Of the Blonger graves listed on Find-a-Grave, that of Mary (Mollie/Mattie) M. Blonger remains a mystery. We’re not sure who she is, but it’s tempting to think this might be the Mollie Blonger accused of running a brothel in Albuquerque in 1888, just a few days after hooker Kitty Blonger killed Charles Hill in Peach Springs, Arizona.
We assume Mollie (a common variant of Mary) took her surname from either Lou or Sam (or both), as Kitty did, when the boys apparently served as their pimps in Albuquerque in 1882 – and elsewhere, for all we know. At any rate, the Blonger name undoubtedly came from either Sam or Lou, but apparently without the benefit of marriage…
Thank you Craig. You solved a mystery for the Smith family. There are a couple of letters from Soapy Smith to his wife Mary, in which he calls her “Mollie.” I had never heard before that “Mollie” is a common variant of Mary. It never dawned on me to look up the name in the dictionary.
Jeff Smith