In the tiny town of Sudbury, in the county of Devonshire in England, a girl would be born to Irish immigrants. Born as Alice Ivers, she would be known throughout the world as Poker Alice. Or at least that is how the story often goes.
As with much of the life of Alice, there are multiple differing stories concerning where and when she was born. Was she born in 1851, or two years later, in 1853? Was she born in England, or perhaps Virginia? Finding definitive answers to any of those questions has become nearly impossible as time washes away much of the original evidence. But with enough digging, we can uncover a basic picture.
Where Was Alice Born?
When it comes to where Alice was born, there are a handful of different answers. Some are unlikely, such as Sudburg, Devonshire, England, a town that doesn’t seem to exist. Most likely, this was a misspelling, with the town actually being Sudbury, but that doesn’t make it any better, as the town of Sudbury is in Suffolk County, not Devonshire (or Devon) County.
At times, her birth is also placed in Sudbury itself, with the claim that this is where Alice personally said she was born. However, it is also claimed that she personally said she was born in Devon County, most likely in the town of Lynton.
Most interesting, Glen Ghere, who was a resident of Rapid City, claimed that he was told by Alice that she was born in New York. Others place her birth in Virginia. Quite simply, we have a mess to sort through.
Shifting through all the dust, there are a few clues that we can uncover that helps us locate Alice’s birthplace. Sadly, we don’t have a birth certificate that we can cite that would clear up a lot about Alice, and often, when dealing with historical figures, that just isn’t a document we usually have at our disposal.
So what do these clues point towards? First, it would seem as if we can be rather sure that Alice was born in England. It was something that Alice took pride in, and never hid such a fact. She was also said to have the undertones of a British accent, and on the few definitive records we have on her, most often her birthplace is named as England.
First a Hiccup
Here we run into a slight hiccup. While most definitive records place Alice’s birth in England, we do have a census record from 1920 that places her and her parent’s birth in Virginia. Her marriage certificate to her last husband, George Huckert, also lists her nationality not as English, but as American.
What are we to make of these documents? Quite simply, Alice was lying. We can be sure of this for a few reasons. Looking at the marriage certificate, she portrays herself as Eva E Tubbs, who was born in 1866. The initial reaction to these details is to declare that it wasn’t actually Alice. But diving into the records, it becomes clear it was her.
One of the most clear pieces of evidence that shows that Eva and Alice are one and the same is that we know Alice had married George Huckert. Alice often talked of their marriage, which wasn’t based on love, at least not for her, but on the fact that it was cheaper than paying his back wages. While there could have been other George Huckerts living in the state, or even area, tracing the George Huckert in these documents that are related to Eva/Alice, we can find the record of his death, which makes it known this is the George we are looking for.
This George only married once, when he was 63 years old. As Alice would retell later on, the marriage was short, only lasting 6 years, from 1918-1924. During their marriage, they lived in Perkins county, near the Moreau river, where Alice and her previous husband, Warren Tubbs, had lived. The patent was issued in 1913, which makes it quite likely that it was in that area that they first met, when Alice was still a married woman.
From what we know about George, he met Alice as a handyman. He worked as a laborer, and helped Alice around her house. It would reason that after Warren Tubbs had passed away, Alice would have needed help, and as we know, George was around.
The final piece of evidence here is the use of the name Tubbs as her last name. On the marriage certificate, it is marked as Eva having been a widow, presumably with her previous husband having had the last name of Tubbs. This fits Alice very well, and with all the other evidence, we can be sure that she lied, for some reason, either on her marriage certificate, or in the stories she later told.
Why she would have lied is a difficult question. Not only did she lie about her name and her nationality, she also took 15 years off of her life. Instead of being George’s senior by four years, she claimed to be 11 years younger than him.
Maybe it’s Not a Lie
What if we are wrong though? What if Alice wasn’t lying. Or at least wasn’t completely lying. That’s the problem with the life of Poker Alice, so many thing don’t quite add up. Numerous stories would be written about the life of Poker Alice, especially in her later years. She would also give many interviews, yet when all the records are compared, minor, and sometimes major, discrepancies are found.
If we had the marriage certificate from Warren Tubbs and Alice’s wedding, we could make certain of a few things, such as what her legal name was. If there was some other official document, we could get to the bottom of this.
Luckily, we do have something. According to the South Dakota Death Index, we have one Eva Tubbs who died on February 27th, 1930, in Pennington County. Looking through the death Index, no Alice Tubbs, or Ivers or Huckert appear. This may be the clue that we need to really get to the bottom of who Alice really was.
It may turn out that Alice wasn’t lying about who she was on marriage certificate, or the later census record. That her death was officially recorded as Eva Tubbs, it gives more credibility to that being her official name. That also means that we have to rethink her birth.
What we have to acknowledge is that Alice lied. She either lied while talking to reporters and others, while building her life story; or she lied on government forms and committed a pretty serious crime.
The question then becomes what is most probable. Did a woman named Eva Ivers create a legendary mystique around herself, while giving herself a new name, or did a woman named Alice decide to commit a serious crime, one that the marriage officials and her new husband simply overlooked?
The latter option appears to be much more probable when considering all the facts. Alice was known around the Black Hills, especially in Lawrence County, where she was married at. The person who officiated their marriage, a Neil McDonough, had a long career in law in Deadwood, and would have met Poker Alice on a number of occasions.
It should also be safe to assume that George would have known of the reputation of Poker Alice. In 1913, she made headlines when she shot and killed a soldier from Fort Meade. Around this time, it appears that George had been working for Alice. To suggest that George would have been oblivious to who he was marrying simply isn’t plausible.
Not Alice, but Eva
Discovering who Alice really was opens up a number of doors into her past, allowing a few things to fall into place. It also explains why the paper trail for Alice only begins once she moves to Deadwood. Tracing her further back than that turns up nothing besides later stories that were told about her.
EDIT
The following information is questionable. New information has come to light that may require the pieces in red to be either erased, or rewritten. We are keeping the information here, with this edit, for the time being, as we continue researching the issue.
With Eva, the pieces begin to come to light. There’s still some unanswered questions, but we can work around those.
One of the largest pieces that we can uncover is the father of Eva, a Richard Ivers. Richard’s family had came from the county of Devonshire in England, but were Irish immigrants there. They settled in Virginia, where Richard was born.
Richard would eventually become a teacher, and possibly a schoolmaster, in Virginia. He would also meet his wife there, who’s name was possibly Alice, or maybe Mary. The two would have at least four children, two daughters and two sons.
Based on this information, it seems most probable that Eva was born in 1851, the youngest of her siblings. While school records are not available for Eva, and later on in her life she refused to name the school she attended, it would reason that she did in fact attend a local school, at least for a short while.
In 1861, the country would be seized in the grip of a Civil War, a war that Eva’s two older brothers would join in, fighting on the side of the Confederacy. While it would often be mentioned that her father would also fight in the 19th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, eventually becoming a colonel, this is doubtful, as no records can be found for such a case.
What is more certain is that Eva would lose her two older brothers at the Battle of Malvern Hill, which was the last of the Seven Days’ Battles, in 1862.
It is here that things get murky once again. At some point, Eva and her family moved to Colorado. The gold rush in Colorado began in 1858, and was largely played out by 1863, as most of the easy-to-reach gold deposits were exhausted. It’s doubtful that Eva and her family was part of this migration west.
Instead, there is probably some truth in the story that Richard, Eva’s father, fought for the Confederacy, as did his sons. Instead of the Louisiana infantry, it was most likely a Regiment out of Virginia that he fought for, as that was his home state. The fact we are missing records here to help solidify this information isn’t surprising, as the Confederate State had poor record keeping, which was further complicated by the destruction of records in Richmond in 1865.
If Richard didn’t volunteer, he would have been conscripted by at least 1863. With the end of the war in 1865, Eva’s family would have missed that initial gold rush. With it being probable that Richard fought for Virginia during the Civil War, we can be certain that it wasn’t until sometime after 1865 that the family moved to Colorado.
This agrees with the stories surrounding the move to Colorado, that Eva was in her mid-teens. Historically, it also makes sense as the family would settle in at Leadville. While the Leadville district would begin in 1860, much of the easy to access deposits were exhausted in 1864. However, in 1868, lode gold would be discovered. This led to additional opportunities, and it would appear that Eva’s family tried to capitalize on such.
Shortly after the move, Eva’s family seemingly vanished from the picture. Eva was largely on her own, and with that, a transformation began to occur.
For now though, the move to Colorado is where this story ends.
Enjoyed reading this. I knew a man that grew up in Sturgis when she was living there and knew her.