For her christening, she had a real lace and hand-embroidered baby dress fastened with diamond-and-gold pins, special hand-made booties, and a tiny jeweled necklace with a diamond locket. The outfit cost over fifteen thousand dollars. Mama could not have been more elated when she saw the baby finally dressed and the name of Elizabeth Bonduel Lillie pronounced over her.
“Papa would have been so pleased to see you happy and settled down,” she murmured several times.
For ten years this happiness lasted. There were minor heartaches along the stretch of that decade and some of these might have been major catastrophes if we had allowed ourselves to dwell on them. But we didn’t. Tabor’s investments spread like a network, everywhere, and the Matchless mine in Leadville continued to pour out its treasure of ore, often running as high as $80,000 a month. We had everything that money could buy.
But what I learned with hidden sadness in these years is that money doesn’t buy everything. Tabor poured untold sums into the coffers of the Republican party in Colorado for which he never got the least consideration. He wanted the gubernatorial nomination. But consistently during the ’80s, they took his money and denied him any recognition.
During this period two private sorrows came to me. One of them disturbed and vexed me for years. The other was a swift and desperate grief. The first unhappiness was because I made no real friends and had received no invitations in Denver. Through Tabor’s prominence in Denver and Leadville, I met and entertained many men interested in politics. The famous beauties, Lily Langtry and Lillian Russell, and other well-known figures of the nineteenth century stage such as Sara Bernhardt, Mme. Modjeska, John Drew, Augustin Daly, William Gillette, Edwin Booth, and Otis Skinner frequently played at the Tabor Opera House, and Tabor and I would entertain them at champagne suppers after their performances. They always seemed to like me and would ask to see me on our fairly frequent visits to New York. The excitement of these friendships, knowing the great artists of my day, proved a great compensation for my early ambition to go on the stage. But the society women of Denver remained steadfastly aloof.
The other sorrow was the loss of my baby son. He was born October 17, 1888, and lived only a few hours. I suppose every mother wants a boy, and this new chastisement from God made my life almost unbearable. I had no real place in life except as a good wife and mother and I wanted for Tabor’s sake to be able to fulfill this place to my very best. Augusta had borne him a son and I wanted to, too. I cried silently in the nights about his death, longing for another boy.
But this was not to be. On December 17, 1889, I had another daughter, Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar Tabor, whom I nicknamed “Honeymaid.” But most of her friends as she grew up called her Silver. Lillie, the first little girl, was blonde like myself, but Silver was dark like Tabor, and very lovely in appearance.
By the time she was born, many of Tabor’s mines had fallen off in output, but the Matchless was still bearing up. Some of Tabor’s other investments had not turned out as we thought, although we were still hopeful and felt it was just a question of time. We continued to live on the same lavish scale; Tabor mortgaged the Tabor Block and the Opera House until some of the other mines he had bought should begin to pay.
Silver had nearly as gorgeous clothes and toys and ponies as Lillie did. But this was not to be for long. However, at that time we had no inkling of what the future held for us. Tabor made frequent business trips East and to his mining properties. Mostly I went with him but sometimes I stayed with the children. His holdings were enormous and he was expanding in many directions that required his personal attention. He bought a yacht in New York City with the idea that when the children were older we would cruise down to Honduras to see his mahogany forests.
Peter McCourt, my bachelor brother, meanwhile was fast making himself a secure place in Denver both in the social world and in financial circles. Since everything he had was due to me, it was particularly galling that he should be asked everywhere that I was barred.