“Oh, yes he is! He dyes his hair and moustache. I noticed him in the court room the other day. He was afraid to draw his handkerchief across his mouth for fear of staining it. I also noticed that the hair on his temples, which is gray, was colored nicely to give him a rejuvenated appearance.”
Augusta and the reporter conversed for two solid columns of small, tightly-packed print while she revealed a number of intimate matters. The details of the secret, illegal, first divorce which Tabor had procured from her in March, 1882, were set forth. Augusta claimed the charges had been a lie from beginning to end and gave conclusive data in refutation.
“Mr. Tabor used to be a truthful man. He is changed now,” she remarked indignantly. After a pause, she continued with:
“I understand that she has her family quartered at his home. I mean all in this country. I understand that a fresh invoice is coming over from Ireland.”
The reporter smiled at her sally and encouraged her to talk on. She showed him three scrapbooks that she was making of clippings about Tabor. (These scrapbooks are now in the Western History Collection of the Denver Public Library, and contain this particular interview along with many others.) Augusta explained that at first she had only saved newspaper articles that spoke well of him. But now she was saving everything, and the later clippings were all derogatory.
SILVER DOLLARS ATOP TABOR BUILDINGS
The two buildings on the left at the corner of Harrison, looking down Chestnut, were Tabor’s bank and store; in 1879’s booming Leadville.
“Is there really seventeen in that McCourt family? Well, there is one thing that Mr. Tabor cannot say, and that is that any of my relatives ever lived off him. Not one of them ever received a cent from him. That woman will break him up.”
Augusta liked to talk to newspaper people. She, herself, had contributed to Eastern newspapers and been a member of the Colorado State Press Association. In July, 1879, she attended a meeting of the Association at Manitou in company with Flora Stevens, a correspondent for the Kansas City Times. Miss Stevens later wrote Augusta up under the heading, “A Rich Man’s Wife,” in which she said that Augusta kept an extensive journal during the trip to Manitou. Unfortunately this particular example of Augusta’s authorship has not been preserved.