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[First Pa [36], (1 Lines: 0 ——— 2.0pt ——— Short Pa PgEnds: [36], (1 4 New York Shortly after the Coolidge ceremony in the summer of 1927, Rosebud took the famous Twentieth Century Limited train to New York, eager to pursue a theatrical career. Before she left the University of South Dakota to be with her ailing mother, one of her teachers, a woman, had offered to serve as chaperone for Rosebud on her first trip to New York. She knew a theatrical manager, Arthur de Cinq Mars, whose professional name was Arthur Seymour, and put Rosebud in touch with him. The two began an intensive correspondence. Chauncey thought that with a college teacher as chaperone, Rosebud would be far safer in New York than in Hollywood. As it turned out, the teacher was planning to leave her husband in South Dakota with the idea of returning to her previous life as an actress. She did not accompany Rosebud on the train trip to New York but did meet her upon her arrival. Until then, Rosebud’s longest train trips had been with her family to visit her grandparents in Tacoma, Washington, but this time she was alone and frightened. She felt that she was being stared at because of the recent Coolidge publicity, but no one spoke to her about it. There was a mix-up with the train tickets from Rapid City to Chicago, and Rosebud recalled a gentleman named Captain Lord, who, “seeing that there was no berth available for me, gave me his own. I have never forgotten his kindness to me in an awkward situation.” Arthur Seymour had arranged for rooms at the Westbury Hotel for Rosebud and her chaperone, and on Rosebud’s first night in New York he took her to the Roxy Theater. She greatly enjoyed the feature and the new york 37 [37], (2) Lines: 46 to ——— 0.0pt Pg ——— Short Page PgEnds: TE [37], (2) stage show, but the newsreel proved to be the highlight of the evening: there Rosebud saw herself on screen, putting the feathered warbonnet on President Coolidge’s head! Afterward, they had a Chinese dinner, and Rosebud became violently ill. She was never sure whether it was the food or the excitement of seeing herself at the Roxy. Since her teacher had seen Rosebud in the Strollers Talent Competition at the University of South Dakota, she proposed that Rosebud develop an Indian dance act. With Seymour as her manager, Rosebud appeared on stages in hotels and theaters and was very popular, many in her audiences recognizing her from the newsreel and newspaper coverage. For her nightclub act she wore a stylized American Indian costume. On one occasion, at the Hotel Pennsylvania, an overenthusiastic patron who had had too much to drink started to pull at her clothing. Without missing a beat, Rosebud tapped him on the head with her tomahawk. He fainted and had to be carried out. The next day she received a dozen yellow roses with a note of apology from her inebriated admirer. Arthur Seymour was a handsome and sophisticated New Yorker. Although he was twenty-five years older than Rosebud, the two of them fell in love, and within the year they married. In 1929 they had a daughter, Rosebud Tachcawin de Cinq Mars.1 That was the year of the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. Arthur had been well off – even owned a sailboat named Act Four – but within a few weeks, like many others, he had lost virtually everything. Now, at the age of twenty-one, with an infant daughter, Rosebud needed to help out financially. Her husband engaged Stephen Briggs, a manager, to handle Rosebud’s bookings, and he began to schedule public presentations for her. Clyde Fisher, who was at that time an assistant curator in the Department of Public Education at the American Museum of Natural History, invited her to speak at the museum. She was an instant success, telling not only Lakota myths and legends but also stories from the Eastern Woodland tribes, which she learned from books in the museum library. Rosebud felt strongly that people living on the East Coast should know something about the original inhabitants of the area. For these appearances she wore a family heirloom, a magnificent beaded deerskin dress made early in the twentieth century by women of her father’s family. Its unusual overall design depicted the many war exploits of Iron Plume, her father...

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