Toughnut Angel

Nellie Cashman climbed from the poverty of the Potato Famine of Ireland to the mining camps of the Western U.S. She determined to use her fortunes to look out for others, and never to depend on someone who could take what was hers, or to follow the conventions of society. A mining woman seeking fortunes in a man's world, she faced the wilds of Alaska with the same pluck as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Witness Nellie's finest hour, braving Canadian blizzards for months to trickle lime juice into the bleeding mouths of mining friends down with scurvy. Could you face the infamous Chilkoot Pass in the dead of winter at 53 years old, the Apaches of Arizona Territory with your sister's five orphaned children in tow, or mining above the Arctic Circle in your old age, as Nellie did? What will win out - money or people - for a mining woman who grew up in poverty?