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Eva-toole
Eva Toole
Date of birth: 1837
Status: Alive
Also known as: Eva Oakes (Maiden)
Occupation: Former prostitute
Marital status: Widowed
Relatives: Gregory Toole - Husband (Deceased)

Rose Toole/Ferguson - Daughter (Given up)

Relationships: Gregory Toole - late husband
Elam Ferguson - Former Lover
Mickey McGinnes - Sexual Parter
Behind the scenes
Portrayed by: Robin McLeavy
Seasons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
First episode: "A New Birth of Freedom"
Last episode: "Done"
Appearances: 52 episodes (see below)

Eva Toole is a former and reinstated prostitute in Hell on Wheels. She falls in love with Elam, a recently freedman, but marries Gregory Toole, an Irish railroad worker. A love triange soon ensues.

Biography[]

Background information[]

As a girl, Eva was captured by a group of Yavapai Indians but they traded her to the Mojave. She states the only reason she wasn't rape and/or murdered was due to her having the pox. During her captivity they tattooed her face. The tattoo means "three blankets and two horses", indicating her worth. She was freed when a soldier found her with the Indians and threatened them for her release. ("Jamais Je Ne T'oublierai", "Derailed")

Season 1[]

Main article: Season 1

Eva comes to Hell on Wheels and begins working at the cathouse. She is a prostitute with Indian markings on her face from a childhood raised with Indians, having been abducted early on. Rumors of her past spread around town and reach Mickey McGinnes. When Elam Ferguson entered the cathouse and wanted her services, she laughed at him, as the other men were watching. Later she shows up in private offering her services to Elam, who rebuffs her due to her earlier rebuff. She states she only rebuffed him due to the fact that if she had publicly slept with him, she would lose all her other business. As she is a marked up Indian woman, she already has fewer clients than the average prostitute. She sleeps with him for his dollar.

When Bohannon and Elam are forced to fight for entertainment, Eva warns Elam that if he won the fight against Bohannon that they would kill him, showing her affection for him that goes beyond the paid for affection of a prostitute.

Once Eva is found in relations with Elam, he is dragged away by the angry white mob, lead by Gregory Toole. They plan to string him up and hang him in the saloon. Eva begs Bohannon to save him.

When Elam returns from being on the lam with Bohannon, having learned to shoot and apparently killed Mr. Toole, Elam returns to find Eva with a client. He kicks him out, and tells Eva he is now her business.

Eva and Elam are in his tent together when they hear Mr. Toole yelling for Mr. Ferguson outside. Elam comes out with his gun to confront Toole but find an apologetic and reformed man who admits he was wrong towards Elam and asks him for forgiveness. Elam tell him to ask for forgiveness from Eva, not him. Eva comes out and Toole is reluctantly forgiven by the pair.

Elam tells Eva he wants to make her his only. She takes this to mean he wants to marry her and settle down in the town, as a real town is finally being made at the 20 mile mark. She later finds out that he only means as his personal "whore" as he does not want to settle down and lose his newfound freedom, respect, and money. He leaves her at the dance after this confrontation.

Eva, distraught over the recent fight and realization of Elam's intentions, is asked to dance by Mr. Toole. She rebuffs him and he sadly walks off. She reconsiders her rudeness and dances with him. Elam shows up a while later and almost fights Toole for touching his girl. Eva pulls up off and aside, telling him that she wants to settle down, Elam doesn't but Mr. Toole seems to have the same idea. She then goes back and dances with Mr. Toole. ("A New Birth of Freedom", "Jamais Je Ne T'oublierai", "Bread and Circuses")

Season 2[]

Main article: Season 2
EvainDurant

Eva and Gregory Tooles' home in Durant, Nebraska

Eva has remained in the railroad town of Durant, Nebraska. She and Gregory Toole married sometime after settling there, having a small house and Mr. Toole was put in charge of the railway station there. When she sees Elam as he is accompanying the train for security, he sees her wedding ring and her new life with Mr. Toole.

While fetching water for the morning, she discovers the town telegraph operator dead and the town being attacked by a Sioux murder party. She hides as she witnesses several of the eleven deaths that occur during the raid. This forces the residents of Durant, Nebraska to move back with Hell on Wheels and follow the railroad. Upon Bohannon's return to the railway Mr. Toole is made the new foreman of the railway.

After making up with Elam they begin an affair behind her husband's back. When Eva tells Elam she is pregnant with his baby, he gets up and leaves her there without a word. She later tells Mr. Toole that she is pregnant and it is not his child. He angrily leaves their tent.

Elam later shows up and explains why he acted the way he did but professes his love for her and offers her money for an abortion as he fears for her and the baby's lives if Mr. Toole were to find out. She turns it town saying it is no longer his concern. Later Mr. Toole returns home drunk but tenderly touches her belly.

Mr. Toole and Eva decide to make it work with the baby, as he wants to be the father and keep his wife. He and Elam clash verbally on many occasions, but Elam recognizes that he is standing by Eva even though she is pregnant with another man's baby, and a black man's to boot. He begrudgingly thanks him without saying so.

Elam begins building a house down by the river, and even attempts to quit the railroad to make a life for Eva and the baby. He was persuaded by Psalms that the baby needs his real father. He finishes his house by hand and asks Eva to see it, which she stoutly refuses as she must stand beside Mr. Toole as his wife.

Psalms talks to Eva in the street, saying that he is Elam's "brother" and the baby's "uncle". She respectfully states that she is Mrs. Toole and the baby is his. He says she is tearing Elam's heart up and she seems distraught at this but walks away.

Eva shows up at Elam's house to see his new place and congratulates him. As she goes to leave Mr. Toole is yelling outside about having found the two of them together. He pulls out a gun and points it at the pair as Eva pleads with him not to shoot, though it is unclear whether or not he is aiming at Elam or Eva. She slowly gets closer to him but he asks the lord's forgiveness and shoots himself in the face feet away from Eva.

Eva is given condolences from other residents of Hell on Wheels during Mr. Toole's funeral. Micky gives the eulogy, stating that he loved his wife and would have made a good father.

Later, Eva decides not to evacuate the impending Sioux attack on the town. She tells Elam, who is angry she isn't leaving, that she is staying and will stay at his place where it is safe. She asks him to protect the cathouse as there was no room for the whores on the train and he obliges. He later saves her from the house burning when the Indians attack. ("Viva La Mexico")

Season 3[]

Main article: Season 3

During the winter, Eva and Elam have moved to Omaha and live in a small tent. A heavily pregnant Eva hears Bohannon's offer to Elam to accompany him to New York to get the railroad back up and running, and tells Elam he should go, as birthing is "not a man's business".

While Elam is away in New York Eva has the baby and telegraphs him to let him know it is healthy, but does not state the gender. It is revealed with Elam returns that they had a baby girl. The couple packs up their small tent to head out with the new hell on wheels.

Eva copes with being a new mother while acting as the town's nurse. She attempts to help Dick, the newest chief of railroad security, when he is shot by the Mormons, but cannot help him. She also helps prolong the life of a sick whore before she leaves for a doctor in Chicago.

Eva has trouble adjusting to life as a woman who had a baby by a man other than her recently deceased husband, Gregory Toole. Later her deceased husband's brother, Declan Toole, arrives in town. Eva refuses to let him in as he states his intentions are to marry his brother's widow to care for her and their baby, as is their custom. She refuses as he is a stranger and she is with Elam. Elam also stoutly and angrily tells him to stay away from Eva.

Eva later find their baby is missing, and the blame is focused on Declan Toole, as he had wanted to take Eva and the baby back to New York. Elam and Bohannon find the baby was abducted by the sick whore, whom Eva had previously helped cure, and her lover, as they wanted to be a family and could tell Eva did not want the child.

Eva decides to leave with Declan Toole and her baby, but last minute decides to stay in hell on wheels but gives the baby to Decland to take with him. This angers Elam who throws her out of their tent and tells her to go back to whoring. Eva attempts to get work at the cathouse, but Micky refuses her, fearing Elam's retribution. He gives her money to leave town. She waits on the platform for the next train out of town but is found by Louise Ellison, who takes her in when she believes her baby, now named Rose, has died of cholera. Eva does not correct her on this. ("Big Bad Wolf", "Eminent Domain", "Cholera", "It Happened in Boston")

Appearances[]

Season 1 appearances
"Pilot" "Immoral Mathematics" "A New Birth of Freedom" "Jamais Je Ne T'oublierai" "Bread and Circuses"
"Pride, Pomp and Circumstance" "Revelations" "Derailed" "Timshel" "God of Chaos"
Season 2 appearances
"Viva La Mexico" "Durant, Nebraska" "Slaughterhouse" "Scabs" "The Railroad Job"
"Purged Away with Blood" "The White Spirit" "The Lord's Day" "Blood Moon" "Blood Moon Rising"
Season 3 appearances
"Big Bad Wolf" "Eminent Domain" "Range War" "The Game" "Searchers"
"One Less Mule" "Cholera" "It Happened in Boston" "Fathers and Sins" "Get Behind the Mule"
Season 4 appearances
"The Elusive Eden" "Escape from the Garden" "Chicken Hill" "Reckoning" "Life's a Mystery"
"Bear Man" "Elam Ferguson (Episode)" "Under Color of Law" "Two Trains" "Return to Hell"
"Bleeding Kansas" "Thirteen Steps" "Further West"
Season 5 appearances
"Chinatown" "Mei Mei" "White Justice" "Struck" "Elixir of Life"
"Hungry Ghosts" "False Prophets" "Two Soldiers" "Return to the Garden" "61 Degrees"
"Gambit" "Any Sum Within Reason" "Railroad Men" "Done"


Behind the Scenes[]

Eva shares many traits with real-life Indian captive Olive Oatman, who was captured by the Yavapi and then traded to the Mojave. Eva's tattoos also bear a striking resemblance to Olive's.

Gallery[]


Eva Toole Cast Season 5

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