Marie Riedeselle

Marie A. Riedeselle (née Landry, died April 26, 1915) was a Canadian-born American bicyclist, dress designer, osteopath, hiker and hermit.

Marie Riedeselle
Marie Riedeselle in her prize-winning bicycling costume, from an 1894 publication
Born
Marie A. Landry

Montreal, Canada

Early life and education

Riedeselle was born in Montreal and raised in New York state.[1] She had a farm in Connecticut, and studied osteopathy in St. Louis, Missouri.[2]

Career

In 1893, Riedeselle won $50 in a New York Herald contest for designing the best practical bicycling dress. Her design included billowy trousers gathered below the knee, flat boots, and a bodice with gathers and smocking, to hold the fabric close to the torso while riding.[3][4] She used dark navy fabric, with "dashes of red Chinese silk" and long tassels fastened at the waist.[5]

In 1897, after some months of physical training and study,[6] and sewing her own wardrobe for the cold,[7] she went to Alaska.[2] She stayed in the mining camps of the Klondike,[8] practicing as a healer for humans and sled dogs.[2] She opened a sanatarium at Dawson City in 1900,[9] offering massages, baths, haircare, rest, and healthful meals to exhausted or injured miners.[10]

After making a reported fortune in Alaska,[11] she moved to Southern California, where she lived alone as a "hermitress" in a cabin in Santa Anita Canyon.[9] "It is the life of a free woman," she assured a visiting reporter, "unchecked and freed from the trammels of a sordid civilization which binds its devotees to the petty conventionalities of life."[12] In spring 1909, she was the only woman participating in the Los Angeles Athletic Club's annual hiking race up Mount Wilson; she completed the hike in 2 hours and 30 minutes.[13] She returned to Alaska from California in summer 1909, and described her plans to move to Minnesota next.[14]

Personal life

Riedeselle was a vegetarian from 1889, and was described as a widow.[7] She died in 1915, from dysentery, while on a pilgrimage at an ashram in Dehradun, India: "In her struggle against cooked food, which she always disliked, she swallowed nothing but water of the holy Ganges," explained an acquaintance who was with her in the end.[15]

References
  1. "A Courageous Widow Who Has Gone Alone to the Klondike" Courier-News (December 6, 1897): 6. via Newspapers.com
  2. Thomas I. Baker, "Seven Years in the Klondike: Marie Riedeselle's Search in the Frozen North" The Mineral Collector (April 1905): 21-24.
  3. Helen L. Manning, "Health Habits: Health and Beauty in Dress" Good Health (July 1894): 198.
  4. "Rational Dress for Women" The Review of Reviews (March 1894): 291.
  5. "Women in Bloomers" The Inter Ocean (June 3, 1894): 37. via Newspapers.com
  6. Rich Mole, Rebel Women of the Gold Rush: Extraordinary Achievements and Daring Adventures (Heritage House Publishing 2011). ISBN 9781926613888
  7. "Mrs. Riedeselle's Outfit" Seattle Post-Intelligencer (December 26, 1897): 8. via Newspapers.com
  8. "Seven Years in the Klondike: A Woman's Story of Her Hardships and Her Triumphs" Detroit Free Press (January 8, 1905): 46. via Newspapers.com
  9. Otto Carque, "Female Explorer in Alaska" Los Angeles Herald Sunday Magazine (June 19, 1910): 16. via California Digital Newspaper Collection
  10. Charlotte Gray, Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike (Counterpoint Press 2010): 224. ISBN 9781582436111
  11. "Woman Finds Wealth in Frozen Alaska" Philadelphia Inquirer (March 10, 1900): 1. via Newspapers.com
  12. "Once a Belle, Now a Hermit" Willmar Tribune (December 4, 1907): 9. via Newspapers.com
  13. "Dietrich Leads in Hill Climb" Los Angeles Herald (April 16, 1909): 13. via Newspapers.com
  14. "Woman Hermit to Leave Santa Anita Canyon for Alaska" Los Angeles Herald (June 5, 1909): 8. via Newspapers.com
  15. "The End of an Ascetic" Brain and Brawn (July 1915): 52.
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