American Queen

[Gencor]

(11-01-2014 10:42 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Your assessments of Mary Lincoln, Kate, Sprague the Sot are really well thought-out, Genna. Thank you so much.

In an earlier post, you brought up the subject of Sprague's devious second wife. I knew nothing about her until reading American Queen. Do you have any more juicy details on her background as well as her marriage to Sprague? Also, what about Mary Viall, the longtime mistress that Sprague insisted on rubbing in Kate's face - and the public's for that matter?

Oller put it nicely when he referred to the Sprague's second marriage as something of a soap opera. Sprague was scarcely married to Dora, as I like to call her, more than about three years when she took to the public and made a complete idiot of herself, much like Mary Vial Anderson. It always amazed me how Sprague would manipulate his tramps to become so vicious toward Kate, that they would take out publicly to humiliate her. Well, this one was certainly no different. In fact, Sprague was a compulsive liar and the way he described this woman was certainly disputed in the Cincinnati Press, from the very start and later reprinted in the New York Times.

I was intrigued, to say the least, when I had read that they were married for 32 years. I couldn't imagine that anyone would have put up with him but because of further and deeper research, I figured out why, It is quite a soap opera indeed!

It seems that while Sprague was giving Kate hell for the two years he had his attorney's putting off their divorce, until Willy was of age to decide to live with him, at some point he was indeed corresponding with this "tramp" who was trying to divorce her husband who was a traveling book salesman. She grew up poor, her father, a shoemaker, of not much means, was on the prowl for a "rich one!" I can't find where Sprague was actually seeing her, but by his own admission, this one wrote "great" letters and was very intelligent and educated. Well, it turns out that was a big fat lie, investigated by the Cincinnati Press and exposed that this woman was actually barely divorced when Sprague went to Virginia to claim her as his wife, much to the surprise of everyone he knew and that would include his son and the rest of his family!

It seems that his depression was waning and he was in one of his "euphoric" states as all of this was taking place. She was not so educated and didn't have a "pot" as they say, while Sprague bragged also that she was independently wealthy. LOL!

She was only 23 and he was 53! Almost from the start, when he claimed this so called "temperance vow" Sprague was flying high as a kite! He actually believed that he could start all over and this time with a woman who he stated to everyone would be a "good wife!" (I don't know why but I took that like he was saying she would make a good housekeeper) I always felt that was what Sprague really wanted in a wife anyway. He was very careful to hide this little affair while he was going through the divorce actions with Kate. (How interesting)

Well, from the start, it became a sort of business arrangement. Sprague had some capital tied up in the house, paintings and the like and when some of his property would go up for auction, he would give her the money and she would buy it. Like laundering the money through her. By doing this, he managed to put what property he could acquire into her name. (Funny how she managed this) She wasn't so "dumb Dora" for her age, because she got control of him, without him realizing what the hell he was doing. He thought that she would let him do all of this and he could still control some of what he had gained by telling her that he would always give her half. LOL. This man was such a fool. Kate had offered to help him retrieve his control of his business and yet, hard headed, he was reduced to this instead. He spent the second half of his life trying like hell to regain his financial standing because without it, he was really not much to write home about. It is said that when Mrs. Sprague and her sister would hit the beaches in the summer, they created quite a stir with the men there. They were huge flirts both on the beach and in town when they went for shopping trips. Its pretty obvious that they didn't plan for Sprague to live to a ripe old age, that is for sure.

She decorated what rooms he allowed with Mr. Wheaton's money as Avice, by then was married to him and he was a multi millionaire. (Those Weed women just needed to land one big fat one and Avice did it) They all lived off Mr. Wheaton, even their little brother, the other "parasite" who later killed himself by taking an overdose of morphine in a hotel room in New York with a male friend. They had made a pact to kill themselves together and one lived and one didn't.

It seems that Dora was a bit upset, however, because she realised that Sprague didn't really have the fortune that she had hoped and since she practically forced Sprague to force Willy to marry her sister to assure that whatever Willy inherited, she and her sister would also control, it seems that Mr. Chafee ended up taking that too, so it was of no consequence to them when Mr. Wheaton sent off Willy to work in New York so that he could do his wife under Sprague's nose, in Sprague's own home! Yep. He did allow that to happen so that when Avice popped up pregnant, everyone was already gossiping at the Pier and whispering about seeing Avice in the constant company of Wheaton while Willy was absent. The press later asked Dora about the divorce of Willy and her sister and wondered on what grounds he got it. Funny, but this time Dora didn't want the press to ask her questions and only replied by asking what they had heard and shrugged her shoulders and told them that she didn't want to answer anymore questions because she was afraid of the press. (Hilarious) Willy swore that baby wasn't his, heck he was barely ever there. He quickly implored the help of his mother when his father disowned him for telling everyone and leaving that little tramp exposed. It's complicated.

It seems that, while there is no proof, there is Willy's last letter to his father, which implies that he might have been gay! Yep. I said gay. I have no idea, other than for reasons of control and money, why William forced his son to marry Avice, as she didn't want to marry him either, but she didn't contest the divorce and went, straight away, to marry Wheaton, who it is said raised Inez like she was his own! (Hilarious again, because she was, but the child carried the name, Sprague). Now, why do you supposed that William played grandpa to this kid? I know that some believe that it was even his child, but I don't. I think for sure that Wheaton was her father and when she grew up and had Stennis's child, she named her daughter, Avice Wheaton Stennis.

My firm belief, from all of my research this summer, was that Avice, Dora and Sprague struck a deal. They decided that to save face for Avice, who everyone knew did not have Willy's child and to save face for Willy, they would just let it be that Avice had Willy's child, legally, but Wheaton was the father. It wasn't his first child either. He had a daughter by a previous marriage and funny, but Avice adopted that daughter so that when Wheaton died, he left the entire of his fortune, 7 million and 632 shares of Standard Oil stock to Avice! Yep! Avice became a really rich ***** but even with her money, the jokes just kept coming for all of them. It seems that her third husband found her to be a fraud! Rich but nothing much else. He was considerably younger than she and it seems that after a few years of marriage he wanted a kid and went out and found himself a woman who had one for him, while he told the hospital the woman's name was Avice, his wife!( the soap opera continues)

It hits the papers that she is now filing for divorce and brings up the fact that he was mentally cruel to her and even had a child who he tried to say was hers! You can't make this up! LOL! It seems that Borda, from a very old and very well known family in Porta Rica knew that she and her sister were tramps and said so, often in the presence of some very influential people at parties while in Porta Rica and here, in america. They were divorced and a few years later, Avice died.

Can you just imagine what Sprague would have done if people knew that he, the womanizer of the century had a gay son? When the letter was published, it was hard to deny and I am sure that Kate, who is so private, was mortified. And to think that when his son killed himself, he didn't even go to bury him. He had gotten word that there was a mob ready to kill him if he did and so he took his pack of "Weeds" and went home after the church service.

Dora had Sprague by the financial balls by then and when Avice married Wheaton, they all lived off Mr. Wheaton. He even paid for Dora to redo some of house, with her paintings of curpids and loud waterfalls and ceiling paintings of "Love" complete with little colorful sayings and mermaid paintings on the walls in her bathroom. (Sounds like a Bardello in comparison to the tasteful work of Kate, when she chose the appointments for those rooms so carefully. LOL

Sprague tried time and again to sell the mansion but always, he and Dora fought over it because she refused to give him half of the profits. LOL She wanted it all, so it never sold. They did, however, for a time, rent it out for summer visitors and Dora was basically like the inkeeper of the summer resort.

It is my belief that when Dora married this much older man, she figured that she would get his big fortune and the big house and since he was so old already, she wouldn't have to put up with him to long. Not quite what she thought, however. He lived longer than even he thought and he outlived what money he did have and before long, they were actually living off her sister, who controlled their finances. It was strange that they actually moved, that he actually agreed to move, to Paris. He hated Paris! I think that by then, they were homeless and he was sick and frankly, I don't think that Sprague knew much by then.

I might mention here, Dora wanted to be a big opera star and while I haven't figured out where they got the funds for this, they hyped her pretty big in her first big concert at the Boston Symphony somewhere in the fall of 1886. It seems that she would go a few times to Paris to study and her voice coach told her that if she worked really hard at it, she could be a big star. On her first visit to Paris, of course, she brought home a french maid who also acted as her secretary? For what, I have no idea but Kate did have a french maid and she wanted to be the new Kate. They had even hired an agent for her, who later just went home and cancelled all of the other engagements he had planned on her behalf. That is where Nicholas Brewer first met her. He painted her portrait to be used for this opening act. However, it didn't go as planned, in fact, it didn't go at all. No one even applauded and you could hear a pin drop in the room. The reviews were so horrible that she ran back to the Pier never to sing in public again. Get this! The woman is married to a man whose son had committed suicide and one of her opening numbers was from Anaconda! The press had a field day!

At every turn, Sprague and his new family found rejection and not just private rejection. It was in the papers everywhere when he threatened to disown Inez for Stennis but how could he disown her when her mother owned him? That never happened. To insure that she inherited the mansion, Avice and her third husband, Mr. Borda of Porta Rica, bought it for an undisclosed sum of money. I am thinking that Avice bought it with her stock, like a trade of some sort. They could live off the interest. Then it just burned down the day they moved in.

It goes on from here. If you want to know more. I will tell you. The next 5 years in Paris finds them sailing back a forth a few times, Sprague half dead, and Inez getting a divorce and decides that she would rather take flying lessons than be married!

Upon the death of these two women, both in Providence and in Narragansett, even today, there is a trust from the Standard Oil stock in both their names, to be used to help the needy.

If that don't beat all! Dora was intent on leaving her mark because she spent her entire marriage trying to live down Kate. She made sure that she was buried as Mrs. Sprague but after she buried Sprague, she lived in Paris. These women were not socially accepted, even with Avice's money, but Avice did try.

To me, it is a bit of an insult that Mrs. Sprague and Sprague were living so well while his little girls were not and his son was dead. I do believe that is what attracted Portia to want to know her father. Leaving a trust for the less fortunate could have been used by Sprague, if he wasn't so stupid, to help his son and feed and cloth his little girls. Instead, it was all showered on Wheaton's child, who they all claimed belonged to Willy. Didn't Sprague even care for his little girls at all? By the time Portia went to look up her father, it was rather an insult that she had to go through Dora to stay in the very home her mother built and through a woman who had insulted her mother in the most horrible of public ridicule. I wasn't impressed that Avice made sure the poor got her whore money and that her sister was able to finally establish that she was "Mrs. Sprague."

Sprague and Dora stayed together because neither of them had anywhere else to go. It was Avice's money that kept them in their marriage and I have a feeling that it became a kind of "in name only" sort of thing, very early on. According to Brewer, by Spragues own admission, it was a marriage of convenience. He married her to help him save Cannonchet. If he was so happy and content, it was indeed full of soap opera and high drama and to someone with Bi-Polar disorder who loved to dress up in his bicycle clothes and walk in the storming rains on the beach and sometimes take long walks at night because he couldn't sleep,it must have been a blast! LOL

So, if Kate was such a scandal, this was a soap opera fraught with scandal and Kate had nothing to do with any of it. Somehow, I fell that alot of this was a bit of redemption for Kate, however. I am sure the press thought twice as all of this took place.

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Mary Vial actually came from a very prominent family in Providence. She was a strange one. A sort of "Beatnick" type. She believe in free love! It was, after all, the late 50's and early 60's. She hooked up with Sprague and they were lovers. It seems, by all accounts, that up until this time, Fanny and her family were all very prominent and accepted in the social circles that mattered. Fanny was well respected and much loved. Sprague was young and was just starting in the company when he took on Mary and all her free loving alcohol and whatever else she was into. I believe that she very much "free loved" Sprague because she got herself knocked up by her "Little Napoleon" and from then on, things just started down hill for Sprague and his family. Especially, socially. When it was found that Mary had gotten pregnant, Fanny sent Sprague to Europe to study the military and Mary's family hurridly married her to an officer named Anderson and the child had his name. Their affair lasted through Spragues adult life and his marriage to Kate. She hated Kate because she felt that Kate's father had sold her off for money and had taken her "free lover" away from her. Sprague did nothing to change her mind about it either. I think that he even encouraged it. I mean this is a man who wanted his wife's permission to screw around. Hilarious! Mary, however, was not his only conquest, as we well know, but she is the only one who wrote a book about it all and publicly humiliated Kate. Sprague did nothing then either. Amazing! It wasn't until Kate was actually pregnant for Willy and found a note from Mary that even she knew that her son would not be Sprague's first child. Even Fanny had encouraged Sprague to tell Kate the truth from the start! How funny, when you think how Sprague wanted to drop Kate because he had heard in Ohio that she kept company with a married man before her father moved them to Washington. This guy was a real idiot. He had no remorse for his actions in or out of his marriage to Kate and had nothing but encouragement for the women who wanted to humiliate her. Yet, he went nuts with a gun over Conkling? I am still amazed about that and I have some thoughts about that, that would probably shake up the history community and even Mr. Oller.

There isn't alot more about Mary that I can find, other than the fact that she became a complete alcoholic and died a sotted drunk.

Was Sprague so faithful to Dora? Was Dora so faithful to Sprague? Its 32 years and he got old fast. The answer: Nope. Does a leopard change its spots? Did Sprague really stop drinking? Hardly! While Orestes, Dora's brother went fleeing from Cannochet scared to death of William and his gun, I am pretty sure that it was known that William wasn't always sober. The old man walked the beach almost every night in the wee hours and one wonders if he went looking for his old lover, Mary Vial. It was a love/hate relationship, that is for sure but then that was typical of Sprague.