Writers’ Tips

Recently I was asked how I conducted my research for Frontier Madam: The Life of Dell Burke, Lady of Lusk.  Good question since there were no diaries, journals, or other written records kept by the discreet madam.  What a treasure trove that would have been.  Oh well…lacking that I went to work to find what was available.

My guiding decisions were to search for the story of the woman, not to do an exposé, or to write a pornographic piece.  I wanted to write Dell Burke’s story, so I went to people who had known her and learned from them what she had told about herself. 

This meant looking for folks in their 70s and 80s, especially for residents from her hometown of Lusk, WY, as well as younger ones.  Hearing the same story told by contributors with different time frames helped me verify the stories and when the events occurred.  Gathering so much information also added to the challenge of putting it all together. 

In all, I interviewed over 100 people, of whom about two dozen chose to talk anonymously, and a few had ‘tasted the delights’ of the Yellow Hotel.  Many contributors were business people who had served Dell and her girls, some were neighbors, and others had listened to tales she had told.  Putting these stories together was aided when several contributors gave the same information, though perhaps they had a more exact date or details.

After I came back to Greensboro with tapes and tapes of interviews, I turned to friends who helped transcribe the contents (most for a small fee).  Since the material was collected as it rolled out of memories, it required considerable sorting and selection to place it into decades and relevance. 

Once that was done, the next step was deciding what to include and what to leave out, then how to tell the story.  I chose to tell each event from the viewpoint of Dell herself, even though it was told by an outside person.  This was a challenge, but a worthwhile one.

Even while conducting the interviews I realized that there were many unanswered questions so I searched further.  Local newspapers, such as The Lusk Free Lance and The Lusk Herald (and its predecessor The Lusk Herald and Van Tassel Pioneer) yielded valuable information.  Personal information about Dell was rarely reported. Even when her main man of at least 25 years died in 1955, she was not mentioned in the front-page article that described his death.  Her own 1980 obituary was abbreviated.

The Lusk City Police Docket described appearance she and other madams made over the years.  From these, I learned what she was fined – often $100/month – and that she was accused of “the crime or offense of maintaining a disorderly house.”   On the same dates a number of girls were in court “accused of the crime or offense of being inmates in a disorderly house.”  I could also tell that she stopped having to face the court monthly by the end of 1930.

Many other areas of her life were described in letters written by Dell and other documents shared by contributor Bruce Bergstrom (her CPA in the 1960s), items from the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Douglas, WY, the Stagecoach Museum in Lusk, and Loraine Fisher, Dell’s great-niece.

The Pioneer Memorial Museum has a Dell Burke Collection, which yielded information about Dell’s interests, reading and shopping habits.  Loraine Fisher shared boxes of Dell’s documents and memorabilia which validated Dell’s real estate purchases and other items.  An especially interesting item was a scrapbook Dell’s mother had kept of newspaper clippings, recipes and various other items, which provided interesting bits and pieces of information.
 
Various friends gifted me with information about or books written about brothels, madams and prostitutes in Wyoming and the west about the time the Yellow Hotel was in operation. As one friend said, “I have a most interesting library now.”  Only he said pornographic library and I corrected him – for actually almost none of the books delve into pornography, but rather talk about the lives of these women.

These books helped me see why someone would enter the business, and how their lives were affected.  I could better understand the conditions under which they lived, and could even more appreciate Dell’s success and reasons for implementing her personal and business behavioral rules.

Other resources included online information, encyclopedias, and books written about that era as well as about the business. 

A long week-end visit (as well as numerous emails) with her family provided me with another way of seeing her.  From their experience, Marie was a special, interesting, yet private woman who loved her family and did what she could for them.  This was a unique view of the Lusk madam and pointed up once more how she kept the halves of her double life separate.

I will admit that in this process, I stopped thinking of Marie Fisher Law, dba Dell Burke, as a prostitute or madam.  I came to see her as a well-rounded woman with family and friends, pride and shame, AND a long-lasting business that was illegal and publicly unacceptable to most people.

Previous Articles:

Writers tips 1