Margaret Le Long
Margaret Valentine Cox 14 February 1863 – 26 January 1943
Clubs
Nickname
Minnie
In spite of the opposition of every friend and relative who was on hand to register a protest - those at a distance objected by mail - I proceeded with my preparations to wheel from Chicago to San Francisco. They consisted mainly of abbreviating my skirt and of having heavy soles put on my shoes. A small bundle tied up in oilcloth and containing a change of underwear, a few toilet articles and a clean "hanky," I strapped on my handle bars. I borrowed a pistol, which I finally put in my toolbag, where it would be hard to get at in case of need.
On the morning of May 20th I started amid a chorus of lamentations and prophecies of broken limbs, death from thirst and starvation, abduction by cowboys and scalping by Indians. Though my route for the first day was over the smooth, level roads of Illinois, I made only forty-three miles and went to bed in a suspicious looking bed in a dirty little country hotel rather discouraged. I had battled all day against head winds and had been sent miles out of my way by a facetious bumpkin, so I slept soundly in spite of lame knees and my suspicions regarding the bed, and was not at all ready to get up at 5 o'clock the next morning. Most of my second day I spent dodging showers and marveling at the roads. I had never learned to cycle along a gable roof, so some of my gyrations on those Illinois turnpike must have been highly entertaining to the farmers, who always stopped plowing to watch me go by.
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Newspaper clippings
https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/?user=3570264%3Amorganfletcher&tag=le%20long
https://www.newspapers.com/profile/Teachersarahnelson/
Pages which link here:
- Falcon Bicycle Club (← links)
- Margaret "Minnie" Le Long (redirect page) (← links)
