Mary Augusta “May” Yohe

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Mary Augusta “May” Yohe

Birth
Bethlehem, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, USA
Death
27 Aug 1938 (aged 72)
Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA
Burial
Cremated, Ashes scattered at sea. Specifically: In the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Code Add to Map
Memorial ID
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Actress, Singer, Owner of the Hope Diamond.
May was born in the Eagle Hotel in Bethlehem Pennsylvania the daughter of a soldier and a dressmaker. She began her acting and singing career in New York City as a Chorus girl. Her profession took her to London where she met and married Lord Francis Pelham Clinton Hope, owner of the famous Hope Diamond. She became Lady Francis Hope and enjoyed the lavish lifestyle of British Royal circles. She still continued her career as an actress often wearing a duplicate of the Hope Diamond on stage. She wrote many news paper articles about the curse of the Hope Diamond including her own experiences. The curse of the Diamond she said was the reason for her divorce from Lord Hope and subsequent failed marriage to Capt. Putnam Bradlee Strong the son of the Mayor of New York City. Her final marriage was to Capt. John Smutts and together they lived a quite life. She mingled with Royalty and Politicians. Danced and sang on some of the best stages in Europe and New York. Wore jewelry fit for a queen. Including the famous Blue diamond called the Hope Diamond. She went from Lady Francis Hope the Toast of New York and London to Mrs John Smutts living in a boarding house in Washington. May would often say that the Hope Diamond was the cause of all the turmoil and sadness that she knew in her life. "The Hope Diamond was worth thousands of dollars but she wouldn't give you a nickel for it."
Mary Augusta aka May Yohe aka "Madcap May

Title Lady Mary Pelham Clinton Hope

b April 6, 1866

d August 29, 1938)

was an American musical theatre actress.
After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performances in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893.

The following year, in London, she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus.

In 1894, she married Lord Francis Hope and possessed the Hope Diamond.
She nevertheless continued to perform in musical theatre in the West End and then the U.S.

she divorced Hope in 1902 and married a series of adventurous, but financially unsuccessful, men.

She performed in music hall and vaudeville on the West Coast and in various other places in the U.S. in the early decades of the 20th century, but she was frequently in financial jeopardy.

By 1924, she and her last husband, John Smuts, had settled in Boston, where she died in near poverty.

the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (nee Batcheller) Yohé.
Her father, a veteran of the American Civil War, was either the son or nephew of Caleb Yohé, proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, where Yohé was born.
William Yohé inherited the hotel and was locally famous for the elaborate miniature village scenes he would construct on the hotel grounds, especially for his annual Christmas putz.
Yohé’s mother, a descendent of the Narragansett people, was a talented dressmaker, who according to Yohé had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people of the day

MARRIED
1 Lord Francis
Their marriage took place quietly at a suburban registry office in [November] 1894.
Already Lord Francis had been a bankrupt, but a year after the marriage his remaining wealth, his lands, the famous Hope diamond, and all his pictures and heirlooms were frittered away by the combined efforts of the young couple. Pecuniary troubles, however, embarrassed the two but slightly.
A future Duke and Duchess can always beg or borrow, and they did.
In 1900 they made a tour of the world, and on their way home fell in with

2 Captain [Putnam] Bradlee Strong,at that time one of the handsomest and most popular men in the United States Army, and a special favorite with President McKinley.
The actress fell head over ears in love with him.
She refused to return to England with Lord Francis, and, after he had divorced her [in 1902], married the Captain in San Francisco.

3 Mr. Newton Brown, a friend of her childhood, a New York journalist with theater connections, in April 1907

4 Mr Murphy
The Brown union was short-lived, for in May 1909 a San Francisco newspaper reported that Yohé had given up for adoption a baby boy she had with a new husband, a British Columbia miner by the name of Murphy.
The child was reportedly born in September 1908, at Portland, Oregon, where Yohé had been living in seclusion. In May of the following year the boy was adopted by Edward R. Thomas, owner of the Perkins Hotel Pharmacy, and his wife Rosa.
The adoption consent was signed "Mary A. Strong".
In the mid-1930s, an actor named Robert Thomas, the adopted son of Edward and Rosa, tried in vain to prove that his birth father was Putnam Bradlee Strong.
Yohé adamantly rejected his claim not only that Strong was his father, but that she was his mother.
Had Thomas been successful, he would have been eligible for a share in a large trust fund set up by Strong’s mother.

5 musician Frank M. Reynolds in Seattle.
Reynolds was the son of an Upstate New York college professor, who soon claimed he’d received a letter from his son refuting the story

6 In September, 1911 Yohé denied she planned to wed former lightweight champion boxer Jack McAuliffe, who at the time was her partner at a 10¢ movie house in New York performing vaudeville skits between movie screenings.
The following month, Yohé was reported to be in Chicago living "in dire penury, almost starvation" with her husband Jack McAuliffe.

7 Around 1914, in London or possibly South Africa, May Yohé married Captain John Addey Smuts, a South African-born retired British army officer and cousin of general Jan Smuts.
Over the early years of their marriage, the two traveled to Singapore, India, China and Japan, eventually settling in South Africa.
In the waning months of the First World War, it was reported that Yohé planned to accompany her husband to France, where he intended to serve on the front lines while she would serve as a Red Cross nurse.
Smuts was unable to secure a military commission, and within a few months the two moved to Seattle, Washington, where Smuts found shipyard work. Soon after, he contracted influenza, leaving Yohé to seek employment as a housekeeper at the apartment house where they were living.
In 1919, Yohé, was back in vaudeville, meeting with modest success.
In November 1924, Capt Smuts was shot in the chest at their Boston residence.
The wound was not serious and he soon recovered.
Smuts maintained that he was cleaning a gun when it accidentally discharged.
He refused to explain to the investigators the mysterious suicide note they recovered, written in two different handwriting styles.

August 29, 1938, she died in Boston of heart and kidney disease.
Three thousand people attended her service, including Robert Thomas
A few days after her funeral, John Smuts followed his wife's final wish and sprinkled her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean. He died in Boston of a heart attack a few months later, on January 11, 1939

INFO FROM WIKI


NOTES
Mrs. Putnam Bradlee Strong, formerly May Yohe, a London music hall singer, has been granted a divorce at Oregon City, Ore., on the ground of desertion, from Capt. P.B. Strong of New York.
The Laurel Chronicle, Laurel Mississippi May 27, 1910

Actress, Singer, Owner of the Hope Diamond.
May was born in the Eagle Hotel in Bethlehem Pennsylvania the daughter of a soldier and a dressmaker. She began her acting and singing career in New York City as a Chorus girl. Her profession took her to London where she met and married Lord Francis Pelham Clinton Hope, owner of the famous Hope Diamond. She became Lady Francis Hope and enjoyed the lavish lifestyle of British Royal circles. She still continued her career as an actress often wearing a duplicate of the Hope Diamond on stage. She wrote many news paper articles about the curse of the Hope Diamond including her own experiences. The curse of the Diamond she said was the reason for her divorce from Lord Hope and subsequent failed marriage to Capt. Putnam Bradlee Strong the son of the Mayor of New York City. Her final marriage was to Capt. John Smutts and together they lived a quite life. She mingled with Royalty and Politicians. Danced and sang on some of the best stages in Europe and New York. Wore jewelry fit for a queen. Including the famous Blue diamond called the Hope Diamond. She went from Lady Francis Hope the Toast of New York and London to Mrs John Smutts living in a boarding house in Washington. May would often say that the Hope Diamond was the cause of all the turmoil and sadness that she knew in her life. "The Hope Diamond was worth thousands of dollars but she wouldn't give you a nickel for it."
Mary Augusta aka May Yohe aka "Madcap May

Title Lady Mary Pelham Clinton Hope

b April 6, 1866

d August 29, 1938)

was an American musical theatre actress.
After beginning her career with the McCaull Comic Opera Company in 1886 in New York and Chicago, and after other performances in the United States, she quickly gained success on the London stage beginning in 1893.

The following year, in London, she created the title role in the hit show Little Christopher Columbus.

In 1894, she married Lord Francis Hope and possessed the Hope Diamond.
She nevertheless continued to perform in musical theatre in the West End and then the U.S.

she divorced Hope in 1902 and married a series of adventurous, but financially unsuccessful, men.

She performed in music hall and vaudeville on the West Coast and in various other places in the U.S. in the early decades of the 20th century, but she was frequently in financial jeopardy.

By 1924, she and her last husband, John Smuts, had settled in Boston, where she died in near poverty.

the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (nee Batcheller) Yohé.
Her father, a veteran of the American Civil War, was either the son or nephew of Caleb Yohé, proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, where Yohé was born.
William Yohé inherited the hotel and was locally famous for the elaborate miniature village scenes he would construct on the hotel grounds, especially for his annual Christmas putz.
Yohé’s mother, a descendent of the Narragansett people, was a talented dressmaker, who according to Yohé had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people of the day

MARRIED
1 Lord Francis
Their marriage took place quietly at a suburban registry office in [November] 1894.
Already Lord Francis had been a bankrupt, but a year after the marriage his remaining wealth, his lands, the famous Hope diamond, and all his pictures and heirlooms were frittered away by the combined efforts of the young couple. Pecuniary troubles, however, embarrassed the two but slightly.
A future Duke and Duchess can always beg or borrow, and they did.
In 1900 they made a tour of the world, and on their way home fell in with

2 Captain [Putnam] Bradlee Strong,at that time one of the handsomest and most popular men in the United States Army, and a special favorite with President McKinley.
The actress fell head over ears in love with him.
She refused to return to England with Lord Francis, and, after he had divorced her [in 1902], married the Captain in San Francisco.

3 Mr. Newton Brown, a friend of her childhood, a New York journalist with theater connections, in April 1907

4 Mr Murphy
The Brown union was short-lived, for in May 1909 a San Francisco newspaper reported that Yohé had given up for adoption a baby boy she had with a new husband, a British Columbia miner by the name of Murphy.
The child was reportedly born in September 1908, at Portland, Oregon, where Yohé had been living in seclusion. In May of the following year the boy was adopted by Edward R. Thomas, owner of the Perkins Hotel Pharmacy, and his wife Rosa.
The adoption consent was signed "Mary A. Strong".
In the mid-1930s, an actor named Robert Thomas, the adopted son of Edward and Rosa, tried in vain to prove that his birth father was Putnam Bradlee Strong.
Yohé adamantly rejected his claim not only that Strong was his father, but that she was his mother.
Had Thomas been successful, he would have been eligible for a share in a large trust fund set up by Strong’s mother.

5 musician Frank M. Reynolds in Seattle.
Reynolds was the son of an Upstate New York college professor, who soon claimed he’d received a letter from his son refuting the story

6 In September, 1911 Yohé denied she planned to wed former lightweight champion boxer Jack McAuliffe, who at the time was her partner at a 10¢ movie house in New York performing vaudeville skits between movie screenings.
The following month, Yohé was reported to be in Chicago living "in dire penury, almost starvation" with her husband Jack McAuliffe.

7 Around 1914, in London or possibly South Africa, May Yohé married Captain John Addey Smuts, a South African-born retired British army officer and cousin of general Jan Smuts.
Over the early years of their marriage, the two traveled to Singapore, India, China and Japan, eventually settling in South Africa.
In the waning months of the First World War, it was reported that Yohé planned to accompany her husband to France, where he intended to serve on the front lines while she would serve as a Red Cross nurse.
Smuts was unable to secure a military commission, and within a few months the two moved to Seattle, Washington, where Smuts found shipyard work. Soon after, he contracted influenza, leaving Yohé to seek employment as a housekeeper at the apartment house where they were living.
In 1919, Yohé, was back in vaudeville, meeting with modest success.
In November 1924, Capt Smuts was shot in the chest at their Boston residence.
The wound was not serious and he soon recovered.
Smuts maintained that he was cleaning a gun when it accidentally discharged.
He refused to explain to the investigators the mysterious suicide note they recovered, written in two different handwriting styles.

August 29, 1938, she died in Boston of heart and kidney disease.
Three thousand people attended her service, including Robert Thomas
A few days after her funeral, John Smuts followed his wife's final wish and sprinkled her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean. He died in Boston of a heart attack a few months later, on January 11, 1939

INFO FROM WIKI


NOTES
Mrs. Putnam Bradlee Strong, formerly May Yohe, a London music hall singer, has been granted a divorce at Oregon City, Ore., on the ground of desertion, from Capt. P.B. Strong of New York.
The Laurel Chronicle, Laurel Mississippi May 27, 1910



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