A woman of the century, Frances Minerva Nunnery (1898-1997)

the long version

"Anyone who still believes women are frail, powerless, and incapable of dealing with machinery should read the story of Frances Nunnery, a determined, ingenious entrepreneur whose career and personality defy every stereotype about women. We first meet her as a self-sufficient little girl working on a Virginia tobacco farm, a youngster who, when she got a "lickin," never cried but "stood there as a matter of pride" and took her medicine. At thirteen she went to work at the Heinz plant in Pittsburgh, and at twenty-one she was shipped off to Colorado to be married to a man she didn't know. In 1921 she escaped to New Mexico in a Model T Ford, settling in Albuquerque where, among other occupations, she worked as a chauffeur, bus driver, boarding house keeper, and nightclub singer. She never stopped working, living all over New Mexico as rancher, deputy sheriff, and real estate broker."--BOOK JACKET.