May Yohé
Encyclopedia
Mary Augusta "May" Yohé was an American musical theatre
actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company
in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893. The following year, in London, she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus
.
In 1894, she married Lord Francis Hope
and possessed the Hope Diamond
. She nevertheless continued to perform in musical theatre in the West End
and then the U.S. She divorced Hope in 1902 and married a series of adventurous, but financially unsuccessful, men. She performed in music hall
and vaudeville
on the West Coast and in various other places in the U.S. in the early decades of the 20th century, but she was frequently in financial jeopardy. By 1924, she and her last husband, John Smuts, had settled in Boston
, where she died in near poverty.
, the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (nee Batcheller) Yohé. Her father, a veteran of the American Civil War
, was either the son or nephew of Caleb Yohé, proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, where Yohé was brought into this world. William Yohé was locally famous for the elaborate miniature village scenes he would construct on the hotel grounds and was especially popular for his annual Christmas putz. Yohé’s mother, a descendent of the Narragansett, was a talented dressmaker, who according to Yohé had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people of the day. As a young girl Yohé entertained the Eagle's guests by dancing and singing in the hotel lobby and recounting childhood stories. What became of her father is unclear. In 1878 he applied for a US Passport with plans to travel to Brazil while family lore has him dying in Colorado or Montana around 1885. At around the age of ten, Yohé was sent to Europe for a refined education, studying in Dresden and later at the Convent of the Sacré Coeur in Paris.
, but within a short while her voice lowered into a contralto
that was described as peculiar. She debuted as May Yohé (May derived from her initials) in January 1886 with the McCaull Comic Opera Company
as Dilly Dimple in "The Little Tycoon," a comic opera
by Willard Spencer, presented at Temple Theatre in Philadelphia and in March of that year at the Standard Theatre in New York. In March 1887, she appeared in McCaull's Broadway
production of Lorraine, composed by Rudolph Dellinger to a libretto by Oscar Walther, which was adapted in English by William J. Henderson. She then played in the same production at the Chicago Opera House
. In that production, she sang the following song with much success:
The song remained popular in the Chicago area for several years. Later in 1887, with McCaull at the Chicago Opera House, she sang "Bid Me Good-By and Go" in the musical comedy Natural Gas by Henry Grattan Donnelly
. Yohé's unique vocal quality attracted the attention of the manager of the Chicago Opera House, and she was engaged to play princess Zal-Am-Boo in Alfred Thompson's extravaganza Arabian Nights, which premiered on June 2, 1887. The following year, she appeared in The Crystal Slipper: or Prince Pretliwittz and Little Cinderella, also at the Chicago Opera House. In 1888, on the weekend that preceded the Fourth of July, Yohé travelled to Cleveland, Ohio
in the company of Edward Shaw, the son of W. W. Shaw, a major stockholder in the Chicago Opera House. She missed at least two performances before returning. Shaw’s young wife filed for divorce a week later. She subsequently toured in America and abroad with George Lederer's Players in the farce comedy U & I and as Celia Cliquot in Hoss and Hoss, both in 1891.
In 1893, Yohé made her London debut as Martina in The Magic Opal by Isaac Albéniz
, and the following year she played the title character in the musical The Lady Slavey, composed by by Gustave Adolph Kerker, with a book by Sir George Dance
, in which she sang “What’s a Poor Girl to Do”. She starred as the title character in the 1894 hit burlesque Little Christopher Columbus
. In an interview, Yohé said the music, "had to be specially written for me – crammed so to speak, into my voice’s shrunken circumference." While in London, she became a favorite of the Prince of Wales
(later King Edward VII).
The next year she played the title role in the comic opera
Dandy Dick Whittington, at the Avenue Theatre, written by George Robert Sims
and composed by Ivan Caryll
. The next year, she played the title role in the musical The Belle of Cairo at the Royal Court Theatre
in London. She later returned twice to Broadway. She was Lady Muriel Despair in the musical The Giddy Throng (1900–01) and appeared in the brief revival of the revue
Mamzelle Champagne
in 1906. That same year at the Knickerbocker Theatre
in New York, Yohé appeared in Mlle. Nitouche, a piece that she had produced a decade or so earlier at the Royal Court Theatre
and at the Duke of York's Theatre
(then the Trafalgar Square Theatre) in London.
Contemporaneous New York Times articles, while presenting facts that vary in some details from this account, confirm most of the facts in this article. One notes that Hope settled claims against him by Yohé for $5,000.
announced the wedding of Lord Francis Hope and May Yohé. It was later reported in the press that the wedding took place on November 27, 1893 at Hampstead Parrish
in London. Press reports at the time claimed Hope’s family offered him around £200,000 to call off the engagement. Later, in June, 1894, The New York Times
reported that Lord Hope had filed for bankruptcy with liabilities amounting to £405,277 and assets £194,042. At the time of her marriage to Francis Hope, there had been vague reports in the press implying she had been married twice before: first, in San Francisco to the son of a General Williams, and next in Massachusetts to a local politician.
.
The following year Francis Hope would lose a foot to a hunting accident, divorce his wife and be forced once again to declare bankruptcy. Even though Major Strong had resigned his commission some months earlier, the War Department
in Washington D.C. announced on March 22, 1902, the same day of Yohé’s divorce, his nomination for promotion to lieutenant colonel
by brevet
for his service in the Philippines.
On April, 1902 they returned to America to live with Yohé’s mother at her residence in Hastings-on-Hudson. Three months later Yohé would accuse Strong of running off with her jewelry worth many thousands of dollars. With the financial assistance of Strong’s family Yohé later reconciled with “Putty” while both were in Europe. A few months later, once her divorce decree from Hope was made absolute, they married in Buenos Ayres
on October 3, 1902.
Strong later joined his wife on the vaudeville stage. In 1905 he declared bankruptcy, even though he and his wife were making $750 a week as entertainers. That December Yohé filed for divorce claiming desertion. Strong, who reportedly was living in Macau
after their divorce, died in New York in 1945 at the age of 70. In 1913 the press reported that Yohé and Francis Hope were reconciling. Hope declared the story to be preposterous.
miner by the name of Murphy. The child was reportedly born in September 1908, at Portland, Oregon
, where Yohé had been living in seclusion. In May of the following year the boy was adopted by Edward R. Thomas, owner of the Perkins Hotel Pharmacy, and his wife Rosa. The adoption consent was signed "Mary A. Strong". In the mid-1930s, an actor named Robert Thomas, the adopted son of Edward and Rosa, tried in vain to prove that his birth father was Putnam Bradlee Strong. Yohé adamantly rejected his claim not only that Strong was his father, but that she was his mother. Had Thomas been successful, he would have been eligible for a share in a large trust fund set up by Strong’s mother.
About 1910, Yohé purchased a run-down boarding house in Seattle, Washington
, which she ran for a few months before press reports in December, 1910 announced that she had earlier in the month married musician Frank M. Reynolds in Seattle. Reynolds was the son of an Upstate New York
college professor, who soon claimed he’d received a letter from his son refuting the story.
In September, 1911 Yohé denied she planned to wed former lightweight champion boxer Jack McAuliffe
, who at the time was her partner at a 10¢ movie house in New York performing vaudeville skits between movie screenings. The following month Yohé was reported to be in Chicago living "in dire penury, almost starvation" with her husband Jack McAuliffe.
. Over the early years of their marriage, the two traveled to Singapore, India, China and Japan, eventually settling in South Africa. In the waning months of the First World War, it was reported that Yohé planned to accompany her husband to France, where he intended to serve on the front lines while she would serve as a Red Cross nurse. Smuts was unable to secure a military commission, and within a few months the two moved to Seattle, Washington
, where Smuts found shipyard work. Soon after, he contracted influenza, leaving Yohé to seek employment as a housekeeper at the apartment house where they were living. In 1919, Yohé, was back in vaudeville, meeting with modest success.
In the early 1920s, after auctioning off some valuable possessions and a South American trip, Yohé and her husband toured the vaudeville circuit in the U.S. with an act based on the less-than-successful 1921 movie serial The Hope Diamond Mystery
, which she helped write and promote. Later they invested in a California ranch. This venture failed and they soon returned to vaudeville, though this time with less success. They lost the remainder of their savings in a failed farming venture in New Hampshire
. By 1924, the couple had settled in Boston, where John Smuts found work as a janitor. In November of 1924, Capt Smuts was shot in the chest at their Boston residence. The wound was not serious and he soon recovered. Smuts maintained that he was cleaning a gun when it accidentally discharged. He refused to explain to the investigators the mysterious suicide note they recovered, written in two different handwriting styles.
(WPA) in Boston. Her husband’s health was failing and she needed the income for his care. Initially, Yohé was turned down because she had given up her U.S. citizenship in the 1890s when she married Francis Hope. She applied to regain her citizenship and several weeks later, in May 1938, was given the job she had applied for. Not long afterward, on August 29, 1938, she died in Boston of heart and kidney disease. Three thousand people attended her service, including Robert Thomas. At the time of her death, Yohé’s most prized possession was a large photograph of Edward VII, taken while he was still the Prince of Wales
, and signed “To May, 1898". A few days after her funeral, John Smuts followed his wife's final wish and sprinkled her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean. He died in Boston of a heart attack a few months later, on January 11, 1939.
The Hartford Courant, in their obituary, quoted Yohé as follows: "I’ve done pretty nearly everything in my life, except theft and murder, but thank God, whatever I’ve done my heart's been in it."
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
actress. After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company
McCaull Comic Opera Company
McCaull Comic Opera Company, sometimes called the McCaull Opera Comique Company, was founded by Colonel John A. McCaull in 1880. The company produced operetta, comic opera and musical theatre in New York City and on tour in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada until McCaull's death in 1894...
in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performing in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893. The following year, in London, she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus
Little Christopher Columbus
Little Christopher Columbus is a burlesque opera in two acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and Gustave Kerker and a libretto by George R. Sims and Cecil Raleigh. It opened on 10 October 1893 at the Lyric Theatre in London and then transferred to Terry's Theatre, running for a total of 421...
.
In 1894, she married Lord Francis Hope
Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne
Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne was an English nobleman.He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge....
and possessed the Hope Diamond
Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...
. She nevertheless continued to perform in musical theatre in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
and then the U.S. She divorced Hope in 1902 and married a series of adventurous, but financially unsuccessful, men. She performed in music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
and vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
on the West Coast and in various other places in the U.S. in the early decades of the 20th century, but she was frequently in financial jeopardy. By 1924, she and her last husband, John Smuts, had settled in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, where she died in near poverty.
Early Years
Mary Yohé was born in Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaBethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
, the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (nee Batcheller) Yohé. Her father, a veteran of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, was either the son or nephew of Caleb Yohé, proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, where Yohé was brought into this world. William Yohé was locally famous for the elaborate miniature village scenes he would construct on the hotel grounds and was especially popular for his annual Christmas putz. Yohé’s mother, a descendent of the Narragansett, was a talented dressmaker, who according to Yohé had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people of the day. As a young girl Yohé entertained the Eagle's guests by dancing and singing in the hotel lobby and recounting childhood stories. What became of her father is unclear. In 1878 he applied for a US Passport with plans to travel to Brazil while family lore has him dying in Colorado or Montana around 1885. At around the age of ten, Yohé was sent to Europe for a refined education, studying in Dresden and later at the Convent of the Sacré Coeur in Paris.
Career
Yohé began her career as a sopranoSoprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, but within a short while her voice lowered into a contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
that was described as peculiar. She debuted as May Yohé (May derived from her initials) in January 1886 with the McCaull Comic Opera Company
McCaull Comic Opera Company
McCaull Comic Opera Company, sometimes called the McCaull Opera Comique Company, was founded by Colonel John A. McCaull in 1880. The company produced operetta, comic opera and musical theatre in New York City and on tour in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada until McCaull's death in 1894...
as Dilly Dimple in "The Little Tycoon," a comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
by Willard Spencer, presented at Temple Theatre in Philadelphia and in March of that year at the Standard Theatre in New York. In March 1887, she appeared in McCaull's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
production of Lorraine, composed by Rudolph Dellinger to a libretto by Oscar Walther, which was adapted in English by William J. Henderson. She then played in the same production at the Chicago Opera House
Chicago Opera House
The Chicago Opera House, was a theater complex in Chicago, Illinois, USA, designed by the architectural firm of Cobb and Frost. The Chicago Opera House building took the cue provided by the Metropolitan Opera of New York as a mixed-used building: it housed both a theater and unrelated offices,...
. In that production, she sang the following song with much success:
- Every Flower that Blooms so Fair
- Every Birdlet that Beats the Air
- Has Heard of thy Beauty Rare
- Thy Beauty Beyond Compare
The song remained popular in the Chicago area for several years. Later in 1887, with McCaull at the Chicago Opera House, she sang "Bid Me Good-By and Go" in the musical comedy Natural Gas by Henry Grattan Donnelly
Henry Grattan Donnelly
Henry Grattan Donnelly was an author and playwright born in Baltimore, Maryland.Named after the Irish politician Henry Grattan, Donnelly traveled West and became a reporter for the Omaha Bee when he was in his late teens. While in Nebraska he spent time living with the Indian tribes there...
. Yohé's unique vocal quality attracted the attention of the manager of the Chicago Opera House, and she was engaged to play princess Zal-Am-Boo in Alfred Thompson's extravaganza Arabian Nights, which premiered on June 2, 1887. The following year, she appeared in The Crystal Slipper: or Prince Pretliwittz and Little Cinderella, also at the Chicago Opera House. In 1888, on the weekend that preceded the Fourth of July, Yohé travelled to Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
in the company of Edward Shaw, the son of W. W. Shaw, a major stockholder in the Chicago Opera House. She missed at least two performances before returning. Shaw’s young wife filed for divorce a week later. She subsequently toured in America and abroad with George Lederer's Players in the farce comedy U & I and as Celia Cliquot in Hoss and Hoss, both in 1891.
In 1893, Yohé made her London debut as Martina in The Magic Opal by Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual was a Spanish Catalan pianist and composer best known for his piano works based on folk music idioms .-Life:Born in Camprodon, province of Girona, to Ángel Albéniz and his wife Dolors Pascual, Albéniz...
, and the following year she played the title character in the musical The Lady Slavey, composed by by Gustave Adolph Kerker, with a book by Sir George Dance
George Dance (dramatist)
George Dance was an English lyricist and librettist in the 1890s and an important theatrical manager at the beginning of the 20th century....
, in which she sang “What’s a Poor Girl to Do”. She starred as the title character in the 1894 hit burlesque Little Christopher Columbus
Little Christopher Columbus
Little Christopher Columbus is a burlesque opera in two acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and Gustave Kerker and a libretto by George R. Sims and Cecil Raleigh. It opened on 10 October 1893 at the Lyric Theatre in London and then transferred to Terry's Theatre, running for a total of 421...
. In an interview, Yohé said the music, "had to be specially written for me – crammed so to speak, into my voice’s shrunken circumference." While in London, she became a favorite of the Prince of Wales
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
(later King Edward VII).
The next year she played the title role in the comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
Dandy Dick Whittington, at the Avenue Theatre, written by George Robert Sims
George Robert Sims
George Robert Sims was an English journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist and bon vivant.Sims began writing lively humour and satiric pieces for Fun magazine and The Referee, but he was soon concentrating on social reform, particularly the plight of the poor in London's slums...
and composed by Ivan Caryll
Ivan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...
. The next year, she played the title role in the musical The Belle of Cairo at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
in London. She later returned twice to Broadway. She was Lady Muriel Despair in the musical The Giddy Throng (1900–01) and appeared in the brief revival of the revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
Mamzelle Champagne
Mamzelle Champagne
Mam'zelle Champagne was a musical revue with book by Edgar Allan Woolf, music by Cassius Freeborn, produced by Henry Pincus, which opened June 25, 1906. On opening night at Madison Square Garden, millionaire playboy Harry K...
in 1906. That same year at the Knickerbocker Theatre
Knickerbocker Theatre (Broadway)
The Knickerbocker Theatre — previously known as Abbey's Theatre and Henry Abbey's Theatre — was a Broadway theatre located at 1396 Broadway in New York City. It operated from 1893 to 1930...
in New York, Yohé appeared in Mlle. Nitouche, a piece that she had produced a decade or so earlier at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
and at the Duke of York's Theatre
Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End Theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre, until her death in 1935. It opened on 10 September 1892 as the Trafalgar Square Theatre, with Wedding...
(then the Trafalgar Square Theatre) in London.
Marriages: 1893–1914
Yohé had several interesting marriages, beginning in 1893. The following is transcribed from a 1908 article:Contemporaneous New York Times articles, while presenting facts that vary in some details from this account, confirm most of the facts in this article. One notes that Hope settled claims against him by Yohé for $5,000.
Lord Francis Hope
According to May Yohé she was first introduced to Francis Hope at Delmonico’s restaurant in New York sometime before she came to England in the early 1890s. The couple continued their acquaintance in England and were often seen together at fashionable night spots around London. On March 30, 1894 Burke's PeerageBurke's Peerage
Burke's Peerage publishes authoritative, in-depth historical guides to the royal and titled families of the United Kingdom, such as Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, and of many other countries. Founded in 1826 by British genealogist John Burke Esq., and continued by his son, Sir John...
announced the wedding of Lord Francis Hope and May Yohé. It was later reported in the press that the wedding took place on November 27, 1893 at Hampstead Parrish
Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead
The Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead was a Metropolitan borough of the County of London from 1900 to 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn to form the London Borough of Camden....
in London. Press reports at the time claimed Hope’s family offered him around £200,000 to call off the engagement. Later, in June, 1894, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that Lord Hope had filed for bankruptcy with liabilities amounting to £405,277 and assets £194,042. At the time of her marriage to Francis Hope, there had been vague reports in the press implying she had been married twice before: first, in San Francisco to the son of a General Williams, and next in Massachusetts to a local politician.
Major Putnam Bradlee Strong
She met Major Putnam Bradlee Strong early in 1901 on the last leg of their world trip. In July of that year, Strong, who had served as Assistant Adjutant General in the Philippines, resigned his commission once it was reported in the press that he had been asked to leave by the manager of the California Hotel in San Francisco where the couple registered as H. L. Hastings and wife. Later the two sailed to Japan where they would spend a number of months living together in YokohamaYokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
.
The following year Francis Hope would lose a foot to a hunting accident, divorce his wife and be forced once again to declare bankruptcy. Even though Major Strong had resigned his commission some months earlier, the War Department
War Department
War Department may refer to:* War Department * United States Department of War - See also :* War Office , a former department of the British Government...
in Washington D.C. announced on March 22, 1902, the same day of Yohé’s divorce, his nomination for promotion to lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
by brevet
Brevet
Brevet may refer to:* Brevet , a temporary authorization for a person to hold a higher rank* Brevet , a long-distance bicycle ride with check-point controls* Aircrew brevet, a Royal Air Force and British Army badge...
for his service in the Philippines.
On April, 1902 they returned to America to live with Yohé’s mother at her residence in Hastings-on-Hudson. Three months later Yohé would accuse Strong of running off with her jewelry worth many thousands of dollars. With the financial assistance of Strong’s family Yohé later reconciled with “Putty” while both were in Europe. A few months later, once her divorce decree from Hope was made absolute, they married in Buenos Ayres
Buenos Ayres
Buenos Ayres is a town in Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in southwestern Trinidad, north of Erin and southeast of Point Fortin. Buenos Ayres is the hometown of the calypsonian Cro Cro. The Erin Savannas, one of the last remaining natural savannas in Trinidad and Tobago is located just east...
on October 3, 1902.
Strong later joined his wife on the vaudeville stage. In 1905 he declared bankruptcy, even though he and his wife were making $750 a week as entertainers. That December Yohé filed for divorce claiming desertion. Strong, who reportedly was living in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
after their divorce, died in New York in 1945 at the age of 70. In 1913 the press reported that Yohé and Francis Hope were reconciling. Hope declared the story to be preposterous.
Brief Relationships
Yohé married Newton Brown, a New York journalist with theater connections, in April 1907. Their union would prove to be short-lived, for in May of 1909 a San Francisco newspaper reported that Yohé had given up for adoption a baby boy she had with a new husband, a British ColumbiaBritish Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
miner by the name of Murphy. The child was reportedly born in September 1908, at Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, where Yohé had been living in seclusion. In May of the following year the boy was adopted by Edward R. Thomas, owner of the Perkins Hotel Pharmacy, and his wife Rosa. The adoption consent was signed "Mary A. Strong". In the mid-1930s, an actor named Robert Thomas, the adopted son of Edward and Rosa, tried in vain to prove that his birth father was Putnam Bradlee Strong. Yohé adamantly rejected his claim not only that Strong was his father, but that she was his mother. Had Thomas been successful, he would have been eligible for a share in a large trust fund set up by Strong’s mother.
About 1910, Yohé purchased a run-down boarding house in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, which she ran for a few months before press reports in December, 1910 announced that she had earlier in the month married musician Frank M. Reynolds in Seattle. Reynolds was the son of an Upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
college professor, who soon claimed he’d received a letter from his son refuting the story.
In September, 1911 Yohé denied she planned to wed former lightweight champion boxer Jack McAuliffe
Jack McAuliffe
Jack McAuliffe was an Irish-American boxer. Nicknamed 'The Napolean of the Ring', and fighting mostly out of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he was one of only nine boxers to remain undefeated throughout his entire career. He was the Lightweight Champion of the World from 1886 to 1893...
, who at the time was her partner at a 10¢ movie house in New York performing vaudeville skits between movie screenings. The following month Yohé was reported to be in Chicago living "in dire penury, almost starvation" with her husband Jack McAuliffe.
Captain John Smuts
Around 1914, in London or possibly South Africa, May Yohé married Captain John Addey Smuts, a South African-born retired British army officer and cousin of general Jan SmutsJan Smuts
Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS, PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948...
. Over the early years of their marriage, the two traveled to Singapore, India, China and Japan, eventually settling in South Africa. In the waning months of the First World War, it was reported that Yohé planned to accompany her husband to France, where he intended to serve on the front lines while she would serve as a Red Cross nurse. Smuts was unable to secure a military commission, and within a few months the two moved to Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, where Smuts found shipyard work. Soon after, he contracted influenza, leaving Yohé to seek employment as a housekeeper at the apartment house where they were living. In 1919, Yohé, was back in vaudeville, meeting with modest success.
In the early 1920s, after auctioning off some valuable possessions and a South American trip, Yohé and her husband toured the vaudeville circuit in the U.S. with an act based on the less-than-successful 1921 movie serial The Hope Diamond Mystery
The Hope Diamond Mystery
The Hope Diamond Mystery is a 1921 action film serial directed by Stuart Paton and featuring Boris Karloff.-Cast:* Harry Carter - Ghung / Sidney Atherton* Grace Darmond - Bibi / Mary Hilton* George Chesebro - John Baptiste Tavanier / John Gregge...
, which she helped write and promote. Later they invested in a California ranch. This venture failed and they soon returned to vaudeville, though this time with less success. They lost the remainder of their savings in a failed farming venture in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
. By 1924, the couple had settled in Boston, where John Smuts found work as a janitor. In November of 1924, Capt Smuts was shot in the chest at their Boston residence. The wound was not serious and he soon recovered. Smuts maintained that he was cleaning a gun when it accidentally discharged. He refused to explain to the investigators the mysterious suicide note they recovered, written in two different handwriting styles.
Death
In 1938, Yohé applied for a $16.50-a-week clerical job with the Works Progress AdministrationWorks Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(WPA) in Boston. Her husband’s health was failing and she needed the income for his care. Initially, Yohé was turned down because she had given up her U.S. citizenship in the 1890s when she married Francis Hope. She applied to regain her citizenship and several weeks later, in May 1938, was given the job she had applied for. Not long afterward, on August 29, 1938, she died in Boston of heart and kidney disease. Three thousand people attended her service, including Robert Thomas. At the time of her death, Yohé’s most prized possession was a large photograph of Edward VII, taken while he was still the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
, and signed “To May, 1898". A few days after her funeral, John Smuts followed his wife's final wish and sprinkled her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean. He died in Boston of a heart attack a few months later, on January 11, 1939.
The Hartford Courant, in their obituary, quoted Yohé as follows: "I’ve done pretty nearly everything in my life, except theft and murder, but thank God, whatever I’ve done my heart's been in it."
External links
- May Yohé at the IMDB database
- "The Mystery of the Hope Diamond", by Henry Leyford Gates (1921)
- "Fascinating Women: May Yohé" at EdwardianPromenade.com