Minnie and I determined to remain together and continue in vaudeville through the following year and made our arrangements accordingly. But these were vetoed by her mother who decided that we had better earn our respective livings apart.
The following summer (1876) I opened in the production of Rice and Goodwin's "Evangeline," words and lyrics by J. Cheever Goodwin, music by Edward E. Rice. I appeared in the character of Captain Dietrich. My associates in this production were William H. Crane, James Moffit, Harry Josephs, Veney Clancy, Lizzie Webster and Eliza Weathersby, one of the most famous beauties of the burlesque stage, who came to this country originally with Lydia Thompson.
A friendship sprang up between Miss Weathersby and me. It quickly ripened into love and at the close of our season we were married by the Rev. M. Kennedy of New Rochelle, New York, on the 24th day of June, 1877.
Eliza Weathersby proved a loving and lovable wife and was of great assistance to me in my profession, playing the principal female rôles in all my plays with great success until she was forced to retire from the stage because of the illness which gradually brought about her death.
Eliza Weathersby
The wife who mothered me
Eliza Weathersby was one of the most beautiful women whom I have ever known and one of the most self-sacrificing wives that ever blessed man with devotion and love.