August 22, 2025 • 7 mins
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ROSE MARY ECHO SILVER DOLLAR TABOR? She's the star of the novel Silver Echoes and author Rebecca Rosenberg joins me at 1 to talk about her latest historical novel. Find the book here and Rebecca's upcoming signings here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got a guest coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
She writes historical fiction, and I have decided that I
like historical fiction better than actual history because it's usually
way more interesting. And her new book is Silver Echoes,
a historical rowing twenties novel, and it's about Wait, where's
the Oh, I can't read the subhead. The subhead is
an historical rowing twenties novel. Oh no, wait a minute,
(00:24):
where's the subhead with the name of.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The woman in it? Rebecca Rosenberg, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I need you to clarify, because I love the sub
of this, of this the long name of silver Dollar
something something Tabor.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Tell me a little bit about about her, Andy.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Silver You are a Colorado on, so I'm sure you've
heard of the Tapers and Baby Doe Taber, right, Yes,
all of us have heard of that. Well, Baby Doe
Tabor had a daughter named silver Dollar Taber and that's
what Silver Echoes is about. And there's a lot of
(01:03):
mystery around her because she disappeared from Denver and no
one heard of her again until ten years later. They
say she was scalded to death in Chicago. Oh my gosh,
you're shocked as I am. It's so exciting. So I
(01:23):
wrote a book about Baby Dough Taber called gold Digger,
The Remarkable Baby Dough Taber. And during that time of
research I found out about silver Dollar, and I think
the subhead you were looking for is on the cover here.
What really happened to Rosemary Echo silver Dollar Tabor And
(01:46):
that was her whole name, because this girl was born
into the richest family in all of America. They were
the silver Queen and King of America. And yet five
years later, when she was just five years old, they
lost their entire silver fortune and that changed her life
(02:09):
and was extremely traumatizing for them. And this book really
chronicles what happened to her, and something very crazy happened
to her. She was a very talented girl. She was
a silver if you can believe it. She was a
movie actress even back then in nineteen fifteen in Pike's Peak, Holly,
(02:35):
what's it called Pipe's Pee Photoplay Pipe's Peak Photoplay, which
was a movie studio back then. And then she fled Colorado,
which later we discover was because a family friend attacked her.
And she went on to become a major burlesque.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And five.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Star really in chicag and did that full circuit and
she even got back into motion pictures. So what really
happened to her? And that's what this book Silver Echoes
is about.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Rebecca, tell me about historical fiction, and tell me
about this process and why did you choose to write
this way?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So actually I write a subgenre of historical fiction, and
I think Mandy you might enjoy it even more. It's
called biographical literary fiction.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So that's where.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
You take real women who did extraordinary things and you
tell their stories. Because no one has ever told the
story of what really happened to silver Dollar Tabor. So
you start researching and finding out all the nuts and
bolts of what happened, Where was she living, what was
(03:54):
it like, what happened to her? Why was she writing
her mother and tell telling her that to address her
as all different names? And I actually found out that
she probably had dissociative personality disorder. So that is what
this book is all about. It's they didn't even identify
(04:17):
it in those days, in the nineteen twenties, but I
saw all of her letters that she wrote her mother,
and she would tell her mother to write her as Echo,
to write her as Rosemary, to write her as all
these different names, and she was living in all different
places around Chicago, So it was really exciting to explore
(04:38):
vaudeville and burlesque and the silent movies through that lens
of a dissociative personality.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Where how do you decide as an author where to
amplify or exaggerate or you know, how do you Because
you're you're ultimately writing a story, right You're you're also
and that's one of the reasons I like historical fiction,
because the stories are already super interesting and they're made
more interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
As the author.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
How do you decide where to go and what to
amplify and what to kind of focus on.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, well, you do all your research everywhere that that
you can. And I was lucky that there was a
New York Post reporter who had actually reported on what
silver Dollar was doing at the time, and no one
has made a lot of his work. So I found
that I found her letters, and you start piecing together
(05:33):
a story. And then to answer your question, obviously, we
don't know what she said to people, you know, we
don't know the dialogue. But I do know from her
letters how many boyfriends she had. I know exactly where
she lived, and so you can start to piece the
story around that. In fact, I knew that she lived
in the Black neighborhood of Chicago during this whole exciting
(05:58):
time when jazz was about, and they actually had the
Ku Klux Klan marching on the streets where she lived.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So there are all these thrilling facts that you find
out and you put them into the story. And then
there's a thing called an author's note in the back
of these historical fiction books that you can find out
a little bit more about what things were not exactly
true and what things are.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
One of the things I always end up doing is
going and looking for more information on the real people
that I'm reading about in historical fiction. I always go
and do a deeper dive on, you know, characters that
I know are real. Maybe they just got glossed over,
maybe they were just a bit part. So that's really
really fascinating. You are going to be touring all over Colorado,
and I put a link on the blog where you
(06:48):
can go and meet and meet Rebecca. Rebecca, are you in?
I mean, you're a little bit in character today for
me on Zoom and I like it. You've got your
flapper happy and I love for you.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I've got my flat out on with my feathers and jewels,
and I will be speaking that way too.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But you, you are all over the place. You're going
to be a Leadville.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
You're at the tatder Cover Bookstore on Thursday, September fourth,
and then on Saturday. This one's very exciting at the
Center for Colorado Women's History. And it's exciting because they're
going to pull out baby dough Tabor's wedding dress and
her belongings for everyone to see.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You're also going to be in Leadville because we have
listeners all over the place, Leadville, Estes Park, Boulder that
she's got events coming up and all of these are
linked on the blog today. The book is Silver Echoes,
a gold digger novel, and it just looks fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Rebecca, So thank you for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Thank you, Mandy.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, that is Rebecca Rosenberg. Find all of her
information on the blog and go check her out. She
seems like a lovely dame.
I've got a guest coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
She writes historical fiction, and I have decided that I
like historical fiction better than actual history because it's usually
way more interesting. And her new book is Silver Echoes,
a historical rowing twenties novel, and it's about Wait, where's
the Oh, I can't read the subhead. The subhead is
an historical rowing twenties novel. Oh no, wait a minute,
(00:24):
where's the subhead with the name of.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The woman in it? Rebecca Rosenberg, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I need you to clarify, because I love the sub
of this, of this the long name of silver Dollar
something something Tabor.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Tell me a little bit about about her, Andy.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Silver You are a Colorado on, so I'm sure you've
heard of the Tapers and Baby Doe Taber, right, Yes,
all of us have heard of that. Well, Baby Doe
Tabor had a daughter named silver Dollar Taber and that's
what Silver Echoes is about. And there's a lot of
(01:03):
mystery around her because she disappeared from Denver and no
one heard of her again until ten years later. They
say she was scalded to death in Chicago. Oh my gosh,
you're shocked as I am. It's so exciting. So I
(01:23):
wrote a book about Baby Dough Taber called gold Digger,
The Remarkable Baby Dough Taber. And during that time of
research I found out about silver Dollar, and I think
the subhead you were looking for is on the cover here.
What really happened to Rosemary Echo silver Dollar Tabor And
(01:46):
that was her whole name, because this girl was born
into the richest family in all of America. They were
the silver Queen and King of America. And yet five
years later, when she was just five years old, they
lost their entire silver fortune and that changed her life
(02:09):
and was extremely traumatizing for them. And this book really
chronicles what happened to her, and something very crazy happened
to her. She was a very talented girl. She was
a silver if you can believe it. She was a
movie actress even back then in nineteen fifteen in Pike's Peak, Holly,
(02:35):
what's it called Pipe's Pee Photoplay Pipe's Peak Photoplay, which
was a movie studio back then. And then she fled Colorado,
which later we discover was because a family friend attacked her.
And she went on to become a major burlesque.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
And five.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Star really in chicag and did that full circuit and
she even got back into motion pictures. So what really
happened to her? And that's what this book Silver Echoes
is about.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
So Rebecca, tell me about historical fiction, and tell me
about this process and why did you choose to write
this way?
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So actually I write a subgenre of historical fiction, and
I think Mandy you might enjoy it even more. It's
called biographical literary fiction.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So that's where.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
You take real women who did extraordinary things and you
tell their stories. Because no one has ever told the
story of what really happened to silver Dollar Tabor. So
you start researching and finding out all the nuts and
bolts of what happened, Where was she living, what was
(03:54):
it like, what happened to her? Why was she writing
her mother and tell telling her that to address her
as all different names? And I actually found out that
she probably had dissociative personality disorder. So that is what
this book is all about. It's they didn't even identify
(04:17):
it in those days, in the nineteen twenties, but I
saw all of her letters that she wrote her mother,
and she would tell her mother to write her as Echo,
to write her as Rosemary, to write her as all
these different names, and she was living in all different
places around Chicago, So it was really exciting to explore
(04:38):
vaudeville and burlesque and the silent movies through that lens
of a dissociative personality.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Where how do you decide as an author where to
amplify or exaggerate or you know, how do you Because
you're you're ultimately writing a story, right You're you're also
and that's one of the reasons I like historical fiction,
because the stories are already super interesting and they're made
more interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
As the author.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
How do you decide where to go and what to
amplify and what to kind of focus on.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, well, you do all your research everywhere that that
you can. And I was lucky that there was a
New York Post reporter who had actually reported on what
silver Dollar was doing at the time, and no one
has made a lot of his work. So I found
that I found her letters, and you start piecing together
(05:33):
a story. And then to answer your question, obviously, we
don't know what she said to people, you know, we
don't know the dialogue. But I do know from her
letters how many boyfriends she had. I know exactly where
she lived, and so you can start to piece the
story around that. In fact, I knew that she lived
in the Black neighborhood of Chicago during this whole exciting
(05:58):
time when jazz was about, and they actually had the
Ku Klux Klan marching on the streets where she lived.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So there are all these thrilling facts that you find
out and you put them into the story. And then
there's a thing called an author's note in the back
of these historical fiction books that you can find out
a little bit more about what things were not exactly
true and what things are.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
One of the things I always end up doing is
going and looking for more information on the real people
that I'm reading about in historical fiction. I always go
and do a deeper dive on, you know, characters that
I know are real. Maybe they just got glossed over,
maybe they were just a bit part. So that's really
really fascinating. You are going to be touring all over Colorado,
and I put a link on the blog where you
(06:48):
can go and meet and meet Rebecca. Rebecca, are you in?
I mean, you're a little bit in character today for
me on Zoom and I like it. You've got your
flapper happy and I love for you.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I've got my flat out on with my feathers and jewels,
and I will be speaking that way too.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But you, you are all over the place. You're going
to be a Leadville.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
You're at the tatder Cover Bookstore on Thursday, September fourth,
and then on Saturday. This one's very exciting at the
Center for Colorado Women's History. And it's exciting because they're
going to pull out baby dough Tabor's wedding dress and
her belongings for everyone to see.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You're also going to be in Leadville because we have
listeners all over the place, Leadville, Estes Park, Boulder that
she's got events coming up and all of these are
linked on the blog today. The book is Silver Echoes,
a gold digger novel, and it just looks fantastic.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Rebecca, So thank you for making time for me today.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Thank you, Mandy.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, that is Rebecca Rosenberg. Find all of her
information on the blog and go check her out. She
seems like a lovely dame.
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