Joe Cain Day is the quintessential uniquely Mobile celebration of the Carnival season where quirky Southern lore and traditions are embellished and culminated into a giant street party.

Few, if any, cities could pull off a copycat version of the day that celebrates Cain, who is credited with reviving Mardi Gras in Mobile following the Civil War.

But there was one city that was bold enough to try to pull it off by creating its own Joe Cain Day over 30 years ago.

And of all places, that city is in California.

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“We have people who are shocked and surprised on why this is happening here,” said Lynn Skrukrud, events and marketing manager for the Nevada City Chamber of Commerce, the organization that has hosted the event for the past 20 years.

“I grew up going to this parade. It suits our community,” she said. “We have a free spirit of being a fun and funky and artsy community.”

Nevada City, a small artsy community with a population of 3,110 residents located high in the Sierra Nevada, celebrates one of California’s largest Mardi Gras parties each year.

The entire event is rooted in the traditions of Mobile’s Joe Cain Day.

“I didn’t know anything about Joe Cain,” said David Parker, an artist and former mayor of Nevada City who helped start the celebration in 1993.

“Most people didn’t have a clue, of course,” Parker said. “There are no Nevada City roots in any of this, as you may guess.”

Chances are that few Mobilians are also familiar with Nevada City, let alone the fact that it once had its own Joe Cain Day.

“I didn’t know that Nevada City, California, hosts an annual Mardi Gras celebration that took inspiration from Joe Cain Day and the Merry Widows,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said. “However, I’m not surprised. The City of Mobile has been spreading Carnival traditions across the United States since the country’s first organized Mardi Gras celebration occurred here in 1703.”

Stimpson added, “Joe Cain Day in Mobile is all about bringing the people together to celebrate and share our unique traditions. If that’s what Nevada City is doing, they’re doing it right.”

Mobile roots

The Nevada City tradition was born through a conversation Parker had inside a Nevada City bar with two retired firefighters – Rich Waters and Curt Colagross.

Parker said that Waters and Colagross had visited a previous Joe Cain Day in Mobile and came back home with a big idea of trying to recreate a version in Nevada City.

“(Waters and Colagross) said, ‘What do you think?’” Parker recalled. “After an extended conversation, I said, ‘this sounds like our town’ and ‘we can do this’ and then, ‘let’s do this.’”

Colagross became Nevada City’s version of Slacabamarinico, the fictitious Indian chief portrayed in Mobile by Cain in 1868. The character, now portrayed by Mobile historian Wayne Dean, remains an iconic character of Mobile’s Joe Cain Day.

Colagross was joined by a group of women dressed in black gowns and hats who called themselves the Merry Widows. The Nevada City Widows were inspired by the version of the mysterious Merry Widows of Joe Cain in Mobile, who have been around since 1974.

A ceremony steeped in Mobile tradition also took place in Nevada City during its first Joe Cain Day. A mock gravesite was set up to honor Cain, and a champagne toast occurred before the city’s first Joe Cain Day parade began.

Read more: ‘No reason to be in mourning’: Merry Widows of Joe Cain resume Mobile Mardi Gras tradition

In Mobile on Joe Cain Day, the Merry Widows have been gathering at Cain’s gravesite at the Church Street Graveyard for almost 50 years. They then travel to his house on Augusta Street for a toast to Cain and the day named after him.

“Back in the early days of Joe Cain Day in Nevada City, we kind of followed the same procedure as you do in Mobile as far as what the Merry Widows did,” said Mary Ann Crabb, who at 81, is referred to as “Mother Superior” and is one of the founding members of the Merry Widows society in Nevada City.

“We were leading the parade right there with our Joe Cain, who was Curt Colagross,” she said.

Through the 1990s, Joe Cain Day – not Mardi Gras – was celebrated on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday in Nevada City.

It progressively got more popular, and the crowds grew.

“The first year, we had an amazing bar party,” said Parker about that 1993 event. “The second year, we had 25 people. By year three, we got into the streets. By the fourth year, I got to the top of the hill and looked down and there were thousands of people. It never really stopped after that.”

Colagross visited Mobile in 1999 to ride in Joe Cain Day Procession aboard the coal wagon with Dean, who has portrayed Slacabamarinico since 1985.

“The only twist he had is instead of the black hair of the chief here, his was white,” Dean said. “It was a California twist.”

Goodbye Cain, Hello Widows

At some point, Nevada City ditched Cain after the chamber of commerce took over the event and renamed it simply, “Mardi Gras.”

“We no longer do Joe Cain here, and Curt has moved next door to Nevada,” said Crabb, referring to Colagross, who could not be reached for comment for this story.

According to an article last year by SFGate, a news website in San Francisco – about 150 miles from Nevada City — insensitive portrayals of Native Americans or the celebration of the Confederacy may have been a concern about the city maintaining its Joe Cain roots.

Crabb said there “may have been a little undercurrent” of criticism about the Confederate heritage of Joe Cain Day. Cain has been described as a Confederate soldier whose wild antics to revive Mardi Gras were meant as a backhanded insult to the Union forces stationed in Mobile after the Civil War.

“There is no brouhaha about it,” Crabb said. “For some folks it may be an issue. But the bright shiny thing is Mardi Gras. It’s a dull time of the year as far as the weather goes, and we need a little excuse to have a party.”

Cain might be gone, but his Widows remain. They are considered an important part of the current celebration.

Much like Mobile’s Widows, the Nevada City Widows are known for their bickering among each other over who Joe loved the most. In Mobile, the bickering occurs during their over-the-top gathering at Cain’s gravesite on Joe Cain Day, shortly before they break into a dance and toss black beads and roses to onlookers.

In Nevada City, the bickering occurs sometimes on Facebook.

“I posted a picture of the fourth year of Joe Cain Day (in Nevada City), and it was filled with comments from the Merry Widows, ‘he loves me the best,’” Parker said. “It cracked me up.”

Comparing the Widows

The Nevada City Widows are part of a non-profit that, up until recently, raised money to support scholarships for more than 100 single parents. One fundraiser included selling the Merry Widows Gazette, a publication released for 25 years. Crabb was its former editor-in-chief.

The COVID-19 pandemic “kind of put a damper on it,” and the fundraiser stopped, she said.

But the Widows continue to gather, and joyfully bicker about who was the fondest in the eyes of Cain.

“We refuse to fade away,” said Crabb. “We are at a point where our main mission is to have a good time.”

The biggest difference between the Mobile and Nevada City Widows is the obvious: The California Widows are unmasked while in Mobile, the Merry Widows are one of the most secretive groups of the Carnival season.

No one knows their identity in Mobile.

Their names are also as Southern as a plate of grits and collard greens: Isabelle, Georgia, Savannah, Sue Ellen, Scarlett, Emmy Lou.

The Nevada City Merry Widows are a group of only 12 and include a mix of men and women dressed in black gowns and wear black hats.

“We are willing to reveal our faces, no masks or veils,” said Crabb. “I don’t know what the reason why that is. Comfort, maybe?”

The Nevada City Widows do maintain their nod to Mobile’s Joe Cain. Each one of the Widows has a fictional name that ends with “Cain.” Crabb, for instance, is “Sugar Cain.”

The Nevada City Widows also make other appearances during the year, notably during the city’s Constitution Day parade in September.

‘A big hug’

Neither Crabb nor Parker have been to Mobile. Crabb said she was once invited to Mobile by one of the Merry Widows. The invitation occurred while Crabb was conducting an interview for the Merry Widow Gazette. The Mobile Widow invited Crabb to “stay at her beach house,” but a visit never materialized.

Parker said he is “semi-retired” from parading in Nevada City as the character “General Doo-Dah,” the so-called leader of the Mardi Gras kazoo band.

General Doo-Dah would easily fit in with Joe Cain Foot Marchers who lead the annual procession in Mobile if he so chooses to visit the last known remaining Joe Cain Day in the U.S.

“It was literally Joe Cain Day here,” Parker said. “It was not ‘Mardi Gras’ until the chamber of commerce took it over. We celebrated old Joe. He was probably rolling in his grave.”

Despite never visiting the Alabama city, Crabb is appreciative of the Cain tradition that has been a big part of Nevada City’s Mardi Gras tradition for over 30 years.

“We’re giving Mobile a big hug and saying, ‘thank you very much,’” Crabb said.