Tootsie & Matilda ~ By: Ruthie L Manier

Hello everyone and welcome to Cowboy Kisses Blog!

I’ve always loved the history of strong, smart, and interesting women from the past. A few of my favorites were Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Jane Austen and Annie Oakley. I wrote this blog on a couple of women I’ve always admired and I was lucky enough to meet Tootsie a few times. I love to drive Highway 20 up to Marblemount, Washington where the Clark’s Family Resort is located. It’s a beautiful location set in the foothills of the Majestic Cascade Mountain Range. if you’re looking for your next vacation destination and you like hiking, fishing, canoeing and camping then it’s the place for you to visit.


Tootsie & Matilda

Tootsie was the granddaughter of Matilda Clark Buller, one of the most influential women of the western frontier history arriving in the late nineteenth century. Tootsie followed close in her grandmother Matilda's footsteps as another dynamic woman who spread warmth where ever she went.  

Tootsie was born Madrene E Buller on February 15, 1922. She was the daughter of Richard and Ethel Buller of Marblemount, Washington, previously named Bullerville, Washington. She was nicknamed Tootsie by a friend of the family who nicknamed her Tootsie from the adds of Tootsie Roll.

Bullerville's name was changed when some miner's brought marble samples into Matilda's Hotel. She offered up to the town members that they should rename the town to Marblemount after the marble mountain just across the Skagit River. The other town members agreed and so it was done.

Matilda built the first hotel in the area by the Skagit River for Mr. Buller had told her that’s what was needed at the time. She was also the first postmaster in Marblemount. It took a while for a carrier to be assigned because before Highway 20 was built, one of the only ways to get there was by a steamboat and then a canoe.

Years went by and Tootsie was given the property of Clark's Cabins's. She worked hard to turn it into a place for workers in the mine's, and logger's in the community, before adding a restaurant that all the regular's in the community enjoyed not counting the tourists after the opening of Highway 20.

Tootsie would be at the pass every opening day,  greeting people after the long winter had passed and the snow had been cleared from highway 20, with her famous cinnamon rolls. Everyone loved Tootsie for her spunky personality and her generosity. The cinnamon rolls were just a bonus and famous to the community, and the entire Skagit Valley.

Tootsie liked to fib about her age always saying she was around ten years older then she really was. When asked why? she simply responded,  “I love the compliments I receive for looking so much younger.”

Sadly she passed away at 97, however her and her grandmother Matilda’s memory will live on forever as two of the most courages First women of the Wild Western Frontier.

I love to make my women characters strong the same as the women in history that I admire. Marissa Clark third book in my Tombstone Ghost Cowboy series is a story about a woman from the 19th century who time travels to the 21st century and witnesses something she likes, women’s equality. Returning to the past she campaigns to get the nineteenth amendment (women’s right to vote) Ratified.

https://www.amazon.com/Marissa-Tombstone-Ghost-Cowboy-Book-ebook/dp/B081W3GZDS