Widow Chambers

My name's the Widow Chambers. You can see the Clan Cameron tartan in the ribbon I wear. My family was part of the great English-Scot-Irish immigration to this country, that's Scot or Scottish, not "Scotch" - Scotch is a drink.

I made my dress. It was burned in the skirt while cooking by a campfire. Fire was the number two cause of death in women of my time. A slave dumped a keg of cider on me to quench the fire, so I've been baptized twice: once with blessed water and once with the fruit of Eden. The run-away slave had been on his own, in hiding, but earned his keep with the wagon train by fetching kindling and tending campfire. I gave him the gold coin I had. His name was Ned.

I traded my dead husband's shoes for a skirt to cover the burnt part of my dress. Included in the trade were two young lady's' pinafores. I made my apron out of them. Wagon people mostly bartered for necessaries. Well, so much about my wearin's.

When Mr. Chambers and I married, there was nary a word against it. I was a Cameron and Mr. Chambers was Clan Cameron, too. We performed in The Chambers Street Theatre in New York, then Mr. Chambers had a mind to go to the Gold Rush, and we started the great trek from East to West. As we camped high the Rockies for a spell, the cholera finally took the wee bit of life left in his body. The pestilence took Mr. Chambers as it did so many. He sleeps now beneath the soil of the Great Plains, with his feet toward the west and his dreams of gold, his pain of this earthly life over…by the blessed mercy of our Lord. Amen.

Upon my oath, this is how I became The Widow Chambers and came to abide in Sacramento City. I found fittin' work baking pies and selling them on the street. The particulars of how I started my business are simple: I sold my long hair to a wig maker. After a while, I had set aside enough, so I reckoned I could start a jollification, and that's how the street puppet show began. I call it The Chambers Street Theatre…By the blessed mercy of our Lord. Amen.