49. “The Drama—Players, Playhouses, Music and Musicians,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1905, VI1.
50. Franklin Flyes, “New York Summer Attractions,” Washington Post, June 11, 1905, TP6.
51. “Other 3—No title,” Washington Post, May 19, 1907, E4.
52. Yohe, “The Hope Diamond Mystery,” chap. 17.
53. “Other 1—No title,” Washington Post, June 16, 1906, 6.
Additional references for this chapter include:
“Divorced Hubby Pays May Yohe,” Atlanta Constitution, January 2, 1903, 1.
“May Yohe Abuses Strong,” Chicago Daily, August 1, 1902, 5.
“May Yohe is in Paris but Strong is Not,” Atlanta Constitution, August 4, 1902, 1.
“‘Merely May Yohe’ Talks to Scribe,” Easton Free Press, February 23, 1905, 1.
“Not Too Late As A Warning,” Washington Post, July 22, 1902, 6.
“P. B. Strong Dunned by Deputy Marshals,” New York Times, June 3, 1905, 2.
William R. Taylor, Inventing Times Square (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
“The Romance of Capt. Putnam Bradlee Strong and May Yohe,” Washington Times, July 27, 1902, 10.
James Traub, The Devil’s Playground (New York: Random House, 2004).
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Independent Woman
1. “Why May Yohe Longed for the Footlights Again,” Washington Post, August 28, 1910, M8.
2. “Music and the Stage,” Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1907, 115.
3. “May Yohe, Who Has Been in Retirement Near Portland, Says She Needs the Money,” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1910, 13.
4. “Back to Stage for May Yohe,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1910, 13.
5. “Yohe, the Hopeless, Happy and Hopeful,” Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1908, 11; “May Yohe Who Might Have been a Duchess,” Penny Illustrated, February 1, 1908, 67.
6. “Yohe, the Hopeless,” 11.
7. Vanity Fair, August 31, 1906.
8. New York Telegraph, clipping, April 26, 1907.
9. “May Yohe May Wed,” New York Times, April 26, 1907, 9.
10. “Personal and Otherwise,” New York Times, April 28, 1907, X4.
11. “Gossip of Society,” Washington Post, January 9, 1908, 9.
12. “All That Glitters is Not Gold,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1908, II4.
13. “Remarkable Jewel a Hoodoo,” Washington Post, January 19, 1908, M4.
14. “Remarkable Jewel,” M4.
15. “Remarkable Jewel,” M4.
16. “Sale of the Hope Diamond,” The Times, June 25, 1909, 5.
17. “Sale of the Hope Diamond,” 5.
18. Toledo Blade, August 6, 1910.
19. Unidentified Memphis newspaper clipping, September 18, 1910.
20. Evalyn Walsh McLean with Boyden Sparkes, Father Struck It Rich (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1936).
21. McLean, Father, 172.
22. McLean, Father, 174–75.
23. The contract memorandum is included in “Jewelers Who Sold Hope Diamond Bring Suit to Recover Purchase Price,” Jewelers’ Circular Weekly, March 15, 1911, 71; Gates, Hope Diamond, 203.
24. Gates, Hope Diamond, 175.
25. “May Yohe says Hope Diamond Terrified and Injured Her,” Marion Daily Mirror, February 2, 1911, 4.
26. Gates, Hope Diamond, 66–67.
27. “Why I’ve Become an Uplifter.”
28. Unidentified newspaper clipping, April, 1911.
29. “Still in the Ring,” Boston Daily Globe, September 4, 1911, 9; Philadelphia Inquirer, clipping, September 5, 1911.
30. “Former Mistress of Hope Diamond Dies as $16.50-a-Week WPA Clerk,” Atlanta Constitution, August 29, 1938, 16; “May Yohe’s Death Ends Varied Career,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1938.
31. Boston Herald clipping, July 1912.
32. “Why May Yohe Longed for the Footlights Again.,” M8.
33. Toledo Blade clipping, 1912.
34. National Telegraph, June 19, 1912.
35. “Why May Yohe Longed for the Footlights Again,” M8.
36. “Against Woman Suffrage,” Boston Daily Globe, August 23, 1909, 10.
37. “What Is Life Without Hope,” Boston Daily Globe, April 4, 1912, 15.
Additional references for this chapter include:
Lynn E. Bragg, Myths and Mysteries of Washington (Guilford, Connecticut and Helena Montana: Globe Pequot Press, 2005.)
“Diamond Dealer Fails for $150,000,” New York Times, January 8, 1908.
“Diamond Not Unlucky,” Metropolitan, vol. 35, no. 6 (April 1912), 30.
Abel Green and Joe Laurie Jr., Showbiz from Vaude to Video (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985).
“Hope Diamond Not Worn,” New York Times, February 5, 1911.
“Is Weary of Notoriety,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1910, 13.
“J. R. M’Lean’s Son Buys Hope Diamond,” New York Times, January 29, 1911, 1.
Kurin, Hope Diamond.
“May Yohe Dispossessed,” The Globe, August 5, 1907, 12.
“May Yohe Far From Suicide,” Boston Daily Globe, June 12, 1912, 4.
“May Yohe is in Limelight,” Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1910, 13.
“May Yohe Not His Bride,” Washington Post, December 21, 1910, 1.
“May Yohe’s Strange Career,” Washington Post, April 23, 1911, SM3.
“May Yohe’s Third Venture,” Washington Post, May 11, 1909, 5.
“May Yohe to Wed Again,” Boston Daily Globe, October 25, 1908, 11.
“May Yohe Weds Again,” Washington Post, December 14, 1910, 10.
“Oft-Married Actress Becomes Mother,” Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1909, 12.
Strong v. Strong, Finding of Fact and Conclusion of Law, Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for Clackamus County, April 26, 1910.
“Wife Cause of Shooting,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 1908, 17.
Wilson, T. Edgar, “The Hope Diamond,” letter to the editor, New York Times, November 9, 1911.
“Yohe Entices New Angel,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1908, VII.
Documents:
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Index to Naturalization Petitions and Records of the U.S. District Court, 1906–1966, and the U.S. circuit court, 1906–1911, for the District of Massachusetts; Microfilm Serial: M1545; Microfilm Roll: 103
Papers of Evalyn Walsh McLean, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Robinson Locke Collection, Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library
United States Census, Los Angeles, California, 1920.
United States Census, Mt. Vernon Ward 5, Westchester, New York, 1910.
CHAPTER TWELVE: War Bride
1. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once, Declares May Yohe Who’s Trying Again,” Evening Telegram, May 15, 1921.
2. “New Notes of the London Stage,” John Ava Carpenter, Chicago Daily Tribune, July 13, 1913, B2.
3. “May Rewed May Yohe,” Washington Post, August 14, 1913, 1.
4. “Will Not Rewed May Yohe,” New York Times, August 16, 1913, 4.
5. “The Chorus Girl and The ‘Nut’: May Yohe to the Rescue,” The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia), September 18, 1913, 19
6. “May Yohe to the Rescue,” 19.
7. “May Yohe to the Rescue,” 19.
8. “The Stain of their Guilty Love Cleansed in War’s Fierce Fire,” Washington Times, August 18, 1918.
9. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
10. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
11. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
12. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
13. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
14. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
15. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
16. “Every Woman Can Come Back Once.”
17. “Farmer May is Going Home,” Los Angeles Times, September 13, 1920,
&nbs
p; 18. “Public Notice Paragraphs,” The Straits Times, March 12, 1918, 8.
19. “May Yohe’s Concert,” The Straits Times, March 21, 1918, 7.
20. Gates, Hope Diamond, 243.
21. Gates, Hope Diamond, 243–245.
22. Bragg, Myths and Mysteries.
23. “May Yohe, Janitress,” Atlanta Constitution, January 19, 1919, B4.
24. Bragg, Myths and Mysteries.
25. “May Yohe, Janitress.”
26. “Farmer May is Going Home.”
Additional references for this chapter include:
“Blaze Consumes Blue Diamond Inn,” Boston Daily Globe, November 6, 1924, 2.
“Famous Stage ‘Queen’ Happy Chicken Farmer,” Evening Herald, November 30, 1918.
“May Yohe Back on the Stage,” Boston Daily Globe, March 11, 1923, 60.
“May Yohe of Hope Diamond Fame to Become War Nurse,” Washington Times, July 8, 1918, 9.
“May Yohe on Way to France,” Washington Post, July 8, 1918, 3.
“May Yohe, Once Titled Beauty Back to B‘Way,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 5, 1922.
Documents:
United States Federal Census, 1920, Los Angeles, California, Assembly District 71, Roll T625 111 p. 23B, Enumeration District 311, image 1023.
World War 1 Draft Registration Cards, King County, Washington, Roll 1991892, Draft Board 5.
California Passenger and Crew Lists, 1893–1957, M1410:108.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Cursed
1. “May Yohe, Toast of Stage in ’90s, is Near Death,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1935, 7.
2. “M‘Lean Heir Killed by an Automobile,” New York Times, May 19, 1919.
3. Hartford Herald, April 5, 1911.
4. Patch, Blue Mystery, 35.
5. Yohe, “The Hope Diamond Mystery,” chap. 1.
6. Gates, Hope Diamond, 253.
7. Gates, Hope Diamond, 252, 255.
8. Washington Post, August 18, 1986, C1.
Additional references for this chapter include:
Kurin, Hope Diamond.
The Hope Diamond Mystery, directed by Stuart Paton, written by May Yohe, screen adaptation by Charles Goddard and John B. Clymer, Kosmik Films, 1921.
“The Legendary Hope Diamond,” Life, March 1, 1995.
“Who Will Next Own this $180,000 Death Jewel?” Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1919, 24.
“Will Hope Diamond Work Harm to Latest Owner,” Tacoma Times, January 30, 1911, 1.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Domestic Tranquility?
1. “May Yohe, of More Ups and Downs Than an Elevator, Stages a Comeback,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 2, 1922.
2. Variety, November 23, 1920.
3. “More Ups and Downs.”
4. “More Ups and Downs.”
5. Unknown source.
6. “More Ups and Downs.”
7. “May Yohe in Unusual Number at Keith’s: Songs of Days Gone By Put in a Jazz Setting,” Boston Daily Globe, March 13, 1923, 8.
8. “Smuts Puzzles Police. Inquiry Into Shooting of May Yohe’s Husband Goes On in Boston,” New York Times, November 21, 1924, 3; “May Yohe’s Husband Wounded by a Bullet, He Warns Police Not to Trouble Her,” New York Times, November 20, 1924, 1.
9. “Smuts Puzzles Police.”
10. “ ‘Hope Diamond No Unlucky Gem’ Says May Yohe,” Boston Herald, August 1925.
11. “ ‘I’m Coming Back!’ May Yohe Dreams,” Cumberland Evening Times, April 24, 1926, 2. Also see “Youth for May Yohe,” The Kokomo Daily Tribune, March 13, 1926, 13.
12. Unknown newspaper article. Also see “With the Women of Today,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, August 7, 1926, 11. The rumor of May Yohe and Consuelo Vanderbilt going into the hotel business probably grew out of their association with the Hopes’ Deepdene estate at Dorking, which, before it had been turned into a hotel, had been rented to the dowager duchess of Marlborough, the stepmother of Consuelo’s former husband. There is no evidence of any business dealings between Yohe and Vanderbilt.
Additional references for this chapter include:
“Again Hope Diamond Blamed for Misfortune,” Atlanta Constitution, December 21, 1924, F8.
“Capt Smuts, Husband of May Yohe, Expected to Recover from Wound,” Boston Daily Globe, November 21, 1924, 19.
“May Yohe As Auctioneer,” New York Times, November 12, 1921, 21.
“May Yohe Keeps Gay,” New York Times, January 27, 1935, 27.
“May Yohe Lays Smuts Shooting to Hope Diamond,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 21, 1924, 16.
“May Yohe, Once Owner of the Hope Diamond is Ill,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 18, 1935, 1.
“May Yohe Sent to Nursing Home,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1935, 1.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Mother?
1. “May Yohe to Fight Claim,” Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1935, 5.
2. “May Yohe Surprised at Alleged Daughter,” Washington Post, December 30, 1925, 3.
3. “Illinois Woman Thought to Be Yohe Daughter,” Washington Post, July 11, 1935, 6.
4. “Seeks Recognition as May Yohe’s Son,” New York Times, December 11, 1935, 28.
5. “May Yohe’s Husband Scouts Story of ‘Son’,” New York Times, July 6, 1935, p. 16; “Seeks Recognition as May Yohe’s Son,” 28.
6. Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1909.
7. “26 Years a Stranger to Her ‘Son’ To Save Him from a ‘Curse’?” New York Sunday Mirror Magazine Section, September 22, 1935.
8. “May Yohe’s Ex-Mate Denies Actor’s Claim,” New York Times, December 4, 1936, 30.
9. “Suit by Self-Styled Son Scores May Yohe,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1935, 3.
10. “May Yohe to Fight Claim.”
11. “May Yohe to Fight Claim.”
12. “May Yohe to Fight Claim;” “May Yohe’s Ex-Mate Denies Claim.”
13. Petition for Adoption in the County Court of the State of Oregon for Multnomah County, Petitioners E. R. Thomas and Rosa M. Thomas, Thomas exhibit 6, New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, In the Matter of the Judicial Settlement of the Account of the Proceeding of Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company as Executor of, and as Trustee for Putnam Bradlee Strong under the Will of Mary Urbana Strong, deceased, Robert E. Thomas, appellant against Dorcas Aborn Hope, et al., Robert H. Aborn, et al., Samuel Koenig as Special Guardian, etc., Central Hanover Bank and Trust Company and Putnam Bradlee Strong, respondents.
14. Petition for Adoption.
15. Petition for Adoption, testimony of Dr. Harry Stanley Lamb, fols. 888–889, 912–913.
16. Petition for Adoption, fols. 341, 690, 894–906, 983.
17. Petition for Adoption, fols. 336–337.
18. Petition for Adoption, finding of judicial referee O’Connor, 23.
19. “May Yohe Held After Story of Gunplay on Bus,” Chicago Daily Tribune, February 18, 1937, 7; “May Yohe is Stricken with Hallucinations,” New York Times, February 18, 1937, 11.
Additional references for this chapter include:
“A Young Movie Actor’s Claim to a Famous Mama—and a Huge Legacy,” Sunday Mirror Magazine Section, February 21, 1937, 2.
“If He’s May Yohe’s Son—Then Who Was His Father?” unidentified newspaper magazine clipping, 1937, 11.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Poor, Ill, and Un-American
1. James T. Powers, Twinkle Little Star: Laughter, Tears, Thrills: Sparkling Memories of Seventy Years, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1939), 247–248.
2. “Soon Forgotten,” Washington Post, April 6, 1938, X9.
3. “Former Beauty has W.P.A. Job,” Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1938, 3.
4. Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1938.
5. “Broadway Fails Dead May Yohe,” Daily News, August 29, 1938.
6. “Cremation Rites Ordered for May Yohe,” Journal, August 29, 1938.
7. Unpublished article for “My Say,” by Evalyn Walsh McLean, 1938. Papers of Evalyn Walsh McLean.
8. “A Line O’Type or Two: A M
yth Goes Glimmering,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 31, 1938, 8.
Additional references for this chapter include:
“May Yohe, Hope Blue Diamond are Known to World,” Bethlehem Globe Times, June 24, 1942, 93.
“May Yohe Rites to Be in Boston on Wednesday,” Herald Tribune, August 29, 1938.
Epilogue
1. “May Yohe’s Death Ends Varied Career,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 1938.
2. Ethel M. Wood, 37, and Smuts were reported to be married in Dorchester on December 2, 1938, cf. New York Daily News, June 15, 1939.
3. This information is according to a post to the Yohe Family Genealogy Forum at http://www.genforum.genealogy.com by Ray Barrell on January 3, 2002. It has not been substantiated. Barrell claims his maternal grandmother was Smuts’ first wife and that none of his relatives knew what had happened to him until his father saw the 1938 Life magazine feature about May with photos of Smuts. Barrell claims his mother and her siblings then got in touch with Smuts, who by then, after May’s death, had remarried.
4. “Bethlehem Hotel Embraces Ghost Stories with ‘Room with a Boo’,” USA Today, March 12, 2007.
5. cf. Hotel Bethlehem website, “Room with a “Boo,” The Friendly Ghosts of The Historic Hotel Bethlehem, Room 932,” http://www.hotelbethlehem.com/hanuted.php.
6. “Room with a ‘Boo’.”
7. Powers, Twinkle Little Star, 247–248.
8. “Wow! If May Yohe Should Write Book!” San Francisco Call, December 22, 1910.
Additional references for this chapter include:
“Bethlehem Woman Once Owned Hope Diamond,” by Richmond Myers, Sunday Call Chronicle, May 30, 1965.
Brochure, The Friendly Ghosts of The Historic Hotel Bethlehem. “Captain John Smuts, Veteran of 2 Wars, Husband of the Late May Yohe, One-Time Actress, Dies,” New York Times, June 12, 1939, 21.
“Diamond’s Legend Involves Late Bethlehem Woman,” The Morning Call, December 3, 1971, 49. “Duke, Long Owner of Hope Diamond,” New York Times, April 22, 1941, 21.
“Gem ‘Ferhexed’ Bethlehem Girl,” Sunday Call Chronicle, November 9, 1958, 1.
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