Standing 5’6” and weighing about 130 pounds, 19-year-old Flossie McKenna is a voluptuous woman with pale blonde hair, big blue eyes, and full lips often turned up in a smile.  With her fancy dresses and flair for dramatics, it’s no wonder she became known as The Natchez Nightingale.  While she’s been in many a saloon, she was never owned by one.  No, her owner who calls himself her manager is none other than her father, Robert McKenna.  Together they have traveled most of her life and as she got older she started to display her assets on stage dancing and learned the art of carousing.

What sets her apart from most saloon girls is her voice.  Smooth and sweet, clear and captivating, she could almost be said to sing like an angel and many have said she should go to St. Louis or even further up north where the opera houses draw such talent.  Instead her father uses her to earn a profit, spending most of his share in booze and soiled doves.  While friendly and outgoing, there is something sad about the busty young woman who does the best she can considering her past and present life.



Background:  Even as a toddler, Flossie loved to sing and be in front of a crowd.  She could even be found singing or telling stories to barnyard animals if no one else had the time to listen.  Her older sister often had to drag her away from a corner somewhere to get her back home for chores, much to the little girl’s disappointment if she’d gotten a penny or two which she could have used to buy some candy from the general store.  Life in Boston just wasn’t working out for the McKenna’s and so began their journey south and west, ultimately ending up in Natchez, Mississippi.

The trip had proven too much for their mother who became pregnant on the trip and somewhere in the middle of Mississippi they lay her and the stillborn son to rest.  Straddled with two daughters and full of grief, Robert turned to alcohol and became highly bitter.  By the time they rolled into Natchez, he was drunk more often than not and Moira would often be on the receiving end of his ire.  The young girl was only six years older than Flossie but she did her best to cook and other chores, to essentially become a mother to her.  With their father’s drinking and gambling, they soon found themselves destitute.

Both girls found work with one of the restaurants, helping sweep and do some of the small things.  Moira began helping cook and soon Flossie was as well.  By the time Moira was 16, she’d found a beau and spent more time away from home which left Flossie alone with her father when she wasn’t helping with the lunch or dinner crowds.  After a bitter rampage that left the prepubescent girl fleeing in terror, she found herself walking by one of the saloons and heard a lively tune being played on the piano.  It wasn’t a proper place for a girl but she found herself drawn and after she started to sing she was welcomed inside.

In his drunken stumbling, Robert tracked her down and when he saw his daughter sitting atop that piano singing her heart out and how everyone there was listening as if enthralled, a glimmer of an idea formed.  Thus began his new career of managing The Natchez Nightingale.  Soon she was the talk of the town and people would flock to the saloon.  Business was good and soon she was given a dancing dress and started learning all the polite dances.  As she grew older, she began to learn the not so polite dances.  She earned enough to keep her father happy and learned how to sew, good enough to make her own dresses for every day or for performing.

One night a Dandy arrived and offered Robert to bring his daughter back north.  She’d be trained by the best and live a life of luxury but the old man wouldn’t have any part of it, not when he wouldn’t be reaping any of those benefits.  Flossie was devastated, wanting nothing more than to be able to sing and have a better life.  Moira was married now and had a little one on the way, something Flossie longed for herself for one day.  Her father seemed to run off any man who came near though, refusing even the richest hands offering to court her.

Some people were grumbling about his interest in his daughter and some even said she should be taken from him.  It wasn’t long before he’d bought a box wagon and had it painted on each side to advertise The Natchez Nightingale, taking her away from those who might take her away from him.  They traveled all over and she’d had to put her skills with cooking and sewing to the test, not to mention she learned how to shoot.  Her father insisted and bought her a Derringer and also worked with her with the Winchester rifle and Remington double barrel shotgun he kept in the wagon for protection besides his own Colt.

As long as she brought in some money for his food and whiskey, Robert was happy.  When things started getting lean, she often did without food herself but she was blessed with good health and managed to sneak a coin here and there if she sat in a man’s lap while she sang which she would hide in her abundant cleavage to use for some food later when her father was passed out from the liquor.  When she turned of age, her father found a new way for her to earn them money.  No matter how much she protested, she was shoved into the room with a man who’d given her father plenty of coin to last for a while.

Life was hard and she learned to suck it up, do what she had to do to keep her father happy.  She sang and danced, sat on laps and learned a bit of poker.  Learned how to drink and once in a blue moon would drink herself into a fine stupor so she wouldn’t have to think about what she’d done.  Drinking in stories the old people would tell from town to town, she learned quite a bit though her actual formal education was minimal.  She could read and write, knew her numbers well.  Now she just waits for a chance to escape this life, to maybe find someone who could take her away and not mind the fact that she’s used goods.