This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
The life of a laundress known as "Mrs. Nash" has been obscured by history and the stories written about her.
She was a laundress who worked at several U.S. forts in the late 1800s. Recipients of her services included General George Armstrong Custer's family, including his wife Elizabeth.
Nash had there documented marriages. Her final husband was Corporal Patrick Noonan.
When she died in 1878, the women preparing her body for burial reported that Nash possessed male anatomy.
In current terminology, the laundress may have been transgender or intersex. (According to the Human Rights Campaign, "Intersex people are born with a variety of differences in their sex traits and reproductive anatomy.")
Paul Oberheim is an archeologist with the Bureau of Land Management's South Dakota Field Office. He found Nash's story in the pages of a book he bought at a Rapid City flea market.
He joins “In the Moment” to dive into his research into Nash and Noonan’s lives and what he says we can learn from them.
Oberheim wrote a blog post for the BLM on Nash's story and his hunt for her grave. Read it here.
This interview includes a discussion of suicide.
