by Alexis Coe
It took just one more slice, this one all the way across her throat, before Freda crumpled onto the ground.
And that was when Alice noticed people moving toward them, their eyes focused on Freda. Alice had only realized half of her plan—but the rest would have to wait. Razor in hand, she sprinted back up the hill, leaving the love of her life bleeding on the railroad tracks.
THE GREAT DRAMA
ALICE AND FREDA MET at the Higbee School for Young Ladies, where well-to-do white Memphians sent their daughters. Together, they roamed the hallways with Freda’s older sister, Jo, and Alice’s bestfriend, Lillie. The foursome was well known, as was their coupling. Alice and Freda had made no attempt to hide their relationship: their kissing and hugging and hand-holding was certainly noted by those around them. But Jo and Lillie were also seen with their arms linked, sharing meaningful glances and speaking in hushed voices.
During the Victorian era, proper American women were not to speak of their desire for men, let alone show it, but demonstrative relationships with other women were considered unremarkable. In Memphis, “chumming” was the regional term for intimate female friendships, but it was by no means particular to Eastern Tennessee. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called these romantic friendships a “rehearsal in girlhood of the great drama of woman’s life,” a kind of training ground for the main event, the courtship by a young woman’s future husband.4
But for Alice, this was no rehearsal.
In Europe, sexologists were just beginning to define same-sex love, but this nascent research had barely reached American soil; the word lesbian would not be in circulation for another forty years. In the South, a white woman from a respectable family was bombarded with a consistent message at home, school, and church: She was expected to play the role of wife, and then the role of mother to as many children as her husband desired. A couple like Alice and Freda had no name for what they felt for each other, no adults to advise or serve as examples, and certainly no literature to call upon.
They went to the theater often enough to know that actresses could play male roles convincingly, but that was likely the furthest either of them saw gender boundaries pushed—and even then, this deviance was safely contained within the realm of playacting, much like the notion of chumming itself. Once the curtain came crashing down and the house lights blinded the audience, the rules of society were reinstated. The actresses discarded men’s costumes in favor of their own dresses, as if to acknowledge their male characters belonged within a very small and specific space, for a limited time only.
American newspapers would later speculate that French fiction, full of risqué tales of same-sex love and other noteworthy acts by libertines, had possibly influenced Freda’s murder. But even if English translations of books by novelists Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, or Théophile Gautier made it to Memphis, it was unlikely that Alice would have happened upon them.
If Alice had indeed read those French novels, she might have realized that other women shared her desires. She seemed to feel trapped by emotions she understood to be unique, and may have taken some comfort in the idea that there were other women in the world to love and, more importantly, who would love her back.
But would French novels have really made a difference, either way? Alice’s obsession with Freda was so great, so all encompassing, that any tale of alternate domesticity was unlikely to alter their tragic ending—even if the tale was their own.5
FREDA WAS FAR MORE CAPRICIOUS with her affections, as Alice would soon realize, but in 1891, their greatest challenge was geographical. Freda’s eldest sister, Mrs. Ada Volkmar, had moved to Golddust, a small town on the Mississippi River, and their father, the widower Thomas Ward, soon followed. He relied on Ada to look after Freda and Jo, but the new city offered him more than just help with his younger daughters. Back in Memphis, Thomas had been a machinist at a fertilizer company, but in Golddust, he was able to work as a merchant and a planter. Things were looking up for the Ward family.
Alice and Freda had no choice but to make the best of it. They no longer lived in the same city, but when they visited each other, they did so for weeks at a time. Every day was spent together, every moment precious.
The nights were advantageous, too. After they kissed their families goodnight, it was expected that they would share a bed, their bodies close, their movements obscured under the covers.
Long visits spent in such close proximity had a downside, too. It became harder for Freda to hide her infidelities from Alice, and even harder still to escape her anger over them.
Late one night in December, the Mitchell home was still. The entire family, with the exception of Alice, was fast asleep. She lay in bed, alongside Freda, wide awake. In her hand, she clutched a bottle marked POISON.
Before falling asleep, Freda had admitted to loving not one, but two men. The sun would rise soon enough, ushering in the day Freda would return to Golddust, where she would once again move freely, far from Alice’s watchful gaze. As the hours passed, Alice concluded that either she or Freda would have to die. Laudanum, a potent mix of opium and alcohol, was easy to procure for various aches and pains, but it came with a warning. The solution was highly concentrated, and fatal overdoses were not uncommon. If Alice could get enough past Freda’s lips while her beloved slept, the drink would likely be her last.
Alice would eventually write out a more comprehensive list—“How to Kill”—but that night laudanum was her only option, and she could hardly guarantee there was enough for both of them. And so she lay there, inches from her love, contemplating how many doses she held in her hand.
And that was the scene that greeted Freda when her eyes fluttered open. She was sharing a bed with a young woman who was deciding whether or not to kill her. The night was fraught, with Alice openly brandishing the bottle, and Freda too scared to close her eyes—and yet, Freda stayed in that bed with Alice. She never called for help, and she never told the Mitchells, or her own family, what had happened.
Daybreak did nothing to quell the drama. Laudanum in hand, Alice followed Freda onboard the steamer that would soon leave for Golddust, cornered her in the stateroom, and locked the door behind them.
“Marry whomever you want,” she said, and downed the bottle herself.
DIE, ALICE DID NOT, but the aftermath could not have been pretty. A laudanum overdose did not guarantee death, but symptoms like insufferably itchy skin, constricted breathing, and obstructed bowels may have made her wish it had.
If nothing else, it was clear that Alice needed a better plan, one that took control of the situation. If things continued this way, Freda would be married soon enough. She might settle in Golddust, near her family, or worse yet, move to where her husband’s people lived. Alice needed to find a way to possess her love completely, to make her ineligible to all bachelors.
Alice’s own future would soon come into question as well. Whether she liked it or not, the cult of domesticity was the prevailing value system in the United States and Britain, and it identified the home as the proper sphere for women of Alice’s race and class. She had certainly been told this at Miss Higbee’s. The first page of the school’s catalog stated its educational aim quite clearly: “The Systematic Development of True Womanhood.”6 The four cardinal virtues—piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity—were not only taught in schools, but reinforced by magazines, cookbooks, newspapers, literature, and in church every Sunday.7
Alice was adept at discouraging suitors, but that would be difficult to maintain, especially if her family forced the issue. If she relented to pressure and married, there would be babies, one after the other, both her own or those of her siblings. She would be expected to help maintain the household, with little-to-no autonomy or authority over anything, including her own body.
If she did not marry, her father and brothers would decide her fate. The options in that scenario were clear: Alice could continue to live in her parents’ home, as her older sisters had, or with her mar
ried siblings.
Alice seemed to want out of the Mitchell home and into her own, but it was not as if she could just go out and get an apartment, or the job she would need to pay for it. Occupations for women were extremely limited in the 1890s, especially for her class. Of the 8,200 women employed in Memphis in 1891, 2,200 were white, and the majority of these wage earners were servants and seamstresses, and they still ended up in someone else’s home, whether it was their family’s, their employer’s, or a boarding house. They were rarely from well-to-do families like the Mitchells, working out of necessity, and yet, only about three percent made enough to claim economic independence.8
One way or another, a man would be the head of Alice’s home, and she would live the kind of life he saw fit. The other Mitchell women seemed perfectly happy to spend day after day inside, with women like Lucy Franklin tending to the household’s daily demands. Their hours were spent in a state of perpetual anticipation, filled with leisurely activities like mending and knitting, writing letters, and reading the Bible. Whether they enjoyed these tasks, or regarded them as mere distractions was immaterial; everything depended on the Mitchell men. Any time Alice’s father and brothers came in the front door, their needs were prioritized above all else.
The kind of power Alice craved, the right to come and go as she pleased and, most importantly, fully dominate Freda, could only be wielded by a man.
And so Alice would have to figure out a way to become one.
MR. AND MRS. ALVIN J. WARD
ALICE HAD YET TO FIGURE OUT how to transform herself—a plump, handsome woman—into a man, but she knew how to act like one. If a man wanted to spend the rest of his life with a woman, he proposed, and in February of 1891, Alice did just that. She could not make her intentions known to Freda’s family or procure Thomas Ward’s permission, but she could ask Freda to marry her, and that was all that mattered. She sent the proposal in a letter, and in return, she received a fervid acceptance.
Still, Alice sent two more letters, each one containing the same proposal. Acceptance was binding, she warned, and Freda agreed to her terms each time, posting an equal number of sanguine letters back to Memphis.
Of course, it would be nearly thirty years before women had the right to vote in America, and more than 120 years after Alice and Freda’s engagement, same-sex marriage is still illegal in the state of Tennessee.
But for Alice and Freda, these were just details, minor problems in need of creative solutions.
They devoted themselves to the task with absolute secrecy. Alice’s brother, Robert Mitchell, would later recount their letters in court, many of which emphasized Freda’s role as a “true woman,” an obedient, faithful wife.
In another document, Alice gives her ideas of what a model wife ought to be and do. She must never deceive, must know how to keep house, must know how to cook, she must be able to sew on a button and must be her first love and her last love. She closes the essay by saying if a certain browneyed girl keeps her promise she will show a model husband and wife within a year. This reference is, of course, to Freda.9
At the time, however, no one, not even Jo or Lillie, suspected anything out of the ordinary existed between them, and Alice was determined to keep it that way—even if it meant denying herself in the present.
A nineteenth-century reader would not have suspected the dispatch was actually a love letter, even though it was teeming with machinations.10 Every turn of phrase could be explained through the lens of a tender, albeit impassioned, female friendship. There was nothing unusual in the politics of cliques reaching a fevered pitch during sleepovers, especially over sleeping arrangements. Alice appears considerate in her letter; she wants Freda to know that she prefers her, but does not wish to injure the feelings of another.
Exchanging small gifts was equally unremarkable. If the rose Alice mentions was not a euphemism, it was a perfectly respectable gift. It not only suggested affection for gardens, an acceptable interest for proper young women, but it was also very thoughtful. There was some effort involved in procuring the perfect rose, and perhaps it was of particular importance to Freda, who no longer lived in Memphis, but may have shown an attachment to its flora.
The rose was hardly the most lavish gift Alice bestowed on her intended. She had been secretly saving small sums of money, the bulk of which she reserved for their elopement and setting up house, but in June, she made one large purchase: an engagement ring for Freda. She obviously gave the purchase much thought and consideration, engraving the ring, “From A. to F.” And of course, she told no one about it.
Freda was far less discreet, happy to display their love whenever possible—the more conspicuous and dramatic, the better. To avoid suspicion, Alice argued that they should be no more demonstrative than Jo and Lillie. She thought further exhibitionism put their future in peril.
But to Alice, it was worse than imprudent—the lack of seriousness this immodest behavior implied seemed to really bother her. Schoolgirls went chumming as an imitation of what was to come, not living what had already arrived. Couples who were betrothed in earnest, which is what Alice believed them to be, did not behave that way. Either way, in order to make it to the altar without suspicion, Alice reasoned they should appear to be the unexceptional half of a socially acceptable quartet.
IF ALICE HAD A POST-ENGAGEMENT POLICY, it was to pass. They were to continue to pass as girls chumming, and then later, Alice was to pass as man. At first, it was a practical measure, a necessary façade until a long-term plan could be formed, but over time, it became the plan itself. Passing as a man was more than just a way to hide a relationship between two women; as a man, she could claim all of the rights and responsibilities of a husband, too.
Alice never expressed a desire to be a man for any other reason than marrying Freda, so there is little to suggest that she saw impersonation as anything more than a means to that end. She may have been inspired by examples from history. Joan of Arc kept her hair short and wore military attire while fighting the English during the Hundred Years’ War, and in America, hundreds of women passed as soldiers in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.
Alice had definitely seen actresses disguised in men’s clothing, wigs, and makeup at the theater, and it seemed to influence her transformation—the adornments, that is, but not the gestures. If she studied the mannerisms and word choices of men, practiced deepening her voice and displaying the chivalrous behavior expected from Southern gentlemen, she made no mention of it. She did, however, discuss ordering a suit and fashioning her hair into a style worn by young men. If it would please Freda, Alice promised to grow a mustache. She would shave the loosely scattered, light hairs that grew above her upper lip, hoping that each new growth would get her closer to darker, bristly stubble.
Freda, who longed to be on the stage, was delighted that their plan now contained wardrobe considerations. She played an active role in shaping Alice’s character, mixing elements from their old life with that of their new one, as husband and wife. Freda loved calling Alice by her pet name, Allie, and thought “Alvin J. Ward” to be a similar, agreeable name.
It was careless to keep Freda’s last name, an obvious clue for whomever the family would inevitably send after them, but it was just one of several curious choices the couple made. Even though Mr. and Mrs. Alvin J. Ward wisely opted not to settle in Memphis, a city teeming with people who knew them and their families, they nevertheless planned to marry there.
Even stranger still, Freda promised to enlist her own family’s reverend from Grace Episcopal Church to perform the marriage ceremony. Freda was said to have had a lovely singing voice, and when the Wards lived in Memphis, she often performed at the church. It is hard to imagine that the reverend, who had so often seen the seventeen-year-old surrounded by the Wards, would officiate Freda’s nuptials without questioning her family’s conspicuous absence, or why she would choose to have the ceremony downriver from the city in which they all lived.
The
re was a backup plan involving the local justice of the peace, though it seems likely that he would have been familiar with either the Wards or the Mitchells. There was no third option. By all accounts, they were confident they could marry in Memphis and then light out for St. Louis, where they would live happily ever after.
Alice was convinced that they would succeed. She had not proposed in three separate letters, reiterating her terms, out of sheer excitement. There had been too many misunderstandings between them, too many volatile elements; Alice wanted to make sure Freda took their commitment seriously this time. In each letter, she made it clear that there was no going back.
If Freda broke off their engagement, Alice promised to kill her for it.
PRICE THE PISTOLS
BY JULY, THERE WAS TROUBLE. Amid their post-engagement euphoria, plans for the future took shape, but their reality remained the same, and so did their behavior. Alice was still jealous and possessive, and Freda as flirtatious as ever.
Ashley Roselle, a twenty-three-year-old postmaster from Featherstone, Arkansas, was not the first man to court Freda, but he seemed to be the most serious. And Freda, despite being involved in a clandestine marriage plot with another, did nothing to resist his overtures. If anything, the photograph and letters she sent Ashley’s way did much to quicken his pursuit.
Even with eighty miles between them, Alice was no fool. Whenever she visited Golddust, she met as many of Freda’s new friends and neighbors as possible, with an eye toward recruiting informants. Back home, she would write to them, as well as to those she had not met but knew of. She wanted to ascertain their impressions of Freda, and find out whether she was being courted by yet more suitors. In Memphis, Alice exploited chance encounters with people who knew Freda for potentially damning scraps of intelligence. There was no guile in her investigative approach, no attempt at artifice or reserve; she openly advanced on anyone who might have information.