Stories of strong women always draw a crowd. Last week in the Netherlands fifty people gathered in the Zeeland library to hear about cowgirls, including the one I’ve written about, Goldie Griffith. I was there with our local librarian for the culmination of the Dutch half of a shared exhibit on Strong Women at the sister libraries. Our library in Nederland, Colorado, is much smaller than the one in Middelburg, and their exhibit was stunning—far more than I expected.

They paired our exhibit on Bandit Queens, Cowgirls, and Sharpshooters, which I curated, with an exhibit on Wilma de Groot, a creative entrepreneur in Zeeland who connects fashion, history, and community.

The interview was billed as a “Meeting of strong women with Kay Turnbaugh, former editor-in-chief, award-winning journalist and author, and Elektra Greer, library director and winner of the Intellectual Freedom Award for her fight against book bannings in America. Together they discuss social inequality, intellectual freedom, the role of libraries, journalism, books, women’s rights and the special cowgirl Goldie Griffith.” We were interviewed by Dr. Anya Luscombe, director of the Zeeland Archives and former BBC journalist and editor.

We were introduced in Dutch, and the interview itself was in English. We talked about cowgirls and book banning.

The Wild West cowgirls have been popular in Europe, beginning with their first visits across the pond with the Buffalo Bill Wild West shows in the late 1800s. Those first cowgirls were indeed ‘strong women,’ riding against the social norms of their time to follow their passion.

Dr. Luscombe’s final question diverged from cowgirls and strong women. It was the best question of the afternoon, at least for me, and led into our discussion about banned books. She asked, “What would you do if your book was banned?” Of course, I would fight like hell, but at the same time I couldn’t deny what one audience member pointed out: that the publicity would be good for book sales. I’m pretty sure that my books would never be banned, but I bet a lot of authors on the list of banned books didn’t think it could happen to them either. Something to think about.

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I Ain’t No Angel

At the end of the interview at the ZB library, we played a clip of Goldie’s voice from an oral history interview. She talks about her time owning restaurants and bars in Nederland and says she never was issued a citation, although there were times when she had to run unruly customers out of her establishments. She concludes: “I’m no angel, don’t pin no wings on me.”

Nederland’s own Strangebyrds have written a song about Goldie, titled “I Ain’t No Angel.” It is such a thrill to hear Goldie’s life in song! Thanks, Cari and Ray!

Listen to it here:

And here’s a link to a video produced by Shayna Beckham for the Nederland Community Library of Cari and Ray performing the first verse: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RKYbKxFdqUrwWdox8

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Our exhibit of ‘Strong Women/Sterke Vrouwen’ will be up soon at the Nederland Community Library. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood. To see more about the exhibit at the ZB Library of Zeeland, visit www.dezb.nl/

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