They had wired him:
Wife dangerous condition.
Recovery not assured.
She asks you hurry here.
The reply read:
Sorry can’t come now. Midst of fishing season. Departure would seriously disarrange trip. Advise of developments. HOPE.
I dropped the telegram to the floor. That instant I became the property, body, soul and mind, of Putnam Bradlee Strong—although neither he nor I knew it yet.
Captain Strong read the telegram. He came over to me, put his arms around me for the first time, and said, ‘Poor Maysie—I’m sorry. But I knew it all the time. When you are well you are going with me.’22
If May was being abandoned by one father-figure, lover, and friend, Lord Francis, she was now propelled toward another, Captain Strong.
Francis returned to New York in March 1901 with the duke. He stayed at the Savoy Hotel, not at May’s apartment on West Thirty-fourth Street. Apparently she’d been sharing her apartment with Strong. Her friends and even casual acquaintances knew. As her servants John and Louisa Blanche were later to testify, not only had the couple slept together, but they had set up rendezvous to enjoy each other’s company in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and even in Washington the week before Francis’ return, during the inauguration of President McKinley and Vice President Roosevelt. The typically unmindful Francis sensed a change in May and their relationship. Finally, he got the message. “Out you go or out I go,” May told him.23 The press got wind of it and put out a story, “Lord Leaves His Lady.”24
Lord Francis and Duke Archibald left for Atlantic City. May referred inquiring reporters to her lawyer, Emanuel Friend, who said the Hopes had had a misunderstanding, a small tiff. He was confident they would get back together and muted any speculation about divorce, saying, “I know of no suit for divorce or separation. No papers have been served on me, and as I am Lady Hope’s lawyer, I ought to hear of any proceedings as grave as a divorce suit.”25
Lord Francis returned to England. May was increasingly seen out and about in New York with Strong, enjoying dinners with his group of friends. Strong, a sometimes heavy drinker, probably encouraged May to drink more than she should to still her nerves, especially in light of her separation from Lord Francis.
May was evidently trying to build up her cash reserves and secured a contract to perform at an old haunt, the site of her first success, the Chicago Opera House. The papers there advertised May’s triumphal return.
ESPECIALLY ENGAGED
MAY YOHE
Well Remembered as the Bright Particular Star of Henderson’s Extravaganzas—Now
LADY FRANCIS HOPE
Proud in the Possession of England’s Most Honored Family title as Well as Being the Beautiful Queen of Song—Lady Hope will at Each
Performance Wear the Celebrated Hope Diamonds26
May’s train from New York to Chicago was delayed by floods. May knew she was going to be too late for her first scheduled performance, and certainly too late to rehearse. When she finally arrived, she told the Chicago Opera House producers that she was too unsettled to perform. Instead of heeding her warning, they rushed her to the Opera House and induced to get into her gown wearing the Hope jewels. A master of ceremonies told the audience that May had had no time to rehearse with the orchestra, and then led her to the center of the stage where, according to the Chicago Daily Tribune report, “he abandoned her.”27
What followed was an unmitigated disaster that made front page stories in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times—“Yohe Faints on Stage.” The Tribune reported,
She [May Yohe] was trembling visibly, and the hand which held the sheets of music shook. She began a love song, and though she faltered several times the audience was good humored enough to applaud, and the sign of forebearance seemed to encourage her. At its conclusion, however, she hurriedly left the stage, returning only for a bow.28
Somehow May agreed to do an evening show that day as well. This too ended badly:
Her nerves, however again refused to aid her, and the rise of the curtain disclosed her in the same state of agitation witnessed in the afternoon. She sang one verse of the song, and was about to begin the second when she fainted.
May was helped off the stage and revived.
The audience seemed sympathetic, and applauded when informed that the actress was in no danger.29
May then, according to the news story, “went to the business office of the theater and insisted she would appear” in the next day’s performance.30 The doctor disagreed. But May went on anyway.
May then performed as scheduled, completing a two-week run at the Opera House. But as she’d found in London, New York, and Boston, her time for great performances had passed. Her voice was no longer strong and intriguing. The theater was changing; her brand of comic opera no longer pleased the paying customers. A more serious type of drama was taking hold. And May was ready for what was to be her metamorphosis in a tale in that would indeed capture the attention and imagination of a much larger, worldwide audience.
It was because I got tired of Hope that I became Strong.
—May Yohe1
CHAPTER NINE
Exotic Romance
ESCAPE TALE THAT SHOCKS TWO CITIES” declared one July 13, 1901 front page story.2 “San Francisco Excited,” announced another, while yet a third proclaimed “Romance in New York.”3 Despite an article the week before in the New York Times that Lady Francis had patched things up with Lord Hope and was sailing back to England, the opposite was true. May Yohe had run off with Captain Putnam Bradlee Strong. The couple had checked into a San Francisco hotel on July 4th, as Mr. H. L. Hastings and wife, and were intending to sail to Japan.
May carefully planned her exit. She had to, traveling as she did with twelve trunks and other assorted luggage, one or two servants, and five dogs. She had informed the papers of her intention to go back to England. She had called her lawyer, Emanuel Friend, a few days before, saying “The white dove is flying over Castle Blayney. The trouble is all over—we have buried the hatchet, and I’m going to him.”4 The couple’s alias was probably May’s idea, derived from Hastings-on-Hudson, where her mother lived.
Nonetheless, when discovered, their “elopement” created a furor. Strong’s family refused to comment. His mother Mary, the recently widowed wife of New York City’s mayor, was a prominent figure in the city and in the public eye. Strong himself was under official Army orders to return to the Philippines and take up his duties as a quartermaster. He had previously served there in the Spanish-American War, earning his spurs in the Manila campaign when he bravely carried out a mission for General Arthur MacArthur, the leader of the U.S. forces (and also the father of Douglas MacArthur).
Because of his desire to be with May, Captain Strong resigned his commission in the Army, sending a cable directly to President McKinley. The secretary of war, Elihu Root, initially refused to accept the cabled resignation, insisting it be submitted by the book. May believed that the Strong family asked Teddy Roosevelt, then vice president of the United States, to intervene by invalidating the resignation. Strong would then have to go to the Philippines as ordered. If he didn’t, and stayed or traveled with May, he would become a wanted man, subject to arrest. This would, of course, force the couple apart. Given the “notoriety of the escapade,” Secretary Root at first wanted to court-martial Strong for “conduct unbecoming an officer.” But the thought of an unseemly investigation and trial soon led him to accept Strong’s resignation.5
Publicity about the escapade created further tribulations for May and Strong, who, despite the Hastings pseudonym, did a very poor job of keeping quiet about their identities. First, in New York, Strong hosted a “goodbye” dinner for May and his friends at which he gave each a small diamond ring. They then left New York for California. Strong took a room at the luxurious Palace Hotel for himself and the, largest, most expensive suite of rooms at the California Hotel for himself and May, falsely registering as hu
sband and wife. May showed up for dinner at the Palace bedecked in her jewels and was recognized by some diners. Strong met some New York friends and introduced them to May. Both Strong and May perused jewelry shops in the city, over-tipped everyone, and made public shows of their affection.
It was just a matter of days before the press was alerted and leaked the story. When the story reached the California Hotel management, they ordered May from their premises, forcing her, Strong, and the valet to pack up the twelve trunks and other baggage within the hour. Strong asked for more time and breakfast. The assistant manager sent a bellboy up to check on their progress. He reported, “The room was in a frenzy of disorder. Lady Francis Hope was throwing all manner of wearing apparel into trunks.” The bellboy also told Strong, “The management says you ain’t going to get no breakfast.”6
One of the detailed newspaper accounts included the rumor that Strong had been previously engaged to the late Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii. We don’t know if May saw that, but if she had, she might have been a bit more apprehensive about what was to follow.
In England, the press was subdued in their coverage, as divorce and affairs in Victorian England were still talked about quietly and through innuendo. Lord Francis expressed his desire for divorce—to be rid of his “giddy and unfaithful wife” —but recognized that English law made it complicated.7 Furthermore, his brother Archibald, the duke, was adamantly opposed to divorce in general on religious grounds, and would often attend divorce proceedings just to object in principle to the practice. May was less judicious, almost flippant about the whole affair, and when cornered by a reporter quipped, “It was because I got tired of Hope that I became Strong.”8
May and Strong sailed on the Nippon Maru to Japan and rented a “beautiful little palace bungalow” on the bluff outside Yokohama. With seven stories it was not so little; it had been built for Edward, Prince of Wales when he visited Japan. The rent was $300 a month, and it came with staff including, as May wrote, “the cutest little Japanese maid servant I had ever seen.” Her name was Yori Komatsu. May later brought her back to the U.S. and wrote that she always treated her like her “daughter.”9
Even though Strong’s family was quite well-to-do—his father, the mayor, had made his money in the dry goods business, first in Ohio and then New York—the couple lived off of May’s money. She had managed to bring about $50,000 in cash with her. The New York papers noted at the time that Mrs. Strong sold her house and her husband’s house, but Captain Strong claimed that the two sales were merely coincidence and his mother’s wish—and he didn’t get any of the proceeds. Instead, he told a friend, “I have plenty of money. I am worth $200,000 in cash today, which I made in Northern Pacific when it made its famous jump. I got in on the deal at the right time, and I got out at the right time.”10
The couple indeed lived lavishly. The pagoda palace was wonderfully furnished, but supplemented by “rare ivories, carvings and other beautiful things” bought by the pair. May later described their lifestyle:
We gave many beautiful banquets at our house on the bluff. Captain Strong liked playing host. He had many friends in Japan. Our house became the Mecca of diplomatic officials and tourists.
One of our entertainments was a wonderful Roman dinner—served after the vogue of Nero, beginning at sundown and lasting through three whole days and nights. To this we invited many fascinating people. We all dressed in Japanese costumes. The rarest of wines and cordials were served, and to each guest Captain Strong and I gave a little diamond as a favor. The dinner cost us something like $20,000.11
May and Strong were tourists and enjoyed themselves, running about in jinrikishas, visiting old temples and being entertained. They often dressed in Japanese clothing, May even made her hair up in the local style.
For May, more than anything else, Strong was her lover, providing her with the attention, romance, and sexual satisfaction she’d hankered for and failed to get with Lord Francis. She wrote, simply and demurely, that “Strong was everything a sweetheart-husband should be.”12
Meanwhile, back in England, Lord Francis returned to bankruptcy court, trying again to sell the Hope diamond. He and his lawyers regarded the diamond as a damnosa hereditas, a destructive inheritance that was more of a burden than an asset. It was useless to him, save as something to be sold to help relieve his massive debts. Those debts continued to grow with the expenses of his and May’s trip around the world, other travel, and gambling. Nothing, it seemed, could stop Lord Francis from frittering away everything he owned.
This time the court and the Newcastle Pelhams acquiesced to the sale of the diamond for a sum given in conflicting reports as either $168,000 or $250,000. The buyer was London diamond merchant Adolph Weil, who served as an intermediary for the New York jewelry firm Joseph Frankel’s Sons & Co. In November 1901, while May Yohe and Captain Strong were in Yokohama, the Hope diamond departed the British Isles for America.
May Yohe and Putnam Bradlee Strong in Yokohama, c. 1901. (photo credit 9.1)
As the extensive court testimony and affidavits in the Chancery Court hearings attest—especially from gemological authority Edwin Streeter—there was no mention of any bad luck or curse associated with the forty-four-carat blue diamond at any time it was in Hope’s possession. Nor, despite erroneous suggestions in articles about the gem a decade earlier, had it been cursed in what was presumed to be its previous state as the 67-carat French Blue and 112-carat Tavernier violet. The Hope diamond was regarded as valuable and important, something to be celebrated, not shunned. Indeed, replicas of the Hope diamond were made by collectors such as the duke of Brunswick and Napoleon III, and by several museums. May Yohe also had several replicas made, and at least one for her bejeweled dress-up performance in The Gilded Throng.
In Yokohama, May and Strong were piling up bills just as fast as Francis was in England, and the solution was also the same—sell the diamonds. “Strong could not hold himself from spending money, and I gave him freely of what I had,” May later said. According to May, it was all her money. When they began to run out of cash, Strong asked if he could take one of her jewels to pawn with a friend as a loan until his money came from the States. “I told him to take whatever he wanted,” noted May. “He took the $50,000 diamond necklace Captain Holford had given me.”13
Occasionally over the next few months, reports of friends, acquaintances, or visitors to the couple would make their way into the press. In one report, May was pregnant and planning with Strong to return to the stage in Manila. Others noted Strong’s indebtedness and his strange, aggressive behavior and boorishness. One speculated that he showed evidence of paresis—a symptom of untreated syphilis. Another suggested alcoholism.
While neither reports of May’s pregnancy or Strong’s advanced syphilis were true, alcoholism was a problem for both. Their Roman dinners and entertaining were replete with days and nights of nonstop drinking. Without much to do, with no demands for the stage, extravagant entertaining and inebriation became a daily pattern. The couple’s indebtedness also quickly grew. More of May’s jewels had to be pawned.
I parted with my pearl and diamond coronet, which I had purchased shortly after my marriage to Lord Francis to wear upon formal occasions … The willingness with which I allowed Captain Strong to take it out for pawning indicated that I was ready to make any sort of a love’s sacrifice. This coronet represented the attainment of my ambitions—wealth, power, love and position. And now I allowed the man who had wrecked all these hopes to pledge it for money with which to buy the excitement he craved and I submitted to.14
May and Strong were growing fat, lethargic, and increasingly moody, caught in a downward spiral fueled by their drinking. While they loved the refuge Yokohama and the house on the bluff provided them, they sensed their lifestyle was unsustainable. By early March 1902 the couple headed back to the United States via Europe, sailing westward to Ceylon and through the Suez Canal to Genoa and Naples. In Italy they pawned another jewel.
; As they sailed, Lord Francis’s divorce was being granted in London on the grounds of May’s misconduct and intimacy with Strong. It would be finalized in September of the next year. Claims still had to be settled, and May’s lawyer had filed for £9,187 that she said Lord Francis owed her.
May Yohe and Putnam Bradlee Strong, c. 1902. (photo credit 9.2)
Lord Francis’ life had become increasingly complicated since May had left. In a terrible hunting accident, a servant had shot him in the foot, shattering his ankle, Gangrene set in and his foot had been amputated. Francis had also been declared bankrupt again and put on an allowance of £2,000 per year—more than adequate for an ordinary person, but paltry for a lord. Not only had the Hope diamond been sold, but Clumber Castle, the Newcastle home estate, was being sold off in parcels at bargain prices. Despite these troubles, and while the divorce was being finalized, Lord Francis was also planning his engagement to his eighteen-year-old second cousin, Beatrice Ricketts.
From Naples, May and Strong sailed back to New York, arriving in Hoboken on the steamship Kaiserin Maria Theresa on April 28, 1902 with thirty-three trunks filled with collectibles picked up along their journey. The entourage also included Yori the Japanese maid, Strong’s African American valet, a pair of parrots, four Japanese spaniels, two Great Danes, a Persian cat, a flying squirrel, and several other pets, including a large chimpanzee purchased in Colombo, Ceylon, which, according to May, “kept the ship’s passengers in an uproar with his antics.”15 If there was any chance that the mass of reporters assembled at the New York pier to meet the scandalous couple upon their return would miss them, the menagerie collected by the pair assured instant recognition.
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