WELCOME
I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, then followed my mother’s advice to go somewhere “different” for college. In 1965, I moved to Boulder, Colorado. Now, more than five decades later, my roots are still in the East, but my heart – and my passion for researching and writing about history – is in the West. Colorado has remained my home. Here you will learn more about my books, articles, current projects – and about me. Thanks for visiting my website.
Stumped on a cold case? Need historical context for a research project? Looking for people or places in Boulder County, Colorado? Contact me for more information.
Silvia Pettem © 2025
Praise for SEPARATE LIVES
"The riveting, stranger-than-fiction story of Mary Rippon, whose secret private life tore up the Victorian American script.
Silvia Pettem immerses the reader in Rippon’s extraordinary life and career with meticulous research and narrative flair and zest.
A fascinating must-read."
Betsy Prioleau, author of the New York Times Editors’ Choice –– Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
“Thanks to Pettem’s intimate, humanizing portrait, readers will be riveted by Rippon, and her unconventional experiences will stay with them long after they’ve read the final page.”
Theresa Kaminski, author of Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans
LYONS PRESS (2024)
NEW cover story –– Westword
In Search of the Blonde Tigress: The Untold Story of Eleanor Jarman
She might have been serving pancakes at Pete's Kitchen in Denver.
Jarman, also known as "the Blonde Tigress," was allegedly implicated in 37 robberies committed in Chicago during the summer of 1933. She was arrested after one of her partners-in-crime fatally shot a 71-year-old storekeeper during a holdup.
But Jarman served only seven years of her 199-year sentence before she scaled a fence and hitchhiked to freedom wearing a polka-dot dress, never to be seen by authorities again.
NOW ACCEPTING ADDITIONAL SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
I’m currently accepting speaking engagements in the Denver-Boulder, Colorado, area. Presentations include SEPARATE LIVES (MARY RIPPON), THE BLONDE TIGRESS (ELEANOR JARMAN), AND SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER (BOULDER JANE DOE). For more info, see BOOKS PAGE and podcasts and interviews below.
NEW radio interview:
Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon
Colorado Public Radio (Colorado Matters)
May 1, 2025
21-minute Interview (and photo of author at Rippon’s grave) by Kiara DeMare/CPR News in Columbia Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado
PETTEM INTERVIEW (click here, then “Listen Now")NEW podcast: Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe (Updated Edition)
Every now and then, a story grabs me and won’t let go.
That’s what happened with the Boulder Jane Doe. After reading about the case and discovering Silvia Pettem’s powerful book, and her appearance in Web of Death on Disney+, I knew I had to speak with her.
Silvia isn’t just a gifted author—she’s a masterful storyteller whose passion radiates both on the page and on screen.
Her dedication to giving the Boulder Jane Doe her name back after 50 years of anonymity is nothing short of remarkable.
Please enjoy this beautiful journey to give justice to Someone's Daughter.
("The West London Witch")
.
Here’s another Boulder Jane Doe podcast.
ARTICLES, PODCASTS & PRESENTATIONS on In Search of the Blonde Tigress: The Untold Story of Eleanor Jarman
IN SEARCH OF THE BLONDE TIGRESS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ELEANOR JARMAN
Colorado Sun, SunLit Interview, CEMETERY REENACTMENT HOOKED SILVIA PETTEM ON TRACKING MISSING PERSONS…..POLKA-DOTTED DRESS — Thursday August 8, 1940, started out like any other day at the Oakdale Reformatory for Women near the small town of Dwight, in rural Illinois…READ MORE…AUTHOR SILVIA PETTEM TALKS ABOUT THE SECOND EDITION OF HER BOOK ABOUT MARY RIPPON, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO’S FIRST WOMAN PROFESSOR: 5280 Denver’s Mile High Magazine, August 21, 2024
Silvia Pettem has written hundreds of columns for the Boulder Daily Camera and more than 20 books, most of which fit into either the local history or true crime or cold case categories. The 77-year-old author who lives west of Jamestown says she also gravitates toward stories about “intriguing women from the past.”
That interest is on full display in Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon, a book she first self-published in 1999. Published by Lyons Press this month, a second edition of the formerly out-of-print biography—with two new chapters included—will allow a wider audience to meet Mary Rippon, a name familiar to those who amble past the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre on University of Colorado Boulder’s campus every day.
PROFESSOR MARY RIPPON LED A SECRET, SEPARATE LIFE
COLORADO ARTS AND SCIENCES MAGAZINE, College of Arts and Sciences
In new book, CU Boulder alumnus Silvia Pettem details a little-known chapter of the trailblazing faculty member's story.
As a student at the University of Colorado, I often passed through the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theater on the way to my classes. I had assumed Rippon was a woman associated with the theater department, but that was not so. I later learned that she had arrived in Boulder in 1878 and became the university's first female professor. After her death in 1935, then-President George Norlin named the theater (then under construction) in her memory.
Publicly, "Miss Rippon" was highly respected by students and faculty. However, unknown to Norlin and the others, she had a secret private life that would have been considered scandalous, had she not hidden her husband and daughter behind a Victorian veil of secrecy….
MEET THE SPIRITS
On Sunday October 6th, I sold books in at the Meet the Spirits event in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery.
Met a lot of interesting people, and had a lot of fun.
A SECRET LIASON WITH A STUDENT LED COLORADO PROFESSOR TO LIVE SEPARATE LIVES: COLORADO SUN August 4, 2024
Separate Lives” by Silvia Pettem recounts the affair between groundbreaking CU German instructor Mary Rippon, 37, and student Will Housel, 25. They had a daughter, but in 19th-century Boulder, Rippon kept her private life well-hidden.
DONATED DOCUMENTS PIQUED SILVIA PETTEM’S INTEREST IN CU PROF WITH DOUBLE LIFE: COLORADO SUN, August 4, 2024
A descendant of unmarried faculty member Mary Rippon provided foundational information for Pettem’s book “Separate Lives.”
NOTE: THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY AND GENERAL PUBLIC ONLY THOUGHT MARY RIPPON WAS UNMARRIED.
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
THE BOOKWORM OF EDWARDS for hosting COLD CASES & WANTED WOMEN (photos below). Please continue to support this bookstore in Edwards, Colorado.
The BOULDER BOOKSTORE for hosting an evening with true crime writers.
The DENVER PUBLIC LIBRARY UNIVERSITY BRANCH.
BOOK CLUB MEMBERS who invite me to their discussions of my book….great questions and lots of fun!
RELATED INTERESTS
IN RETROSPECT
In addition to writing books, I write a monthly “In Retrospect” history column for the Boulder Daily Camera, in Boulder, Colorado. My latest columns, and many others, can be read at the “In Retrospect column” link, below. (test)
CARIBOU CEMETERY PROJECT
One newspaper column ties in with the CARIBOU CEMETERY PROJECT — a community effort to restore respect to those buried in a small Colorado mountain cemetery, once home to silver miners from Cornwall.
Left, A small cross used to hang near the cemetery’s entrance.
Click below for my 45-minute video on the Caribou Cemetery
HISTORIC GRAVE IDENTIFICATIONS IN THE CARIBOU CEMETERY
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Every man has two deaths –– when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. (Attributed to Ernest Hemingway)
RESEARCH SPECIALTIES:
Long-term missing persons
Unidentified remains
Cold case homicides
Boulder County, Colorado, history