mescalero Reservation. Geography made her neighbor to the Apaches; sympathy and liking made her their friend; sensitivity to their part in the historic Southwestern drama made her their historian—able to see experience through their eyes, just as she used the lends of a pioneer Lincoln County woman to view and relate the saga of Ma’am Jones of the Pecos. She also edited and annotated the colorful Lily Klasner autobiography My Girlhood Among Outlaws.

Lily Casey Klasner was truly a child of the New Mexico nineteenth-century frontier, encountering its turbulence and hardships in westward migration and later in Indian raids that robbed her family of most of their possessions. Although her formal education was intermittent, Mrs. Klasner attended the New Mexico Highlands University at Las Vegas and became a teacher and telegrapher as well as a rancher. She also became a writer, and from a meticulous diary, reinforced by letters, clippings, pictures and documents, she fashioned an autobiography, further guided and shaped by historians Maurice Garland Fulton and Eric Bruce.

REVIEWS

"This is an extraordinary book [containing] unique and colorful views of a violent era of New Mexico history."—The New Mexican

"We are indeed fortunate that Eve Ball has rescued for posterity all this fascinating and informative material."—Albuquerque Tribune

"Southwestern and Lincoln County War buffs will find this a 'must' edition."—Arizona and the West

"It makes exceptionally interesting and authentic reading."—The Book Exchange.— -

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction    by Eve Ball                             1
PART I. FROM TEXAS TO NEW MEXICO
1. My Pioneer Ancestry                               13
2. Earliest Recollections                            20
3. Journey to New Mexico                             25
4. Attack by Apaches at Black River                  32
5. The Casey Mill on the Hondo                       36
6. Pioneer Activities and Makeshifts                 43
7. Early Settlers: Upper Lincoln County              51
8. Early Settlers: Lower Lincoln County              63
9. Apache Raid of 1867                               73
10. A Memorable Indian Scout                          79
PART II. REIGN OF THE SIX SHOOTER
11. The Lincoln County Ring                           93
12. The Harrell War                                  100
13. The Casey Store and Its Clerks                   109
14. Ash Upson: Rolling Stone of the West             116
15. Murder Most Foul and The Law's Vengeance        124
16. Abneth McCabe: A Friend in Need                 137
17. Happenings on the Feliz                         147
18. Plagues and Pestilences                         161
19. Echoes of the Lincoln County War                169
20. Aftermath                                       179
21. Bob Olinger as I Knew Him                       183
22. School-teaching on the Pefiasco                 192
23. The Sutton-Nixon Killing                        199
24. Tragedies and Shooting Scrapes                  204
25. The Sinewy and Powerful Arm of The Law          216
PART III. JOHN SIMPSON CHISUM
26. The Texas Period                                229
27. Trouble With Indians                            242
28. Trouble With Cattle Rustlers                    250
29. Antagonism From the Ring                        260
30. A Cattle King's Business                        288
31. Heyday of the South Spring River Ranch          296
32. Trail's End for the Cow King                    308
33. Characteristics and Opinions                    315
Index                                           331

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