Welcome to Big Blend Radio where we celebrate variety and how it adds spice to quality of life. Welcome everyone to today's Big Blend Radio Women Making History podcast. Every fourth Wednesday we have a panel discussion. I have a funny feeling we're going to be doing a lot more of them too. On this show we like to celebrate women of the past, the present, and the future. Often these shows also end up on our way back when history shows and that's definitely going to happen with this show today. Today's podcast is all about pioneering women and again women of the past, the present, and the future. We have two men on the show, they're brave today. They're very brave on the show today but they're good friends and everyone on the show is a regular here on Big Blend Radio and so what we're going to do is I'm going to introduce each of you on the show and then we're going to get into the nitty gritty of the women that you want to showcase and represent as being pioneers. Some of these women are actual pioneers which is always exciting. So we're going to start in England with Glen Burrows because I know he's only got a little bit of time with us. So Glen Burrows is a historian, a family history expert, and also a tour guide. He is the owner of Norfolk Tours in England. You can go to Norfolk-Tours.uk, CO.uk, excuse me, and by the way everyone in the episode notes everyone's website links are there, Amazon links for books and links to more about the history of the women we're talking about. So you can just go right to the episode notes for all of that. But Glen takes tours all over England, Scotland, Wales, and I think he'll even take you to France. Right, Glen? Welcome back. Yeah, yeah, lovely to speak to you all. Yeah, I wouldn't mind going to France. I speak French so I can do that as well. Well, we, we, there we go. That's the height of mine. But Glenn is on our Big Glen radio show every 4th Saturday talking about either some history or talking about travel. His next episode is all about Shakespeare because him and I have an intense love for Shakespeare, don't we, Glen? Yes. We both did well in school with Shakespeare, didn't we? All right, I also want to bring on Linda Baloo. Linda Baloo is a travel writer. She's an author. She's been all over the world. And her books, she writes nonfiction and fiction. So she's just got travel guides under the Lost Angel Adventure series. And she has a podcast with us every third Wednesday called Lost Angel Travel Adventures. And you can keep up with her, especially when we talk about her books, a lot of women in her books, very strong women. You can go to lindaballooauthor.com. So how are you doing, Linda? I'm doing great. And I really think this is a fun opportunity because I have been attracted to women in history that were powerful women that I felt were overlooked. So that's what my historical novels are about. And I'm looking forward to our chat. And on your travels, you also seem to dig up women. I'm not, you're not going to graveyards of cemetery. Can you find women along your way, too? I mean, I was thinking about the lady rafting the Grand Canyon to call about a river. Georgie White, yes. I wanted to talk about her today. I actually want to talk about two women, if that's okay. Well, I'm not surprised. I'm surprised at all. Well, also, I want to bring on travel writer and author Kathleen Walls. She's been on our show for years. Katie Walls, you can go to her website, katiewalls.com for her books. One of her latest books is all about American music. So tell us a little bit about that book, Katie, and welcome back. That's going to be my pioneer in women today. I've tried to cover basically the music when United States began as a country on up until the mid 70s when I feel like that's not history anymore. That's kind of modern day for me. So my, my person I'm going to talk about today is Patsy Klein. And it was a very strong pioneer for women's singish background in a lot of ways. Looking forward to that. Also, you can keep up with Katie at americanroads.net for her travel stories. I'm excited to bring author Kimberly Hess back on the show. She first joined us with the biography that she wrote about Sarah B. Cochran. It's called A Lesser Mortal, The Unexpected Life of Sarah B. Cochran. And you can read about her on blendradiontv.com, but also get the book on Amazon. So welcome back to the show, Kimberly. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me in for a light on Sarah Cochran and any other obscure women from history that we want to bring up today. Yeah, no, I'm excited because there's a lot going on with her although it seems like she's having like a renaissance right now. She's like everyone's talking about her. So it's exciting. I'm excited. I'm glad we've stayed in touch on LinkedIn and that you're here and being part of this show and connecting with everyone too. Her story is amazing. It really is. All right. So now we're going to go to another author. We have Sharon Kurtz. She's a travel writer, not an author, excuse me, travel writer. And she's part of the beginning of these shows too. We just started talking one day. We're like, hey, you know, we're starting this and let's do panels. So it's her fault. You can go to SharonK Kurtz.com. So welcome back, Sharon. How are you? Thank you. I'm well Lisa. It's going to be interesting. You know, we just did an interview with you. You have a show with us under the world with Sharon every first Wednesday and you were talking about Vienna for your August episode and you started talking about some, you know, pretty high-end ladies in Vienna's history. And this is going to be a little different today. We're talking about farming. A different kind of woman this time. Okay. But you do seem to stumble on women's history as you travel, I think. I do like women's history and I gravitate toward when I travel. Ah, me too. Me too. I love it. I love it. Okay. So who are we got next? All right. Travel writer Joe Clark, no stranger to Big Blend radio. She also has a podcast with us every second Sunday. You can, you know, have glass full travel, but Joe goes everywhere is her Instagram handle and she she does go everywhere. You can go to her website, haveglass full travel.com. So welcome back, Joe. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Doing good. It's been a long time since we talked since last night, you know, just hours. I know, I know. But today you're going to be talking about some modern history, current history, women making history now. As you were, as you were introducing, I was thinking, you know, they fit into all three categories, the before, during and after, because these women pioneers raised buffalo. So they're bridging the gap between women farming and raising massive animals and women running restaurants and opening up that area for the future. I love it. I love it. We also have vocalist and composer Johnny Shafer back on the show. He co-hosts our Big Daily Blend show every first Sunday. He was on our happy hour show last night too. So welcome back, Johnny. I know I'm sorry if you're tired of my voice. I'm sorry. How could I do that? Oh, no, no. It's good to be back and excited because you're also going to be talking about some modern history, right? Modern music history. Yeah, I love that Kathleen mentioned that she's going to kind of take us up to the 70s because that's about where my, the woman I want to put a spotlight on, Teresa Toduri, kind of starts. So it's kind of a nice, it'll be a nice flow because it continued to be difficult for women in the music industry for a long time. There's still not a parody and a lot of my female musicians will attest to that. It's still difficult for them. But Teresa Toduri, who I want to talk about, definitely helped move the needle on that. Very excited to learn about her. And now we've got travel writer and author Elaine Masters. We've been chatting with her over the years and she's just been all over the world lately. I mean it, like really, you can keep up with her at tripwellgal.com and welcome back Elaine. How are you? I am so glad to be here. Good to have you back on the show and you're also covering some modern history. I am. The woman who I would really love to focus more on is a very quiet pioneer. She is a pioneer in the music and film industry but also with sustainability and regenerative agro-tourism in the Valle Guadalupe. Oh, see, this is fantastic. And I used to live just, Nancy and I used to live just outside of Valle Guadalupe in Mexico. We lived just south of, well, south of Ensenada. So it used to be our home. So this is kind of our feel-good spot. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of good women out there doing a lot of good things. And so very excited to chat with you about that. I'm going to go back up to Glenn because I know he has to leave and I know we're going to lose Linda in a little bit too. But Glenn, tell us about the lady you're going to talk about today. Well, the woman I want to talk about today was born in Wizbeach in Cambridge here in just a few miles from where I live. And she was born in 1838. She had quite an affluent family to start with but then her dad went bankrupt and had to sell everything. And then he seems to have disappeared from the family because they weren't together for the rest of her life. And her and her mum and siblings went back to London to live where her mum had sort of come from quite a well-off family. But Octavia, which is her name, Octavia Hill, that sounds very, very posh, doesn't she? Octavia? You can just imagine it. She actually then had to work for a living because, you know, her dad was bankrupt, so mum didn't have a lot of money to start with. But she started working with the poor people. So she was more interested in bringing poor people, the education and music and culture and things like that. And her life really was all about helping poor people. And she ended up owning thousands of property, over 3,000 houses in London, which she brought up the standard of living for the people who lived in her houses, which is absolutely fantastic. As we all know about poor living conditions in London in the 19th century, where you all you got to think about is Dickens and Oliver Twist and that sorts of things, you know. So they were living in squalor. But Octavia ended up really helping poor people. Not only that, she introduced them to some of the arts, so she introduced music, she introduced theatre, she introduced art. She introduced poor people to the countryside. She thought it was important for poor people to have access to the countryside. And a long story short, which you'll be able to read about is that she actually was one of the founders of the National Trust. The National Park Service in England. Well, the National Trust is all about houses and land as well, but it's all about these big estates. So these great big houses that we have in England, the National Trust was founded to make sure that they didn't get demolished or they didn't get turned into all of them turned into hotels or schools or things. They got kept so that poor people could visit. That also included their grounds, so their gardens, their estates, so that these massive estates weren't all broken up. And the National Trust now owns hundreds of properties in England. I think there's over a quarter of a million hectares of land that's farmed by the National Trust. I'm looking at my notes, 780 miles of coastline is all protected by the National Trust. And it's all thanks to Octavia Hill. We like her. It was born in Whizbeach. And, you know, her, one of her quotes is, "We all want quiet. We all want beauty. We all need space." And that's what we all need today, you know? So thanks to her, we can visit these great big houses, these fantastic gardens, these beautiful coastlines. And it's all thanks to this little girl who was born in Whizbeach, who lost contact with her dad, had to work for her even when she was 14. Wow. And she really, she gave it back, you know, she gave back to society. Amazing. Definitely a pioneer in her time because National Trust wouldn't have been founded if it weren't for her. That's amazing. Didn't Beatrix Potter also help the National Trust to speak of that? I think she donated her ace to the National Trust. Yeah, that's amazing. And the grounds, you know, so there are, I mean, it's quite funny when you're all talking about strong women, you know, I'm married to one. Well put. My mom is one. My mom is one as well. So, you know, and so was my grandmothers, you know, so, you know, we all have strong women in our backgrounds. That's right. That's really true. And Glenn, you sent me an article on Octavia, and that will be linked from the episode notes as well. I think you got all inspired. And next thing you know, I'm getting all these articles from Glinda Sprym. Like, what's he up to? He's all inspired. And you even sent one on Shakespeare. I'm going to, I'm excited to read that. So thank you so much, Glenn. And you know, I think your story about Octavia connects with Kimberly's story about Sarah B. Cochran. So Kim, can you tell us a little bit about who Sarah is and how you discovered her story? Sure. Sarah lived from 1857 until 1936 in southwestern Pennsylvania, so very close to West Virginia. And her family was extremely poor. The point where there's the land that they were forming. She became a man named Jim Cochran, and he had pioneered the Connellsville Coke industry that was very, very lucrative, supporting steel manufacturing in Pittsburgh at the time. Sarah and his fell in love and got married and had a child together. And when Sarah's husband and son died unexpectedly in 1899 and 1901, she was left to run the coal coqueries they owned. So this made her a competitor of Henry Clay Frick's at a time when women were not legally allowed to work in or around Pennsylvania coal mines, and business was considered a man's world. So she had this business that she inherited, but she also had the grieving process that she would be going through at this point too. And she was advised to think about the schools and churches that she could help with some of the money that she had. And that's how she got started being a philanthropist, which she did for the rest of her life, as well as staying in the coal and coke industry. And when I say that she was a philanthropist, she built several churches. She built dormitories, one for men and one for women at two different colleges. And she became a trustee of American University Beaver College and Allegheny College. And at Allegheny, she was the first female trustee that the college had ever had. She was also a suffragist and hosted a major suffrage rally at her home in western Pennsylvania in 1915 that featured Anna Howard Shaw. And I think that's significant because when you do something that publicly that reinforces the fact that you don't have the same citizenship rights as your male peers and your male employees, that draws quite a bit of public attention and perhaps scrutiny that you wouldn't get if you just wrote a check to the suffrage organization. So she was quite a pioneer in a number of areas. She became the namesake of a fraternity house after she passed away because she had a relationship with a particular fraternity in West Virginia as the mom of the chapter for a long time. And you don't see too many fraternity houses named for women from what I've heard, at least I don't know of any others. So that's another pioneering accomplishment that she had. I happen to know about her because I'm related to her. So she was my great-great grandmother's cousin and she put my great-grandmother through college. She put a lot of people through college. She would donate musical instruments to people or donate pipe organs to local churches and things that we can't really track. So she's well known in very small areas of southwestern Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia, but not well known beyond that. But the Metropolitan Museum of Art just acquired the Tiffany window that she commissioned for her home in 1911 to 2013. And it's being installed later this year. So hopefully many, many more people will hear about her if they visit the Met and see the Tiffany window. What about that pipe organ? It was amazing. Where is that pipe organ you are posting on social media and on LinkedIn and Instagram? So the pipe organ is at the Asbury Methodist Church in Union Town, Pennsylvania, also in southwestern Pennsylvania. And that's one that she donated in 1919. And the very first piece of music to be played when it was dedicated at the church was the William Tell Overture. So I had the good fortune of not only getting to hear the church organist play the William Tell Overture or parts of it for me when I was there, but I also got to go inside the air chest for the pipe organ, which I've never had any reason to do before, but it's just incredible to get inside that and see how the organ operates in a way that you would never think of just walking on it. That's fantastic to me that you're actually being able to go to places where she has been and her hands have done something, you know, in donations. And you know, all of that is amazing. And you know, that you're related is also really pretty incredible to have that connection. So I want to delve into that a little bit more. But first, Linda Blue, I want to go over to you. And I want to focus on Isabella Byrd, and on timing wise. So tell us a little bit about her, because I'm trying to keep this kind of in context of timelines. I think I'm kind of getting it right. Okay, so "Embrace of the Wild" is my historical novel inspired by Isabella Byrd. Now she was a woman who was born in the 1830s. And for the first 40 years of her life, she was basically an invalid. She had tumors on her spine. And the doctors at that time did all sorts of horrible things to her to fix her. They operated on her without anesthesia. They bled her with leeches and incisions. And they gave her all sorts of doses of laudanum and strange medication. So by the time she was 40 years old, she was an absolute total mess. And at that point, she lifted herself from the invalid's bed and said, "Goodbye, doctors." She lived in Scotland. "Goodbye, England, you dreary place. You dreary, rainy place." Don't say that, Glenn's on the show. I know Glenn is going to kill me, but she felt that way about London. Anyway, she got on a world cruise and was caught in a hurricane that landed her in Hawaii for six months. And she wrote a book six months in the Sandwich Islands. And she had a transformative experience there where she learned that if she sat a stride and rode horseback a stride instead of side saddle like a Victorian lady, that she didn't have pain in her back. This liberated that woman in so many ways. And she became, she was a pioneer in many levels. She was a breakout woman in that she wasn't looking for marriage. She was looking for adventure. And she was totally engaged in exploration. And so she said things like, "If you want to be a vine around a tree, then marry." She was way ahead of her time in terms of wanting to be herself. Can you do that again? That was cool. So she goes from Hawaii transformed, goes to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, rides 800 miles solo in the Rocky Mountains, rides a book, A Lady's Life in the Rockies that inspires millions to come, not millions at that time, but even today inspires people to come to the Rocky Mountains. And she had a romance there with Rocky Mountain Gym that is rumored. So she was an incredible woman in so many levels. I mean, she went on her solo ride. I mean, I followed it on a drive her 800 miles through the front range. I mean, I can't imagine doing this ride that she did by herself in the fog with snow and her little feet frozen to the stirrups and stopping wherever there was a light in a cabin and knocking on the door and sleeping with the children. I mean, this woman was so out there as unbelievable, but she didn't stop there. Then she went on to become the first white woman to go to China, not China. She didn't go to China. She went to Japan, Korea. Oh, yeah, she did go to China. She didn't go to India. And she traveled solo. Now, in those days, there were women travelers like Lady Dixon, but they went with an entourage, you know, carrying their luggage and so forth. But Isabella went solo into places where they had never seen a white woman. And she started sketching and she got into photography. And she recorded her times there. And she became like an ambassador to these places. And she became the first woman inducted into the National Geographic Society in England. So this woman I felt was just so inspirational to me because I'm a travel writer. And she was the best love travel writer of her day. Her writing is so lyrical and poetic. I, you know, I mean, I certainly can't duplicate her writing in my novel. I did my best, but you know, my writing is not close to the beautiful language that she has in her books. But her books are a journals that she sent back to her sister, Henrietta. So they're not it's not a novel. It's a diary, pretty much. So what I tried to create was a novel with a dramatic spine and the things that you you put into a literary effort. So that's, isabella bird. But I want to touch back because Glynn is on here because Linda was on the BBC with this Glynn. So this is back to your, your area of England, you know, so that's pretty cool. Right. Apart from the fact that she had something nasty to say about England. Well, I'm sorry. Isabella said that not I. I love England and the countryside and so on. But anyway, I was honored to be the Isabella bird expert on the BBC docu series trailblazer. And three, they came to Rocky Mountains and Estes Park, which is she's considered to be the mother of the Rocky Mountain. Was it one of the spice pearls on there with Melanie Brown and then Emily Atack and Ruby Wax were the actresses that interviewed me at the Bird and Jim restaurant in Estes Park. And I have my four minutes of fame. But unfortunately they didn't air it in the US. So it's up for you to watch it in England. Yeah, but I thought was so funny. I saw a clip of it and one of the ladies turns to Linda and says, well, don't you think we could go and ride it and Linda just looks at her looks at her shoes and like, no, it was really funny. It was great. I want to, you know, before we get into the meat, let's go to the potatoes because Sharon, I think I'm trying to keep to these timelines. So tell us about your lady. Yes, well, I want to talk about a pioneer, a legendary pioneer from Alaska before Alaska was ever a state. So I want to talk about Fanny Quigley. Not too many people know about Fanny, but I went to Alaska in 2021, right, as the COVID rules were lifting. And I led a women's tour there. But then I researched and stayed on to write and find stories to write about. And I read about Fanny Quigley. She was a pioneer and she was born in 1870 in Nebraska to check immigrant parents in a very, very poor lean to. And she left home at 16. She spoke Czech. She didn't speak any English. And she made her way west working in railroad camps. You can imagine that was a pretty tough life. Wow. She learned English that way, but most of her words were cuss words because she learned from the men in the front camps. So she eventually made her way to Kenishka in Alaska. And she lived in the wilderness by herself in a cabin. You can imagine this was just pure wilderness. She could shoot with the best of them. She could shoot a bear. She could make blueberry pies with the bear fat and lived her life. And she even panned for gold up there. That's why she made her way to Alaska. So she hosted guests too in her cabin. Jack London was one of her guests and he wrote about Fanny. And then in 1912, the Mount McKinley climbing expedition, there's no place to stay. When she made her way west, she was a cook in these railroad camps. So she hosted the whole 1912 McKinley climbing expedition contingent in her cabin. And Belmore Brown is an author and he wrote about reading her and saying she was one of the most remarkable women's he had ever met. So in 2021, I went to her cabin. In Denali, you have, there's only one way to get all the way back to Kenishka. It's by bus, old school bus. And I went to her cabin and I saw how she lived. And she just has a remarkable story. She wore men's clothes. She was a rough talker, but she celebrated in Alaska as one of the original pioneers. Wow. And she grew potatoes, right? That was the thing. Yeah. She grew everything in Alaska, even through the winters. So she had a root cellar and she grew potatoes. She grew raspberries. She hunted anything there was to hunt. She put the meat up. She put the vegetables and fruits up. And then that's how she lived. Wow. I was going to say you're in Denali. So you're talking about a school bus. And that's where Christopher McCandless died, I think was on a school bus. Yes, I went there. You did? Yes. Don't eat the berries if you don't know them. I mean, really. You need to know your berries. But Linda Baloo lived in Alaska as a kid. So do you know this area? Well, I don't know that area. I was in the inside passage, but we had people like strawberry shorty, a porcupine peat, who lived out in the woods. Strawberry shorty, actually, he made a living with his strawberries. Well, everything grows big up there because you have a short season, but the days are longer. So everything grows huge. And so anyway, we had some very colorful pioneer characters left in town. I was in high school at that time. So we're talking many, many years ago. Things have changed up there a lot. But when I lived there, it was rough. It was rugged. It was a real, it was only 2,000 people. We have a lot of loggers and fishermen and people who were rough and tough. Right, exactly. Alaska's not for the faint of heart. That's correct. Let's go to you, Katie, and talk about Patsy Klein because she really was amazing. She was iconic. Right. She didn't go through the pioneer life, but she did have a rough life in a way. She was born in September 8, 1932. And her father left the family when she was about 14. He had to go to work in a local drug store to help her mother support the family. Her mother was a seamstress and made a lot of her costumes later. And she really became a role model. In those days, when a woman became a country singer, and one of the reasons I like country music so much, it evolved from the mountain music to people that brought that over and the African-American blues. Many of the country and western singers learned their craft from a black blues singer. So it's merged and it's going on to merge into rock and roll. And the music of today has even evolved from a lot of it. But anyway, when she went into country music, in those days, women were the girl singers. They backed up the man. They were in the background. They weren't the star of the show. They didn't get top billing. And she didn't like that. She was going to do it her way. And she she broke into it. She tried when she was 15 on a local radio station, but her career began when she began recording in the early 50s. And it only lasted eight years, but during that eight years, she broke so many of the rules. She was the first woman admitted to the country music hall of fame. Before that, it was all the guys. In her day, women, if you ever watched country music, the old Grand Ole Opry, they wore the nice long to mirror ladylike dresses. She walked out of my office and she wore boots. And of course, in those days, if a woman got a divorce, that was the end of her line. Well, that's his first marriage to Daryl Klein, didn't work. So she got a divorce. And she kept the career. And she kept going. And she rose up to sort of she was in a terrible car crash. With many years, she was back on stage performing with crutches. Wow. Wasn't wasn't her husband pretty abusive, kind of a. Her second husband. Okay. Charlie Dick. Oh, she did sick with him. He was somewhat of a woman, I swear. The first husband, it doesn't go into a lot of why they just apparently just didn't mesh. And she was very young, but she did keep the name Klein from him who was the first of her birth name was Virginia Patterson Hanersley. And that didn't go over too well. So that's right. Patsy and Klein was then her married name when she began performing. So she used that. And some of her songs of 1962 hit you saying crazy, which was written by Willie Nelson. It made number two on the country charts, but it jumped up to number two. I'm not sorry, not I'm sorry. Crazy was her big number two hit on country charts. But after she died, it went on to become the number one jukebox hit of all times. Wow. And her first she was one of the first country marvellous who had a crossover. Her walking out the midnight 1957 hit number two one country at number 12 on the Billboard pop music. Yeah. So Tiffany, didn't Tiffany cover that? The pop singer Tiffany? She may have. I'm not really sure. In the 80s. Yeah. But it was her that that did the original one that hit the number 12 was her her version of it. And I've been to both her whole childhood, well, teenage home. And we're just we're here to win just Virginia. And also in Nashville to the Patsy Kline Museum. And if you go to Nashville, Johnny Cash Museum's downstairs, Patsy Kline's upstairs, see them both are fantastic. And when she performed in New York City, she Patsy Kline and Minnie Pearl were the only two women in the Grand Ole Opry show in Carnegie Hall. And she was given the key to the city, New York City by the New York's mayor. Wow. She she did an awful lot that women in her day wouldn't have even thought of doing it. She only had about an eight year career. Of course, a movie was made about her life sweet dreams with Jessica Lange. It wasn't totally factual, but it kind of got it. And one of the great things about it, a matter of how famous and how big she came, she would personally sit down and write, let us and answer her fans if they sent a fan mail. She'd sit down and answer it in person in the long detail. The museum has copies of the letters that she wrote. And then playing prior to when she died, that was March 5, 1963. Her manager, Andy Hughes, was piloting the plane. And it was her cowboy copious and Horkshire Hawkins were killed by day. And her grave is there in Winchester. I would have never been to the plane crash, but there is a memorial set up at the plane crash for the site on that. So many musicians died by plane. I mean, there's so many. And one of the ones, but this is the one that the wedding Jennings gave up his seat to the big bop when he crashed and all his life that kind of pointed him. Yeah, I want to go to that site. It's out in Mason City, Iowa. It's also the surf ballroom. We can go and it connects back to California history because you've got also, oh my gosh, LeBron, but I'm going to forget his name. Richie Valens? Is that the wrong one? That is? Yeah, he was on there and-- Yeah, Buddy Hawley. Yeah. Buddy Hawley was on the big bop. Oh man, it's sad. All the, they just found out-- Well, get up the Russian from one show to another and music is not everybody. We see the glamour of it, but it's, if you really look at musicians life, they never have life. It's not-- Yeah, Johnny. They're on the road. Yeah. Well, they're on the road so often. I mean, some of them living in the buses practically traveling here and there and it's not like, you know, just jump on a zoom. I think Dolly Parton lives in an RV pretty much most of her life and changes up, but she loves her RV, you know, and I get it. She's another real pioneer in the music field. She has-- And giving, a very giving element. Yeah, she is a very-- and she doesn't brag about it. She just does it. Exactly. Exactly. I love that. Let's-- and let's get to the same region if we all-- I'm going to go over to Joe. We're going to talk about buffaloes because we did potatoes and blueberry pie. Okay. Tell us a little bit about the buffalo women. Well, my friends Connie and Carla are not classically trained as chefs. They are-- they didn't come through the culinary line. One is actually a theologian. She has worked as a youth minister. The other one was a trained therapist and actually went to Redford University. The same place I went. So the two of them met as FedEx drivers. This is in Virginia. This is in Virginia and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. So they-- they met through the connection through FedEx and there was a man selling a restaurant in Reiner. A little teeny speck on Route 8, but it's really close to Redford and Blacksburg and Christianburg. So it's got a lot of traffic. It's the shortcut. If you're-- if you're trying to get to Redford or Virginia Tech, you go up the mountain from Martinsville, from Greensboro, from Ferrum, from Rocky Mountain, Stewart, all of those places, this is the route you take is route 8. So they had a prime location next to the service station. And when he stole the restaurant to them, they took it over and had-- both of them have mamas with really good dessert recipes. They had supportive families that helped and pitched in. I know Carla's dad did a lot of the work, the manual labor and building things, that kind of stuff. So they-- I guess they'd probably own the restaurant maybe three or four years when the man said, "Well, he wanted to sell the bison herd." And, you know, they said, "Well, we got to have meat." So they bought that too. So now they're now they're herding Buffalo and running a restaurant. Wow. Yeah. And it's-- and that's why I thought of them when you put up the notice about the topic this week being the pioneer women, boy, the pioneers, that's what they did was the Buffalo-- the Buffalo were hunted bison, American bison, but, you know, Buffalo just rolls off the tongue easier. European settlers that came to this country and started moving progressively toward the west pushed those Buffalo further and further and took up the natural habitat. It was reduced. They were nearly extinct by the 1900s. There were only a few hundred left in the entire United States. So a fun fact is the only place bison have lived nonstop since prehistoric times is Yellowstone National Park. And we all know how that works out. We see the the tourons of Yellowstone. Those videos are there for good reason. The bison are huge. They're ill-tempered when they're looking for love. The joke is there's a Bruno platter on their menu. And, you know, the joke is Bruno cornered Carla in the feedlot. And so, you know, if you're mean to Carla, your days are numbered. You're going to be on a plate. Oh, dear. You're going on the menu. But, you know, the bison, it's really, we've seen a few of them in different refuges across the country. And, you know, they are native species of this country. You know, we have cattle, which are not actually native species to our country. So when you look at sustainability, a lot of people eat grass-fed buffalo, right? And it's healthier. Yeah, you know, yeah, I don't eat a lot of it. But, you know, so I, but I think women in agriculture, and then even I know a cattle ranching woman, I was an incredible artist, Alice Lease. And her family ranches in Texas in the western plains of Texas. And they do it old school. They round their cattle up on horseback. Everything is done in that form so that it's better for the animals. You're not running them with jeeps and ATVs and things like that. Very much a family history of ranching in the right way. And an incredible artist, she goes, stays in national parks and paints all over from Hawaii to dry tortugas. So it's pretty incredible. But for women to be in that industry, that is pretty pioneering. Just like, you know, your lady up in Alaska, I think that's pretty pioneering too, getting your hands in the dirt. And, you know, I've heard of them in Greeley area of north, northwest, excuse me, northeast Colorado. There is a lot of women pioneers that dry farmed, which is not easy. You have no water out there. You have incredibly brutal winters. They have a lot of cattle up there too. And there's a lady, rattlesnake, Kate, and rattlesnake, Kate. You know, this, they have the ponnie grasslands out there. And the ponnie grasslands are amazing, biodiverse, beautiful. If you go and all the wildflowers are blooming, the one thing you will also experience are rattlesnakes. In fact, the headquarters of rattlesnake research is at the university in Greeley, Colorado. And so that just kind of tells you what you better take rattlesnake spray and wear boots when you go to this grassland area. But rattlesnake Kate was coming home. She had her little cabin and she lived alone with her sons, her husband had died. And she had her two sons with her getting to her cabin. And you know, you do get rattlesnakes that live together in like a rattlesnake den. And they were all out. And she couldn't cross over to her cabin. She took her rifle. She shot them all that she could. I'm more talking hundreds of rattlesnakes. No joke. Grabbed her sons rifles and beat them up. So she killed all these rattlesnakes, right? That's horrific. To me, that's kind of a traumatic experience. Took them all skinned them and made a dress out of the skins of these rattlesnakes and then took all their venom. And her venom that she collected, she started working with the university way back when on anti-venom for us humans. If we get bitten by a rattlesnake, you can thank rattlesnake Kate. But her dress, they, it's in the museums there. They have this whole, I should show the picture of her of this. It was like a flapper style dress of a rattlesnake skin. I'm like, that's crazy. That's crazy. So anyway, just that's, there's these pioneering women like that that blow my mind. Elaine, let's go to your ladies out in Mexico in Baja, California. Yes, hi. This is so much fun. I'm learning so much about women. I know. I'm like, yeah, we can shoot and make a blueberry pie and then ride through the Rockies, right? Absolutely. Well, my pioneer is a contemporary who I've had the good fortune to meet recently. And she's one of those quiet pioneers and one of those people, the more you find out about them, through other sources, then them personally, you are blown away by what they are accomplished, have accomplished and what they are accomplishing. So Eileen Gregory is the woman that I met. And she is, she worked for more than 30 years as an executive and creator, producer in music, TV and the film industries. And in the UK, we have ties today. She worked with Dave Stewart of the Arithmics and others to found energy, which was a first channel focusing on environmental issues and sustainability, human rights issues and personal growth. And that kind of has become a very quiet theme in her trajectory ever since. So, while she was in that business, she was jumping between Los Angeles and New York and Amsterdam and 9/11. Her husband is a noted and pioneering winemaker in his own right, had already forged ties in the Viagua de Lupe. And Eileen was working in the industry. And she, with another friend, started looking at what was possible in that region. And this was almost 25 years ago. And she suggested that they move there permanently after 9/11. A lot of people, you know, said this is the time to get out of here. Anyway, when she was down there, they found this wonderful property, 70 acres, in the middle of the Viagua. And this was at a time when there wasn't a lot of tourism there. There was a wine industry, a Mexican wine industry, but it was locally based and struggling, except for a few large winemakers. And Phil, of course, had his friends and was interested in developing things. And Eileen started talking to people in research, natural wines and organic wines, and then orange wines. And they started moving into that direction. So Phil went that way. And pretty soon he opened up Vena Cava, which is a tasting room there, and on their property. At the same time, while they were building this six room home and six guest room home, that they have now opened up to the public. And I had the good fortune to visit them there. So they were busy on these two fronts, and they realized that wine and food go together. And with her interest in sustainability, they were using materials from around the property, giving things a second life. Upturned, retired panga boats are on the rooftop of the tasting room. They used a lattice made from old hoses to shade the area near Troika, which is the cafe that they built, opened near a cafe. Because there wasn't, at that time, a year round, a restaurant opened in the middle of the bay. Since then, it has taken off. Many people have heard of it. It's been written about as a wine region in its own right, but similar to Tuscany in its terroir, in the land and the minerality there. So a lot of things were growing. There's all these chefs that have since come in, and just recently, the VA was awarded 10 Michelin stars, which is amazing. And looking at all this, Eileen wanted to keep going and supporting the community. And she has since at the villa started a dinner series working with the chefs, the local Mexican chefs, to for her guests that when you stay there, you have the opportunity to have this spectacular tasting menu using local ingredients from seafood, meats, organic, all-organic produce. And these meals are made for you when you're there as a guest. So I found it as a wonderful chance to find this quiet space in the middle of the bay with all this other, there's a lot of tourists and Mexican tourists, especially coming into the bay too. So they have formed this oasis in the middle of things. And at the same time, continuing her interest in art and and foods she has brought in, has worked with a wonderful curator from Mexico City, Pablo Leon de la Barra. And he's worked with and and Sao Paulo Brazil as a director of the Museum of Honor Art there. He's worked with the Guggenheim. And together, they identified a series of artists to build sculptures in what they're calling the Vena Cava sculpture part on the property using some of the acres that are not planted within years or with the restaurant and the tasting room. They have all this space and they have a sculpture garden. And it is open to the public. It's also there's wonderful trail leading from their villa down into this property. They've adopted five four or five donkeys that are very friendly. They're there on the property so you can take walks with them and see this artwork at the same time while you're visiting the tasting room. And I did want to mention the award-winning chefs who are creating these dinners in the villa are Cesar Vasquez and Elsa Olmos who are living there now in the Viya and creating these meals as well as running Troika. So there's all this artwork and the last thing I'll say about Eileen that just blew my mind is that she's continuing her interest in sustainability and food security by working on the board of the very good foundation which has initiatives on both sides of the border and they're organizing workshops every year focusing on regenerative agriculture so you're other leading and organic farming. So she's got a lot of things pioneering and moving forward on. That's awesome. I mean the regenerative farming is such a big deal. It's necessary. It's actually more important than organic farming at this point because of our topsoil. So I think that's fantastic that she's leading that and also that I'm not going to get political on the show at all but it's so important to understand that Mexico is still an amazing destination and the Mexican people are wonderful people. I think you know about that, Johnny. I have to go. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Amanda. Johnny tell us a little bit about your lady that you want to represent. Yes. So Kathleen, my musical heroine that I want to focus on today, Teresa Toduri, would definitely share your praise for Patsy Klein and I think that powerful musicians influence those around them and the musicians that follow them in many different ways and there are a lot of different ways you can measure someone's impact on their industry or the world around them and some of them get famous and some of them don't but when I talk to many of the musicians, the songwriters and singers that I admire, many of them will tell you that Teresa Toduri is one of the best songwriters, if some of them even say best songwriter that they know and that she started when performing live when she was 15 years old, she was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and she, Janice Joplin came to see her perform when she was 15 and took her under her wing and would take her out often and have her sing at her shows when Janice left her band they asked Teresa to take over and she declined because she says, I can't step into those shoes but over the years, she's like you Lisa, she's lived in many places around the world and she takes a little of all of that with her and she lived next door to Leonard Cohen on the island of Idra in Greece and they instantly became tight buddies and she talks about many, many very famous people that she's met and she always says that oh we hit it off right away and it's no surprise because of her incredible personality, she's wickedly funny, brilliant and then just a phenomenal artist and one of the important things that I look for in musicians and other artists that I value is authenticity and there's no one more authentic than Teresa Toduri, she always talks about wanting to have and make some kind of a difference in the world and she doesn't shy away from difficult subjects and she's really found that humor is a way in to get people to open up and consider different viewpoints so many of her songs have this biting humor satire, she's a real storyteller and those are things that I've learned from her in my music just how to tell stories, how to bring things up in a way that's disarming so that you can talk about them because if you just go at people full bore they're just going to shut down and Teresa has a way with her music, if you go to one of her shows she talks a lot in between songs and she's a comedian as well and and so you just you you know she you let her in because of the way she she is and who she is and so with that she's able to really some of her music is just brilliant to me and there are a lot of music critics who have pointed to different songs of hers as the best song they've ever heard and so she's definitely worth checking into and she pays it forward as you know anyone who's who's had a lot of people take them under their wing and and help them she's she then turns around and helps other people so every week she has a radio show for two hours called "Live from the Double Wide" it's cool and she just plays all the music of her favorite favorite you know of her fellow artists and every once in a while somebody will request one of her songs but generally it's all about highlighting these other musicians I've been exposed to so much incredible music just by listening to her show it's on K-TAL radio out of New Mexico where she lives now or it's also on KAL's radio out of out of California and so it's on multiple times a week but it's a it's a fantastic show and she has just finished recording a new album that when she introduces herself on her radio she says "I'm Teresa Teduri, perhaps you've heard of me" and so that's the name of the album Teresa Teduri "Perhaps you've heard of me" and Ricky Lee Jones is one of her best friends and one of my all-time favorite musicians and sings on the record with her she's got some other really big Charlie Musselwright and so the talent on this record is incredible and it's coming out in the fall and I heard a couple of the songs already there's one of our favorite songs I've never seen my husband Paco laugh so hard is when he heard her song called Delusional Man and when she sang it live she recorded that so we're really excited about that because it's one of her favorites so she's on all the streaming platforms and all that but if you ever get a chance to see her live you should jump at it and she does travel around and do different shows so she's I do hope that she she gets more recognized by the public but I can tell you that in the music industry many of us she's had a profound influence on ours she's like a musician's musician yes definitely that's that's that's and that's so hard to be I think that's really important a musician's musician means you've got that really that authentic talent that you're talking about and I want everyone again to know links in the episode notes will link out to like Kimberly's book about Sarah B Cochran to all the articles like Joe's got an article about the buffalo women you know so all of that will be in the episode notes but and I know Elaine's got an article too I wanted to touch back with each of you and just tell me one quality that you learned that you want to embrace from the women that you talked about today there's one quality that you want you know I want to add more of this into who I am as a person you know something that you learned from them so let's start with you Elaine because you're smiling oh well thank you I think the word that came to mind is a community the importance of community the one thing that Eileen has really done is to create a community in a new land that she was not born in and it takes time and it takes energy and as I've been had the good fortune to travel around the world I am looking more and more for locals for community with which to who to focus on and and to bring to life in in my work so I think that's the biggest lesson for me is the importance of that community especially as we have we get older if you know we can we can find a family and a home that we create for ourselves too so it's not purely unselfish by any means no no I love that Kimberly what what about you with Sarah B. Cochran well I was amazed by how she was able to move away from her husband and son's very tragic deaths and go on to have a very joyful life for I would say maybe 36 more years so I think her capacity for joy is something that I would want to see more of yeah that's that's important and it's hard you know do you think her work came from you know all that she did which was a lot and I know you're gonna come back on the show for our Women's Equality Day talking about her work and how as a philanthropist as well do you think a lot of that helped her get through the grief was by giving and doing I think so I I think it did I think that it had to make her feel very good to see other people maybe improving their lives whether just you know making themselves happy by playing a musical instrument that she gave them or being able to go and get a college education because of her I think that had to make her feel good I love that I love that what about you Sharon I think I admire Fanny Quigley's independent spirit here is a young girl she just took off on her own she probably didn't have any choice they probably couldn't feed her that was a hard life and she she followed her own path she had an independent she was fearless I like that I like that what about you Joe you're gonna go hurting Buffalo no but I think I've learned from them to keep on keeping on they've had some each of them have had some health issues they have had to struggle and rise above the good old boy network that oh yeah they they bought a house that they renovated to turn into a restaurant because they were going to give up this smaller space they had rented for many years and they had two different contractors who did not fulfill their obligations but they fulfilled their bank their bank account and when they tried to seek recourse even the judge was part of the good old boy system and they were they were left hanging so they've had they've had a lot of struggles and they just keep on keeping on they are in that house now it's done it's renovated oh yeah I like that persevere yeah they definitely they have done that and in spades I love that I love that Katie what about Patsy I think because she never gave up she didn't take no friend answer somebody he said oh you can't do that she said watch me and she did it and I got I agree with something Johnny said about music affecting people on different levels that's one of the reasons I wrote the book does music reflect the culture or is the culture reflected in the music and I know it that's a question you think about it yeah it's a it's complex yeah we'll have to do a show on that I think that's that's what they do with us a lot to be said on that yeah it's not just you go you're listening sober or you it's what you're listening to gonna make you go out not like during the 50s or the hot rod forwards and everything from the music did that spur of the hot riding in the drug racing or did the hot riding in the drug racing spur of the music I always go with the music first period it's always a music first how about a joint effect and also tell the story the truth about what's going on in society the music always tells the truth you know I just want to go see those pipe organs are you kidding I love or and I used to teach organs and or and pipe organs I mean yeah I mean Johnny you've got to you perform a lot in churches cathedrals that kind of thing and when you see those pipe organs don't they just kind of sweep you away that they're powerful and yeah I think that blessed sacrament church in Hollywood for almost 40 years when we had a 52 rank uh French Casablant pipe organ that that Virgil Fox and others came you know from Europe to play on and so it was so it was incredible singing with that organ it's a very those organs have a very mellow sound but but the way that you hear the different instruments and in in the pipes and it's it's gorgeous the last one I saw was at Ironstone vineyards in California which is outside Yosemite National Park and they also have a huge gold nugget in their museum like a massive gold nugget like massive and then they have wine because you have wine music and gold I'm like what is that sounds like a girl's best friend it was good it was beautiful and they have a huge venue for musicians touring go there and um and you get you get you know brought in by limo so it's quite uh Teresa uh does not as I said shy away from anything and uh you know I it's really important to me to sing about the things that matter to me and that can be really scary in fact my next song is the scariest song I've ever put out it's coming out in a few weeks and uh Teresa and a few other people gave me the courage and the road map to be able to do that and so I would say confidence and bravery having a road map helps with bravery and confidence absolutely I think so I think so or you just jump in and go oh now what you know we think we've all done that in life well thank you all for joining us again everyone the links for everyone's articles and also books and websites everything is in the episode notes we are here again every fourth wednesday with a panel of women and um I don't know we always have a busy show there's always a lot of guests on it and as I was saying I have a funny feeling it's going to end up being twice a month um because why not it's good stuff we got to celebrate women so thank you all for joining us and keep up with us at BigBlendRadio.com thank you thank you for listening to BigBlendRadio. 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