apolloniacorleone:Mary Field was born a slave and set free as an adult, finding herself in Ohio wher
apolloniacorleone:Mary Field was born a slave and set free as an adult, finding herself in Ohio where she worked as a field hand for a convent of nuns, then Montana. She smoked black cigars, challenged men to fistfights (and won), and proudly wore men’s clothing. At the age of 60, Mary was hired by the United States Postal Service based on her speed at hitching six horses together - she was the second woman and the first African-American woman ever hired as a mail carrier. Her reliability earned her the nickname ‘Stagecoach Mary’; once, she walked ten miles back to depot, and on another occasion, she stood guard over her horses overnight in the snow to protect them from wolves. She retired to a laundry service after eight years at the age of seventy, and it’s said she sat down one day at a bar and spotted a man who owed her a two dollar laundry bill who she promptly chased and punched. She sat back down to her drink and said, “he doesn’t owe me two dollars anymore.” Toward the end of her life, Mary worked as a babysitter and spent her income on buying candy for the children of Cascade, Montana.Erykah Badu as Stagecoach Mary in ‘They Die by Dawn’ -- source link