Cast of characters set to make history come alive

By Jean Reid Norman

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009 | 1:59 a.m.

When hard times hit Virginia City in 1877, things got so bad that some residents feared hungry vagrants would set the town on fire in order to get food.

The solution for Mary McNair Mathews, a widow who moved there eight years earlier to settle her deceased brother’s affairs, was to start a soup kitchen with a friend.

She describes how she and the friend fed hundreds of hungry and out-of-work miners on donations for almost two months in “Ten Years in Nevada,” a memoir that provides a window into Virginia City during that period.

Mathews’ story will come to life Sept. 19 at the Boulder Theatre, 1225 Arizona St., during the annual Boulder City Chautauqua.

Anita Watson will be one of three actor-scholars who will present different perspectives on the West of the late 19th century, giving monologues and answering questions in character.

Watson will perform as Mathews during the evening show with Tyler Stewart, who will bring to life sharpshooter Annie Oakley. In the afternoon, UNR English professor David Fenimore will perform as Western novelist Zane Grey.

Tickets are $15 for each show, which includes admission to the Boulder City-Hoover Dam Museum.

The Chautauqua is a fundraiser for the Boulder City Museum and Historical Association, which operates the museum and the Boulder Dam Hotel, where it is housed. A fundraising reception for the association will be held 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18 at the Boulder Dam Hotel, 1305 Arizona St., featuring music by Charlie Shaffer.

Watson, a retired museum professional, was attracted to Mathews because she exemplifies a late Victorian woman in both her kindness and bigotry, and her life shows that not all women in Virginia City during that period were either wives or prostitutes, he said.

“She was a woman of her time,” Watson said. “Nowadays we would call her bigoted. There were certain classes and races of people she did not like. ... but typical of the time, she would give charity to someone who was deserving of charity.”

Mathews’ memoir made her more fascinating for Watson.

“Women are sort of a shadow segment of society, but because of her book Mathews comes out of the shadows and expresses her opinions,” Watson said. “She is a wonderful person to do because we have her voice.”

Watson became drawn to Chautauqua when her children were young and they visited a living history exhibit in Virginia.

“I saw my son’s eyes get bigger and bigger as this man presented himself as a soldier in the Continental Army, and I thought, ‘I would like to do that someday,’” she said.

One of the things that drew Stewart to Chautauqua was getting to know historical figures in an almost personal way. She now talks about Annie Oakley, who died in 1926, as if she were an old friend.

Oakley began shooting as a child, when her father died and her family was starving, Stewart said. Oakley took her father’s rifle and began hunting for food, and in the process she found strength in herself.

“She gained some independence through this gun,” Stewart said. “They had nothing. Annie was feeding the family. That is what gave her the sense of power.

“I love this young woman of about 11 claiming her own territory.”

When Stewart first started reading about Oakley, “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I kept reading and reading.

“I thought, ‘Who is this woman? Who does she think she is?’”

When Stewart brings those answers to the Boulder Theatre stage, she said she will have to be careful to be true to the character.

“The thing about Chautauquans is that we become so enamored of these people, we have to make sure we don’t get carried away,” she said.

Oakley was a natural sharpshooter, but not a natural entertainer, Stewart said. Her husband, Frank Butler, had to teach her tricks and twirls and how to flirt while performing.

“Without Frank, she was a humble person,” Stewart said. It is hard for her to be humble about the woman she has learned to respect so much. But that’s part of the job.

“Our excitement, our fervor over a character has to be maintained in such a way that we keep the integrity of the characters themselves,” she said.

Tickets for the Boulder City Chautauqua and fundraising reception are available at the Boulder Dam Hotel, 1305 Arizona St.; the Boulder City News office, 508 Nevada Way, Suite 1; and ACE Hardware Store, 541 Nevada Way. For more information, call 293-0833 or 293-7688.