Etta Erpingham was a 22-year-old theater actor and opera singer in 1896 when she meets CJ Barton while returning back to Denver from her father’s funeral in Massachusetts. Etta enjoys traveling, flower arranging and sketching nature. She is stable and creative, but can be very crude and a bit grumpy when she does not get her way.
Etta was raised as a tomboy by her father Gabriel. Her father was a gunsmith in Springfield, taught her his trade, and taught her field survival skills as he would have to a son. Gabriel never remarried.
We first meet Etta 1892 when Classanr convinces her to stay with the opera despite her homesickness.
Etta is a Polish-American Christian who defines herself as forever doomed to be single. She started Smith College, a private women’s liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts. but never graduated. Instead, she jumped at good money to sing professionally on a Denver stage. Etta is a coloratura soprano. Her voice is capable of seemingly superhuman feats. Her voice is extremely agile. Her nickname is Shatteretta because she can, occasionally, explode fine crystal goblets as a party vocal stunt.
Physically, Etta is in great shape. If anything, she needs to gain a bit of weight. She has a square face and wears glasses for reading. Being in the acting business, she can create dramatically different appearances, and has many times fooled her friends into thinking she was somebody else entirely. She is petite with alabaster skin, copper hair and blue eyes. She has a small mole on her right cheek that she hates, so keeps it covered. She is very quick in her movements and surprisingly strong. She can pass as a young man with the correct attire, makeup, and her hair tucked up under a bowler. If a guy still needs convincing, she settles it by winning at arm wrestling.
She grew up in an upper class neighborhood in Springfield Massachusetts. Her mother, an heiress, died giving birth. Etta believes she will likewise die a similar death because all the women in her ancestry have died with their first-borne. Nevertheless, she feels an obligation to continue the family tradition, because each of the women have very productive artistic, albeit relatively short, lives.
Etta had a romance two years into her Denver experience. It was short and ended tragically. She was infatuated with a peer actress named Daisy Evelyn Powell who died in 1894. The Denver papers reported the cause of death as ‘Sudden precipitous impact with the street outside their hotel.‘ No mention was made of Daisy’s pregnancy, nor of the confusion in Etta’s mind when she blurted out “What does he have that I don’t…Oh…Right.”
