Fannie May Harvey was the daughter of Dr. W. C. Harvey, of Roanoke, Howard county, Mo., a physician who, in addition to the social prominence which his profession conferred, had accumulated a competence and enjoyed a lucrative income from his practice. Tenderly nurtured in the surroundings of a home of wealth and luxury, of which she was the pride and pet, gifted with rare graces of mind and person, and endowed with education and accomplishments unusual even for one of her age and station, through the anxious care of parents ambitious for her future, brilliant in wealth and station, May Harvey had reached the bloom of womanhood singularly unspoiled by her advantages and surroundings, and possessed a sweet amiability of disposition and a gentle and loving way that endeared her to all who were brought into contact with her. As one has said, “none knew her but to love her, nor named her but to praise.” My father’s farm was but four miles distant from the home of Dr. Harvey, and being thus almost neighbors, we were thrown into contact at that stage of life when the heart of each was most susceptible to the tenderest and truest impulses of affection. That I should have surrendered to the influence of such a nature all the ardor of a youthful and undisciplined enthusiasm of love was not to be wondered at. That my affection, earnest and sincere, and unbroken as it remains to this day to her memory, should be returned might be wondered at, when it is remembered, as the reader will have before learned, that my name had already been associated with crime. The standing of my family had, however, shielded me to some extent from the consequences of the reckless tendencies of my life, and what might have been characterized by a harsher verdict was to some extent condoned as youthful wildness. This was sufficient to excuse our earlier association, and when the parents of May Harvey had awakened to the serious nature of our intimacy, our hearts had become knit with an affection stronger than parental remonstrance or interference was able to move. Once aroused, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey took active measures to separate their daughter from the danger which they foresaw from such a union. But, as it very often happens, opposition served but to fan the flame of devotion between us, and to strengthen our mutual resolve to unite our love and fortunes in an indissoluble tie. Finding her parents unrelenting, it became evident that the only course was to accomplish our happiness by means of an elopement, and this was carried into effect on the night of August 24, 1870. May’s natural aversion to this extreme and undesirable step, and her knowledge of the anger which it would awaken in the hearts of her parents were undoubtedly overcome not alone by the promptings of her love for me, but by the belief growing out of the tenderness of her heart, that her parents loved her too dearly to be long unreconciled and that regard for her happiness would overcome a temporary displeasure. Well do I remember that night on which she left the home of her childhood, the surroundings of luxury and the love of parents; a sacrifice to a greater love. Before leaving the house she played on the piano and sang “Good-Bye, Old Home,” with an intensity of feeling that none but herself realized. She bade good-bye to several friends with a seriousness which was mistaken for badinage, and I with a horse from the barn being waiting in the vicinity, she was soon speeding on the way to the opening of life’s tragedy. We rode eighteen miles to Renick, where we were married by ’Squire Butler, a justice of that place.
As may be imagined, when Dr. and Mrs. Harvey learned of the event, their wrath knew no bounds. The brilliant hopes which they had entertained of a career of social distinction for which they had aimed to fit their favorite daughter, and to which they had looked forward to a marriage of wealth as the key, were not only dashed to the ground, but they had the added bitterness of knowing that it was not poverty alone to which their daughter had been wedded, but a poverty tainted by social disgrace, for the object upon whom she had bestowed the wealth of her affection was comparatively an outcast, a gambler by profession, and even at that time resting under suspicion. Looking back now, without prejudice and in the light of a fuller experience, I can hardly feel justified in condemning them for the bitter feeling which they displayed toward me. Yet, at the time, the animosity with which they pursued me awakened a deep, and, as I thought, justifiable resentment, for I had acted with honest motive, and, as I then thought, with pure and unselfish regard for the happiness of one who was dearer to me than life, for even to this day I can say with truth and sincerity that one of the sweetest faces in all the world to me is one that comes to me as a hallowed memory; and the sweetest thoughts are those which cluster around the life which, through good and ill report, we led together. And I can add now without resentment that it was not politic toward me nor christian duty toward her whose life was irrevocably linked to mine, that they should cast her off and bid her never again to darken their doors, and thus add to such unhappiness as her life encountered by long years of cold and unfeeling denial of the boon of forgiveness, for which the heart hungered from the parental love by which her childhood had been blessed and brightened. It is right to say that her father would probably have relented after our marriage but for the influence of her mother, a cold, haughty and determined woman, who said in a voice of steel, “she is dead to us all,” and who kept her relentless renunciation a cruel and living fact for nearly eight years.
Her father said: “As for my daughter—the worst punishment that could be inflicted upon her is to leave her alone with her villain of a husband.” It is sad to think that parental love could so soon become cold, and that a social disappointment should transform a mother’s tenderness into obdurate and unforgiving rancor to last, as it transpired, through so many years. In later years I had a boy whom I loved with all my heart, and had I under any circumstances forsaken him I would have expected God to desert me.
This separation and its cruel circumstances, and the disappointment of her expectation of a reconciliation after reasonable time were very hard upon the tender and affectionate heart of my wife. At times she would weep as if her heart would break, and yet I am confident that at no time, nor in any of the vicissitudes of her married life, did she ever falter in her faith in the love that had led her to make the sacrifice. We struggled along through the varying changes of fortune which make up the gambler’s career; at one time abounding in comforts, at another pinched for the necessaries of life. It is an old saying that love and poverty cannot dwell together in the same cottage longer than between two meals.[meals.] Out of my experience I can dispute that proverb in at least one exception, and testify that while love and poverty during the ten years we were together struggled through many a close place, love, though sometimes saddened with suffering and misfortunes, survived to the end in all its sweetness and sincerity, trust and hope.
On one or two occasions my wife wrote home, but always received the same reply—“I will never see you again.” After several years’ residence about Roanoke, we removed to Moberly, Mo., and there my wife was seriously ill and was anxious to have her father attend her. He came, and the fact of his visit did her more good than his prescriptions. We were told that her mother came with him on the occasion, but remained at the hotel, saying that if her daughter died she would then come and see her. What a grim and terrible illustration of the implacable and unhallowed spirit which now filled the bosom that once had swelled with pride and affection under the love of this unforgiven daughter’s childhood.
Soon after May’s recovery we removed to St. Louis, and here life began to wear a brighter outlook and the future to be gilded with a rosier hue. Dr. Harvey purchased for us a suite of furniture—the only thing he ever gave us after our marriage—and comfort and happiness seemed to give assurance of a permanent stay. But, alas! for a time, only! Soon the old vice of gambling reasserted its alluring sway, with the result which inevitably follows its capricious favors. Straightened circumstances again pinched us with their implacable necessities, and one day my wife sat down and penned the following letter to her mother:
“My Dear Ma:—Since you sent me from you in such deep, and from your point of view, just anger, because of my marriage, I have often longed to be reconciled to you and dear Pa. Is my offense so heinous that you cannot forgive me? The worst that can be said of John is that he is a gambler; God knows that is bad enough, but as a husband he has always been good and kind to me. At present he is doing nothing. Could you see the poverty to which we are reduced, I think you would have some pity upon your daughter. I do not like to ask any favor of you but if you will help us a little now I will pay you back. Will you never soften your heart?
Your loving daughter,
May.”
Sealing this letter, which had melted her heart to tears, she handed it to me to mail. I went out, and after remaining a short time, returned but with the letter still in my pocket. A few days passed in which the clouds of adversity had seemed to gather thicker around us, and we were as a last resort, compelled to mortgage our furniture. “Well, John,” she sadly remarked, “it seems as if ma and all the world have forsaken us.” Seeing her so deeply affected, I took the letter from my pocket and placed it in her hand. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “it makes me feel so much better to know that my mother did not refuse my letter.”