"No one will ever find out who I am!"

A blue eyed, black haired Irish dance-hall girl who came to Mobeetie in 1880 from Dodge City. Little is known of "Frenchy's" origins since she had already acquired her name from cowboys at Fort Dodge, Kansas because of her Louisiana background and her ability to speak French fluently. She was born in 1852 near Baton Rouge, LA and she ran away at about 14 or 16 years of age. It has been said that when her mother died in Baton Rouge, Frenchy accompanied her father up the Mississippi on his steamboat to St. Louis where she quarreled with him about her love of dancing. Frenchy danced on the burlesque stage and in the famous Benedict Bar. When her father stopped her dancing, she caught a stage to Dodge City. Others say she ran away from a convent school in Baton Rouge to St. Louis with a man who abandoned her. All who knew her in later years agree that she had an above average education, a certain refinement and her handwriting was a beautiful script. While working in the dance halls and bars of Dodge, the beautiful but nameless girl was popular with the cowboys who named her "Frenchy".

Frenchy heard that to the south in the Texas Panhandle, there were herds of buffalo hunters and cowboys, and Mobeetie near Fort Elliott was a prosperous soldier town. She packed her beautifully elaborate dance dresses, plumes, satin slippers; smart floor length costumes and caught the stage for Texas.