Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service

Although an "official" nursing service was not established until 1881, the corps traces its heritage to Florence Nightingale, who was instrumental in lobbying for the support of female military nurses.  The Army Nursing Service, which had been established in 1881, and which from 1889 provided Sisters for all Army hospitals with at least 100 beds, had only a small number of nurses in its employ. In 1897, in an effort to have nurses available if needed for war, the service was supplemented by Princess Christian's Army Nursing Service Reserve (PCANSR). Nurses registered for the service and by the beginning of the First Boer War the reserve had around 100 members, but swelled its membership to over 1400 during the conflict. PCANSR eventually became the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service.   Some of these nurses rode aside in the field to reach their patients faster.  In March 1902, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) was established by Royal Warrant, and was named after Queen Alexandra, who became its President. In 1949, the QAIMNS became a corps in the British Army and was renamed as the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Since 1950 the organisation has trained nurses, and in 1992 men were allowed to join.

The associated Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps Association is a registered charity. Queen Alexandra was President from 1902 until her death in 1925. The following year she was succeeded by Queen Mary.

Horse Show at The Devon Inn in 1896

Wow!  What a great historic sidesaddle event.  So glad it was captured on film.

Blast From Texas Past!

This photo is labeled with only the information as follows:

Equestrienne in bowler hat, stylish gauntlets, and with horsehair quirt, stands beside her horse, which has a horsehair bridle and cowgirl-style, double-rigged, heavily carved sidesaddle, c. 1900
Panhandle Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas

There is little that I do not love about this - the sidesaddle Western rig, including the bridle, her unique multi-strap buckle closure of the jacket combined with the big fashionable sleeves and bowler or maybe the uniquely fringed and stitched gloves!!

Traces of Texas reader Arthur Wellborn remembered us by sending in this fantastic late 1800s photo of his great great grandfather's saddle shop in Snyder, Texas. His name was Pierce Mashborn Wellborn and the name of the shop was Wellborn and Sons Harness and Saddles. Can you imagine how good the interior of this place smelled?

..and here is a photo from a harness/saddle shop in Deleon Texas!  Interior of Dabney Saddlery and Harness ca: 1900. Notice the Moon brand buggies and buggy whips along the left wall and stirrups hanging from the counter on the right. Ebb E. Dabney is on the right behind the counter. A.C. (Bunn) Martin front left. Behind Martin is believed to be Nute Koonce. The two men in the center are unidentified.

Antique Corsets

As you probably remember - I do not like to ride aside, even when I practice, without wearing a riding corset.  It helps my back beyond explanation!  I know lots of you feel the same way, so with that in common, I figured you probably also have an interest in corset history.  I could write a long dissertation about the history of corsets... but others have already done that ... and probably done a better job than me.. so without further delay, I just wanted to share these quite unique antique corsets.  Keep in mind, these are NOT riding corsets.

This first beauty is from 1880.

This is a bridal corset...so delicate and feminine!!

This is actually a corset made for a circus performer circa 1870.  You can see that it supported the young lady with her acrobatic act.

...and here is something I truly wish I owned a modern version of... a silk corset cover.  I have something similar - a cotton camisole I wear over mine, but it does not come close to the elegance of this garment!!

Horse Transportation.. a bit of history

First there was horse transport by.... horse. (1 lucky and 1 unlucky!)

.. horse transport by ship..

..horse transport by train - these are horses being shipped for war efforts..

 ..and this more pampered horse is privately owned.

Motorized Transport

The earliest motorized van for conveying horses was apparently designed in 1902 ( Robertson, 1974). It was not until 1912 that horse boxes fitted to internal - combustion motor car chassis began to be mass produced by Vincent Horse Boxes of Reading, England. The Vincent motorized horse box was a three ton motorized horse box - similar to today's horse vans. They were used by the British army in 1914 to transport horses to war The disadvantages and dangers of rail transport of horses began to loom larger than it's benefit. During the 1920's the railway's fought the take over of bloodstock transport by road haulers".

"there was no doubt in the minds of trainers that the advantage of sending their horses by road were inestimable. Train journeys were not only tedious but highly strung Thoroughbreds did not take kindly to being shut up in an often darkened box whilst their train shunted and jerked, rushed noisily through tunnels and was passed by other thundering railroad giants. At least one Derdy winner was only boxed onto his train at the eleventh hour by the brute force of some dozen men, and many trainers complained that their horses arrived on racecourses after long train journeys having lost weight and condition (Seth-Smith, 1972 )

This horse is on his way to a race.

Horse Trailers

Before automobile motors became more powerful in the late 1950's and early 1960's, most motorized horse transport was accomplished in large trucks and vans. For short trips cars were used to tow small light weight trailers. Trucks backed up to ditch banks or ramps were also used with bed rails. The horse trailer as we know it today has evolved 

 ..we've come a long way!!

Chapter 2 - More Information on Kittie Wilkins

Additional information found in Women in Idaho History.

Katherine Caroline, aka “Kitty,” Wilkins was born in Nevada and moved to Bruneau County, Idaho with her family is the 1880′s. She joined the family’s cattle and horse ranching business at the age of twenty-one in 1879. Her father began taking Kitty to horse shows and she found that she had a knack for the business and decided to begin her own horse ranching business. She is said to have chosen horses because they were more profitable and less difficult to work with. She began her business with just one horse, which she stated she bought with $40 she received as a gift, and a contract with the U.S. Army. Her business boomed and was soon selling almost 600 horses per year. Some years were even more exceptional, such as 1895 when Kitty sold over 3,000 horses.

As Kitty’s success grew, so too did her contracts and her reputation. She was contracted to provide six railroad carloads (of which each car held 26 horses) of “broke,” or semi-tame, horses for sale every two weeks. When Kitty was able to consistently deliver on the contract, her reputation as the “Horse Queen of Idaho” was spread by newspaper from coast to coast. Idaho historian Arthur Hart said that Kitty was probably the most well-known Idaho woman of her time. Kitty herself was no stranger to creating publicity and often told vivid stories of her days as a horse trader. She even dubbed herself the “Queen of Diamonds” after her company’s Diamond brand.
Kitty Wilkins took an enormous risk in the livelihood and life she chose. Not only was she a woman in a field dominated by men, she was incredibly successful at it. Some of her ranch hands have estimated she made over $2,000,000 during her career. What made Kitty so successful was not just her tenacious spirit, but also her incredible mind for business. When others wasted time looking for auctions or shows to sell their horses, Kitty auctioned them right out of the railroad car. Kitty Wilkins succeeded because she had the skills and heart necessary to become Idaho’s “Horse Queen.”

Kittie Wilkins - a historical account

IDAHO's own, Kittie Wilkins, known as the Horse Queen of Idaho, was perhaps the most famous western woman in the country at the turn of the twentieth century. The Wilkins Horse Company owned close to ten thousand horses in Owyhee County, Idaho, the largest herd owned by one family in the West, and its boss, Kittie, was the only woman at the time whose sole occupation was selling horses. Newspaper reporters all over the country were fascinated by her success and her character, and reports, features, and interviews with her were published in thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia, as well as Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand.
Today, Wilkins is virtually unknown outside of Owyhee County. Even her gravestone is wrong, naming her “Kitty Wilkins” instead of “Kittie.” Philip Homan, a catalog librarian and associate professor at Idaho State University, is attempting to save Wilkins from obscurity. He is writing the first scholarly biography of her life and gives presentations about her for the Idaho Humanities Council’s speakers bureau program. For Homan, Wilkins’s story is essential to the history of the American West: “To Americans, she was the very model of the westerner, and her story epitomized the West.”
Wilkins was born into the horse-dealing business. Her family began building its enormous herd when she was a little girl in the 1860s. In the 1880s, she began accompanying her father on his business trips to the Midwest, and he soon discovered that she was a natural at horse trading. When she was older, Wilkins was fond of telling the story of how she got her start: When she was two years old, she received a gift of two twenty-dollar gold pieces to be invested for her. Her father took her forty dollars and used it to make a deal on what should have been an eighty-dollar horse. As Wilkins told the San Francisco Examiner, “From the increase, all my bands have come.”
Rather than hiring a commission agent, she sold her horses herself. She traveled to the Midwest and, without a chaperone, attended the livestock markets. “Often I am the only woman in a crowd of two hundred or more horse dealers,” she told the Boston Advertiser. “Sometimes people come out to the stockyards to see in me a new curiosity, and there are a few who try to flirt or make sport of me. I just walk up to a group of such men and, looking them squarely in the face, say, ‘Do you gentlemen wish to look at my horses?’”
Wilkins made the biggest horse sale in the American West in 1900, when she sold about eight thousand horses to a single buyer in Kansas, who was supplying horses to the British Army for the Boer War. Homan points out that Wilkins sold about 10 percent of the American horses that went to South Africa, making her probably the largest supplier of horses in the war.
The later years of Wilkins’s life were marked by tragedy. In 1909, her foreman, who was most likely her fiancé, was shot and killed in a range war over water. Later that year, gold was discovered in Jarbidge Canyon of northeastern Nevada, setting off the last gold rush in the West. In the first few years, the only way to Jarbidge Canyon was over the elevated plateau known as Wilkins Island, the location of Kittie Wilkins’s horse range. Part of the Wilkins’ land included hot springs nearby. “Virtually overnight,” Homan writes in an article for Idaho magazine, “the Jarbidge gold rush turned the Wilkins Hot Springs into a mining camp and the Wilkins Island into the highway to Jarbidge.” Wilkins wanted to build a hotel at the hot springs to take advantage of the new traffic, but in 1910 a squatter on the land claimed possession of it. Wilkins sued the squatter for recovery of the land, but the judge ruled in favor of the defendant and the hotel plans were dashed. “The Wilkins Hot Springs was the strongest link in the Wilkins family’s chain of ranches across Owyhee County,” Homan writes, “and as their hold on the place grew weaker, their wealth and influence began to decline.” Wilkins spent the last years of her life in Glenns Ferry, Idaho, where she spread her remaining wealth among charities.
Homan argues that one of the reasons Wilkins is such an important historical figure is because she differed so dramatically from the stereotype of the “new woman” that prevailed in her time. People expected such a successful female horse dealer to be a “suntanned masculine woman in a short skirt and a cowboy hat.” Instead, they were surprised to find that “she was an utterly Victorian, feminine woman.” She insisted on riding sidesaddle, and always dressed in the latest fashions: “She came to the stockyards and the sale rings in a full riding habit, with a riding skirt down below her toes,” Homan says. “I think this is one of the reasons that perhaps she’s been ignored by contemporary scholars, because she was a Victorian woman. At least at first she opposed women’s right to vote. . . . She wasn’t a feminist in any contemporary sense of the word, except that she was absolutely independent.”

Information found in the Humanities Magazine - March/April 2012

..Part 3

By 1946, Judith Gyurky had survived annihilation through not one but two world wars. She had found and lost her beloved horses, fled from Soviet armies, trained with the Hungarian Cavalry, disguised herself as a vaudeville girl to flee the country, and even competed against and defeated Olympic Show Jumpers. But Judith was destined to make one final journey to find peace with her horses.
As in the previous flight from Hungary, Judith made her way to Austria, hoping it could provide refuge for her and her caravan of Hungarian Clover Horses. Instead, she found outrageous boarding costs, terrible living conditions, and danger lurking at every turn for her beloved herd, which could easily be stolen for meat, cavalries, or farm work. In fact, her original herd was shrinking by the day. The pastoral countryside estates of her childhood in Hungary were no more and the communists taking power sealed Judith’s fate.  She was headed to the American Frontier.
Judith acted quickly, and as soon as she was granted refuge in the U.S., she left her horses alone in Austria just long enough to secure a property all her own outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. She sold every single possession she had to secure the farm and to get the horses imported.  When they arrived, all that remained of her 64-horse caravan were six mares, three stallions, and four foals, all skin and bones and lucky to have survived a hurricane on the boat ride across the Atlantic.  And wouldn’t you know, the newest of the four little foals bore a peculiar feature on her nose–a slate blue marking in the shape of a three leaf clover. This little mare was named Mokus, and would become the foundation for the future of Judith’s American herd. The Clover Horses had shown their face to Judith once more, and she had finally brought them home.
It was far from the end of her trials. The Clover Legend’s promise (see part 1) about peace and prosperity never did seem to come true for Judith, but she saw to it, from that moment on, that it would prove true for her horses. To feed her farm full of Hungarians, Judith took odd jobs like plucking chickens and working a cook line. Judith and her husband, Dollar, never bought a house and instead converted one of the barns on the property into a meager but unique home. And Judith continued to breed, sell, show, and train her horses and bring them into the American spotlight for the next thirty-five years.
Judith and another Hungarian Countess in America, Margit Bessenyey (a woman worthy of a three-part series in her own right!) crossbred their Hungarian horses to make what is today the foundation for the Hungarian Warmblood Association here in the United States. Other important contributors at the time included Cooksley Ranch, Jim Edwards, and the United States Army Remount Program, without whom the Hungarian bloodlines could not have been preserved.
According to what little is available about Judith’s later years, they never had much money, but her horses were never, ever hungry. A single rare interview shows Judith in her seventies still working as the primary caretaker of the horses, living a simple life for herself, but with a lovely crop of mares and foals who wanted for nothing in fresh hay and water, and the richest grain she could afford.  Countess Margit said of her friend, “She feeds them too much because she cannot forget the days in Vienna, when she had no grain.”
According to social security records, Judith died in September of 1985. There was no announcement of her death, no obituary. Quickly thereafter, the story of Judith’s heroism for her Clover Horses was lost except to a select few involved with the Hungarian Warmbloods, and those lucky enough to own one of the 2,000 copies Judith had printed of her own book.  Today, what lingers on in the world-wide-webbed-consciousness is a nearly anonymous photograph of her jumping sidesaddle, and her name misspelled. After reading her story, it was more than I could bear.
As best as I can tell, this three-part account is the most accurate and complete telling of Judith’s story available to the public on the web. Citizens of Horse Nation: Share her story.  Re-write her ending. For everything she gave to preserve her most precious possessions, let us make sure the horse world, in fact, the whole world, does not forget her name again.  Do it for the Clover Horses!

Part 2

While Sarga was already in her golden years and would not live much longer, Judith was able to produce four more Clover horses from Sarga before her death: two fillies and two colts. Because Judith was still living in bustling inner Vienna, Austria, when she found Sarga, she sent the mare to live with her cousin at an estate called Langos, which is where Sarga’s foals would be born and raised. When several years later Judith had married and returned to a rural Hungarian estate and was ready to manage the horses herself, the Langos farm would not release them. When Judith persisted, Langos finally told her that the four sons and daughters of Sarga had all been injured in a carriage driving accident, and had to be destroyed. Devastated but not hopeless, the Countess knew she would have to start her search again, and hope that there was still a Clover left in the Austral-Hungarian Empire.
Judith continued riding, training and competing without her Clover horses. She was one of only a small handful of women jumping at an international level, and she always did so sidesaddle. She often trained with the military cavalry, and it was here that she would encounter her next amazing twist of fate. Conversing with a group of officers at Ujszalles after a training session, an officer asked if Judith was looking for a new jumping mount. They warned her: the mare was mean, ugly, and often threw her riders, but that her six foot pen could not contain her jumping talent. Judith was all ears.
The cranky bay mare would come to be known as Igezo, which meant “The Charmer,” and when the mare was finally auctioned off by the military, the not-so-charming Igezo was sold for a fraction of her worth to an ecstatic Judith. It took several years to break through years of misunderstanding and mistreatment to the smart and stubborn mare, but in time, the two became full and trusting partners, besting the entire Hungarian Olympic Team at the 1936 show jumping trials. It was a moment that would make Judith a figure of mysterious lore in the years to come.

Igezo also produced many lovely foals, and Judith wanted to go about registering her and her offspring. When she wrote to the military for her papers, imagine her surprise to learn that Izego had originally come from Langos, the estate where she had kept Sarga and her foals. She went to Langos herself to speak to the coachman where she learned an extraordinary secret. Before their early deaths, one of Sarga’s daughters had been bred and produced a single filly of her own: a mean, ugly bay mare. Without knowing it, Judith had been expanding her precious Clover Horses all along through Igezo, granddaughter of Sarga.
By the time World War II broke out, Judith had 64 Hungarian Clover Horses in her barn, and the legend seemed to be fulfilling itself. But the legend, for all of its promises of peace and prosperity, seemed to equally produce chaos and tragedy. Austria and Hungary were absorbed by the Third Reich, and would soon be targeted by incoming Russian troops. Judith, like many Hungarians, tried to stay put as long as possible, before they found themselves in enemy fire. Judith knew what was coming. Troops would seize horses for Cavalry and meat, and the farm would be pillaged. She packed her smallest valuable belongings into a cart (to trade later for food for the horses) and she and her most loyal employees set out by foot to flee Hungary with a string of the 64 Hungarian horses, never to return.
If fleeing enemy armies in a world war was not trying enough, as they started out for Austria’s border, Judith’s beloved Igezo began to colic. The mare tread onward despite a heavy lather, and though she got up and down several times a day, she tried faithfully to keep up with Judith at any cost. But her condition never improved, and only worsened with every hour, and soon Judith knew that the mare was not going to survive the trek to Austria. When Igezo went down the final time, the sound of approaching Russian troops was beginning to echo through the valley. Judith’s caravan was desperate to move forward, but she could not bear to leave Igezo to die alone by the side of the road. She held the mare’s head until she took her last breath, even as the sound of bombs and bullets got ever-closer.
As Judith brushed off the hysteria, the tears, and the dust from herself, she was approached by a young Austrian boy. According to her autobiography, Judith recalls the boy telling her that they were in fact surrounded by Russians on both sides of the road. If they had gone a quarter mile further, the entire caravan would have walked right into their road block. But the boy said he could lead them to safety through the forest if they left now. Judith looked back at her still and tender partner only once before she and the caravan followed the boy to safety.
Judith recalled in her bittersweet account that, like Sarga and the car accident in Vienna, the Legend of the Clover Horse had once again saved her and her family from certain death. In this case, it was at an extraordinary cost to Igezo herself and, in my personal opinion, I don’t know that Judith ever fully recovered from the guilt she felt over that fact.
Judith and her remaining herd had survived another close call at the hands of war, and the Austria and Hungary that Judith had once known was no more. With nowhere else to go, a woman who embodied the spirit of tough and rugged horsewomen would turn her eyes to the only possible refuge: America.

Do You Know The Story Behind This Photo?

Part - 1

Who of us, sidesaddle fans, have not seen this wonderful photo?  I know I have, and am thrilled to have found the story behind it, the rider and the horse from a publication called Horse Nation.

She is often incorrectly identified online as “Judy Gerky” with her stallion or gelding Izego. In fact, she is Hungarian Countess Judith Gyurky, and she WON that Hungarian Olympic trial with her Hungarian Clover Mare, Igezo. It took me many weeks just to find out those precious pieces, but once I did, the story only got better.
To start at the beginning, Judith was born and raised in Hungary sometime around 1900. As a little girl, she would often ride in what is today the *Czech Republic at her grandmother’s estate, upon a feisty little Hungarian mare named Sarga. Sarga’s unique dark-swirl marking on her nose was a visible genetic marker, and deemed her a member of the Hungarian legend of Clover Horses. The legend purported that horses with such a mark descended from the earliest horses of the Asiatic Steppes, upon whom the Mongols had ridden into Hungary in the 13th century. Such lineage made the tough and fiery horses nothing short of royalty among true Hungarian horsemen, and, according to the Clover Legend, anyone who stewarded these animals would be lucky in their own fortunes and proper care would guarantee the peace of prosperity of Hungary.
Judith and Sarga would trample through fields of red poppies, dart around thick Czech forests, and occasionally part ways when Sarga’s and Judith’s matching short and explosive tempers would cause calamity. But Judith always came back for more.
At least, until World War I. With Eastern Europe falling apart at the seams, borders changing, and empires falling, small and undeveloped countries and their rural provinces fell victim to passing armies of every nation. Villages were pillaged, men were drafted or taken as imprisoned laborers, and horses were plucked off of family estates at will. Judith, ever superstitious of the Clover Legend’s warning, recalled in her later years that she knew instinctively that the great loss of Sarga to the passing German Army would prove to be devastating for her family, and her nation. The day the army took Sarga, Judith’s uncle told her that she must find the Clover Horses and keep them in the family at all costs. That night, despondent, he hung himself in the quiet, empty barn. Judith would have to fulfill that mission alone.
Judith fled the estate and, because of her family’s position in the falling empire, was immediately caught up in the politics and tragedies of war, and even at her young age, was a key player in the escape of the Austral-Hungarian King’s Chaplain during the communist revolution, and paid a high price for her allegiance when she was caught and tortured for information. She herself escaped the revolution by disguising herself as a member of a vaudeville group as “Miss Arizona.”  By staying with the vaudeville group, she was able to make her way to Vienna and reunite with her mother. Admit it, you now love this woman as much as I do.
Judith had not forgotten her promise to her uncle, though she remained in Vienna for the next several years after the war ended as a sort of upper class refugee. While it seemed she was far from her mission to find the Clover Horses, it was at a Viennese park that she came across a string of horses for rent, and a man beating a mean-spirited horse. Judith insisted on buying the horse on the spot, and walked it home to her stables clad in her silk heels and fur coat. Only when she bedded the mare down for the night and removed her grazing muzzle did she see that, under layers of scars, was a clover mark. It was not only a rare Clover Horse, but her very own Sarga: beaten, bitter and half starved. Still reeling from the discovery of her childhood companion and the long walk home, it was only a few hours later that Judith would be informed that the friends she had been with at the park just hours earlier had all died in a car accident. Had she not had left early to walk the horse home, she would have perished with them. As Judith described it years later, the Clover Horse had not been back in her possession ten minutes when its good luck spared her family another tragedy.
Both Judith and Sarga had overcome extraordinary odds to survive World War I and the Communist Revolution in Hungary. While Sarga would only go on to live a few more years to the ripe and happy age of 30, Judith’s story of tragedies, miracles, wars, and heroism had hardly even begun.

Antique Cabinet Photos

I just love antique cabinet photos.  If I were to start a new sidesaddle realated collection, I know it would be one of these amazing photos! 

I know that they, as do our modern photos, show people at thier best, but still you do get a peek into their lives..

.and the lives of their equine friends since you know their best horses were chosen to be in the photos!

I am such a fashion buff too.  Most of the cabinet photos were taken between 1870 and 1920.  You can get a real sense of what they were wearing.  Just look at this next photo, look at the detail of the twist in the hat scarf and the jewelry too. 

Here is a photo I really wish there was more information on.  I would have thought it was a fake, but the horse type totally matches the late 1800's.  The riding suit is totally unique though isn't it.

Love love love this one of the young girl wearing a corset but with her hair unbound, dated 1880.

Lovely!

This next one, probably husband and wife, is dated 1885.

Now - here is a photo I love.  I want a stand up white collar like this!

This photo speaks volumes to me!  I wish she were my relative.

This one is 'newer' by the standards of cabinet photos. 

sigh... she is so elegant!

More Pics From Thge Shelburne Museum..

So ~ if you thouht the carriage and sleigh collection was wonderful, wait until you see some of the articles of antique clothing they had!

Now THIS is a top hat box!

Vacation Pictures..

While we were in Vermont, one of the things we did was visit the Shelburne Farms; one of the most unique museums I have ever seen.  Historic buildings were moved to this location and were either restored with as much of the origonal furnishings as possible or they were housing collections of many one of a kind antiquities well worth seeing... So instead of me rattling on and on about it.. let me just show you some of what we saw:

This building housed a huge collection of antique sleighs and snow mobiles.

..and this huge barn housed the biggest collection of carriages I have ever seen..

.along with some amazing other antique tack...

...but sadly - not even one single sideaddle... poo.