Fiction
Finnie & Her Girls
Of all places to find hidden talent
Frances Finnegan was born Frances Cooney in 1889. She was the oldest of twelve children. It was told that her mother had given birth to seventeen but during the Cooney’s leanest years in Ireland, five of her children died.
Frances spent her childhood tending to her mother’s babies. When she turned 12 her father put his family on a ship to the U.S.A. The ship docked in Galveston, Texas, and from there, the family moved to Dallas. In Dallas, instead of going to school, Frances started working at a saloon, the same place her father tended bar.
The Frozen Wood Saloon was more than just a watering hole. There was an upstairs. Up the stairs, a $10 Liberty Head would pay for a few hours in a room with a soft bed and one of the Saloon’s finest dancing gals.
The man Frances married, resulting in her nickname “Finnie,” was a frequent patron of the bar, the dancers, and the upstairs bedrooms. His name was Harmon Finnegan.
At 12 Frances didn’t notice him. By the time she turned 14, she was disenchanted with men and Harmon was an object of her outspoken scorn. By the time she was 16, she was noticing his brown curls and how clean he kept his fingernails. Harmon married her when she turned 18 and by 20 everyone called her…
