Thousand Pieces of Gold

by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Publisher description: Thousand Pieces of Gold tells the fascinating story of Lalu Nathoy, later known as Polly Bemis. Born in China in the mid 1800's, Lalu was raised in a peasant village ravaged by poverty and drought. At an early age she was snatched from her family by bandits, shipped to America as a slave, and auctioned off to a Chinese saloon keeper in an Idaho mining camp. There, having gained her freedom through a poker game, her indomitable spirit took her from running her own boarding house to homesteading twenty acres on the River of No Return. Today, almost fifty years after her death, stories of her courage and acts of kindness live on. The first biography of a Chinese American pioneer woman, Thousand Pieces of Gold is an important contribution to the literature by and about minority women as well as an intriguing account of an unforgettable character.