This piece was first posted in 2007. An update is in order with the advent of Downton Abbey and the loose connection of the Leiter family to the characters in the series. Julian Fellows, the writer and director of the series, acknowledged that the American heiress Lady Grantham payed by Elizabeth McGovern and her mother played by Shirley MacLaine were of a type characteristic of Victorian society as recounted in
To Marry an English Lord: Victorian and Edwardian Experience by Gail MacColl, Carol Wallace, which contains copious references to Mary Victoria Leiter. The permanent presence of Levy Z. Leiter in a Washington, DC cemetery has also been the subject of a lcoal interest piece in the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/is-that-a-greenhouse-no-its-a-tomb/2013/01/12/5fd2256e-5b3c-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html
The appearance of the Washington Post piece, and its focus on residence after death, prompted some further research a necessary correction to note that Mary Victoria Leiter's final abode is a Gothic Chapel, not a replica of the Taj Mahal. There is an exquisite Taj Mahal model at Kedleston, probably related to George Curzon's efforts to restore it while Viceroy of India, but perhaps also because of his beloved wife's fascination with it.
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I might have named this piece the "Princess and the Pauper" or "Country Mouse, City Mouse" after one or the other of two memorable yarns from the
Ginn Reader of my elementary school days. As you will soon see, these two remarkable women of the late 18
th and early 19
th century have almost diametrically opposite, but equally dramatic, arcs to their lives and careers.
Evelyn Cameron, the daughter of a wealthy upper middle class English merchant, married an impoverished Scot ornithologist and set out to raise polo ponies in eastern Montana. When that enterprise failed, catastrophically, she turned to photography and the hard work of wresting productive crops from the Badlands of Montana to make ends meet and to care for her hapless husband. She left an astonishing legacy of photographs and a painstakingly detailed account of her life in diaries spanning three decades in Montana, a worthy life well-lived as beautifully recounted in Donna
Lucey's book, Photographing Montana : 1898-1924 The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron and also in the PBS Documentary largely based on the book. Evelyn appears atop one of her favorite horses in a photo of her own composition. In other self-portraits, she appears with an eagle perched on her arm and her perched on a natural arch high above a ravine carved from the desolate landscape.
Mary Victoria
Leiter, the daughter of a fabulously wealthy department store and real estate magnate from Chicago, was reared by her socially ambitious mother to be a stunning debutante in the highest social and political circles of Washington, DC and London. She did, in fact catch the eye of the rising George
Curzon, soon to be Lord
Kedleston and then soon after that Viceroy
Curzon of India with Mary Victoria as his
Vicereine. Levy
Leiter, her father, sealed the terms of the highly successful marriage by transferring enough wealth to
unencumber the heavily debt ridden
Kedleston estate. She appears in the picture in the famous "peacock gown" that she designed especially for the coronation of her husband and herself. The Indian peacock, pictured below, inspired the costume and materials of which it was made.
By this time you should be wondering why these two women should be crowded into the same space, apart from the whims and whimsy of the writer. The answer: they serve as book-ends to a genealogical tale of time and circumstance. Mary
Leiter, like all of the Bell relatives who are following this saga, descends from Johann
Friederich Vogeler and his wife Anna Maria (possibly Julianna), who arrived in Maryland around 1750, received communion as an Evangelical Lutheran at the same time and from the same pastor (
Schwerdtfeger) as Peter and Anthony Bell, most likely in the first organized congregation near what is now known as the
Leitersberg District in Washington County, Maryland. In 1769, Johann Friedrich
Vogeler signed the constitutional articles of St. John's Lutheran Church in
Hagerstown, Maryland though probably not may the Johann
Friederich Vogeler who signed the 1747 constitution, written by Reverend
Muhlenberger, for the
Monocacy congregation near present day Frederick Maryland, where
Schwerdtfeger also served for a time as the pastor.
The
Vogelers had three daughters. Two married
Leiters and the other, Elizabeth, married Peter Bell. The Bells bought land on the Mason-Dixon line where the stone house started by Peter and finished by his oldest son Frederick still stands on a farm still known as Bell's Choice. Peter also became a successful merchant leading up to the Revolutionary War, when he served on the Committee for Observation for the Elizabeth Hundred, then as Captain of a company of Maryland militia in the Pennsylvania Campaign and may have spent the winter of 1777-78 in Valley Forge before succumbing to the rigors of the campaign. His family buried him, and he rests still, where the west wing of the current configuration of St. John's Lutheran Church stands in
Hagerstown, Maryland.
Many of the
Leiters belonged to the same churches, were educated in the same schools and were buried in the same cemeteries as the Bells. Their names appear as witnesses on each others' wills and deeds. The following generations of the
Leiters, like the Bells, moved west. Levi
Leiter did not do well in school and had no inclination toward farming. He struck out on his own and ended up in Chicago. It turned out that he had a knack and a nose for the dry goods business and also a sense for the real estate market.
He co-founded the Field and
Leiter dry goods business which developed into the Marshall Field retail empire. He had a falling out with Field and then devoted his attention to acquiring (and insuring) a lot of Chicago real estate. The famous Chicago fire had little effect on his fortune. The
Leiter family moved to Washington, DC in 1881 and entered the exclusive circle of official society there. They lived for several years in the former home of James G. Blaine near DuPont Circle, about two blocks from where I have practiced law for the last quarter century or so. That residence not being substantial enough to reflect their social status, the
Leiters then built a massive mansion immediately on the socially exclusive DuPont Circle, since replaced by a 200 room hotel.
Mary Victoria
Leiter came out as a debutante in DC. To prepare the way, she learned and, by all accounts, perfected the necessary social skills: dancing, singing, music and art. These she acquired at home from tutors and learned French from her French governess. Mother
Leiter arranged for a Columbia
University professor to teach her history, arithmetic and chemistry. The
Leiters traveled and lived abroad to cultivate her powers of observation and breadth of mental vision at an early age. In the vernacular of the times and class, her poise and finish made her charming to those with mature and brilliant intellect. Her younger sisters did not "finish" quite so well, but Mary's accomplishments, in the end, was a rising tide that lifted all boats.
Mary stood a striking six feet tall with a perfect hourglass figure. She had large grey eyes set in an oval face, glossy chestnut-brown hair drawn back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and delicate hands and feet. She
debuted in DC in the winter of 1888. Most accounts hailed her as an equal in beauty and breeding, and frequently the peer in manner and intellect, of daughters of better known and longer established families in eastern U.S. society. She had
the good fortune to have, as her closest friend, Frances Folsom Cleveland, six years her senior and the wife of the much older President Grover Cleveland. She caught the eye of George
Curzon while he lived in Washington, as he did hers, and she
pursued him relentlessly until they married. Her private letters make no bones about her ambitions.
The U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Thomas F. Bayard, introduced Mary to London Society in 1894. Following a very favorable audience with Queen Victoria, she and her sisters had little difficulty igniting the interest of all available and eligible
suitors, with the exception of the elusive
Curzon, who seemed more deeply engrossed in politics and his scholarly studies. Had it not been for the
desperate economic straits of the
Kedleston estate, the marriage might not have come about. But her uncommon persistence paid dividends eventually.
Mary
Leiter and George
Curzon married on 22 April 1895 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington D.C. Bishop Talbot, with the
assistance of the Rev. Dr.
Mackay Smith, the pastor of the church joined their prodigious talents, apparently because so important event required very heavy clerical lifting.
She played an important role in the reelection of her husband to Parliament that autumn. Many thought that his success had much to do with winning smiles, striking appearance, beauty and the irresistible charm of his wife than to his own speeches. Over the next decade, three daughters were born to them, but she failed (as did he) to produce the male heir so important to the aristocracy at that time.
Queen Victoria made
Curzon Viceroy of India and elevated him to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron
Curzon of
Kedleston in the summer of 1898 at age 39. On December 30 of the same year, they arrived in Bombay, India amid royal salutes and great excitement.
In 1902, Lord
Curzon organized the Delhi
Durbar to celebrate the coronation of King Edward VII, "the grandest pageant in history", which created a tremendous sensation. At the state ball Mary wore an extravagant coronation gown, known as the peacock dress, stitched of gold cloth embroidered with peacock feathers with an emerald in each eye and many precious and semi-precious stones sewn into the fabric. The skirt was trimmed with white roses and the bodice with lace. She glittered with diamonds, pearls and precious stones: a huge diamond necklace and a large broach of diamonds and pearls. She wore a tiara crown with a pearl tipping each of it's high diamond points.
Lord and Lady
Curzon were loudly criticized for the huge expense of this extravagant event and their own personal lifestyle, but their defenders pointed out that no money went out of the country. It all came out of the pockets of the rich and was paid into the hands of the poor. What the government and the native princes and nobles expended in their splendid displays was paid to working people who needed it, and by throwing this large amount into circulation the entire country was benefited. Imelda Marcos made a similar argument to deflect her own extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the
Philippine population.
No
surprise that Lady Curzon was an invaluable commercial agent for the manufacturers of the higher class of fabrics and art objects in India. She made many of them fashionable in Calcutta and other Indian cities and in London, Paris and the capitals of Europe. She placed orders for her friends and strangers. She assisted the silk weavers, embroiderers and other artists to adapt their designs, patterns and fabrics to the requirements of modern fashions. She wore Indian fabrics. She kept several of the best artists in India busy with orders and soon saw the results of her efforts revive skilled arts that were almost forgotten.
She did, however, take her vice-regal duties seriously. Lady
Curzon learned Urdu from the
Mohyal patriarch
Bakhshi Ram
Dass Chhibber. She also helped found and fund a large medical complex, the Lady
Curzon Hospital in Bangalore, now known as
Bowring and Lady
Curzon Hospital. Progressive medical reforms were initiated by English women in India under the leadership of the Marchioness of
Dufferin and Lady
Curzon by supplying women doctors and hospitals for women. A Lady
Curzon Hospital still operates in Bangalore. William Elroy
Curtiss dedicated his book "Modern India": "To Lady
Curzon, An ideal American woman."
After no so long a time in India, the tropical climate, a prolonged near fatal infection following a miscarriage and fertility related surgery eroded her health. She took convalescent trips to England, but failed to improve. When they returned to England after
Curzon's resignation in August 1905, her health continued to fail rapidly. She died July 18, 1906 at home in Westminster, London, 36 years old.
Legend has it that Lady
Curzon, after seeing the
Taj Mahal on a moonlit night, exclaimed in her bewilderment that she was ready to embrace an immediate death if someone promised to erect such a memorial on her grave.
Curzon did so at
Kedleston. [NOTE: It is unclear whether the alabaster model of the Taj Mahal at Kedleston was created for this purpose or for the restoration work that he attempted while Viceroy of India.] He had the reputation, because of his demeanor and condescending attitude, of insufferable arrogance captured and immortalized by the doggerel of his Oxford classmates:
My name is George Nathaniel
Curzon,
I am a most superior person,
My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.
Nevertheless, this privileged, pampered and brilliant son of the Victorian aristocracy fell deeply in love with the finished daughter of a failed farmer turned peddler and land speculator.
Having buried Mary Victoria with her
Taj Mahal, let's turn to her contemporary Evelyn Cameron, 40
th on the
Missoulian Newspaper (as in
Missoula, Montana) list of the 100 most influential people in Montana history. Her biographer, Donna M.
Lucey, summarized her life, borrowing from Evelyn's own aspirations confessed to her diary and the words of a contemporary:
"In her
remote frontier world Evelyn became a respected, almost mythic figure. Yet she saw nothing unusual or noteworthy in her life. Until she died she remained very much the twenty-five-year-old pioneer woman who wrote wistfully in her diary, 'I wish I could lead a life worthy to look back upon. I am far out of the path now.' Her neighbors thought otherwise. Among her papers there is the typescript of an article by an English writer, Marguerite Remington Charter, who had visited Evelyn on a trip through Montana. Charter wrote that 'From the moment we got into Billings, Mont., we were never one whit surprised when whoever we might happen to be talking with would say: 'Oh, be sure to go to the Eve Ranch and see Mrs. Cameron, she is one of the wonders of Montana.' "
What made her one of the wonders of Montana, the big sky treasure state that boasts the most spectacular glaciers in the lower 48, the thermal wonders of Yellowstone, the moonscape
wind scraped Badlands and the isolated valley where the river runs through it? As
Lucey pieces
together the tale from her diary and her photographs, this British woman of privilege who could have followed a path not unlike the career of Mary Victoria
Leiter, fell in love with Montana and went native in her own reserved and independent way.
Evelyn
Jephson Flower, born Aug. 26, 1868, on a rambling British country estate south of London, first came to Montana in 1889 on her honeymoon, a hunting trip with her newlywed husband Ewen Cameron. They met and mingled with a British ex
patriate community of romantic adventurers, some of whom thought they would strike it rich on the open range as cattle
barons or breeders of horses, then return in their wealth and glory to their homes in England.
Her husband Ewen, a naturalist and something of a scholar, found much to observe and describe among the prairie bird species. He wrote several pieces over the years for the ornithological journal The Auk. With uncanny skill and nerve, Evelyn photographed many of these birds, including nesting eagles, in their natural habitats and without a telescopic
lens. They returned to Montana within a year of the honeymoon trip with plans to take up ranching, horse raising and bird watching. Given his temperament and fragile health, Ewen succeeded with his birds and left everything else to Evelyn.
After two attempts at other ranches, one a
catastrophic failure to breed and break polo ponies for the British market, they eventually settled in 1893 on a ranch they christened the Eve Ranch, for Evelyn, six miles south of Terry. To help make ends meet, Evelyn took in boarders, sold vegetables that she raised, and cooked for roundup crews. And, with a mail-order 5x7
Graflex, she taught herself photography. She began taking photographs of her neighbors and the wildlife near the ranch. She photographed cowboys, sheepherders, farm wives, homesteaders and the tough sheep-shearing crews who worked near Terry's railroad tracks. These people were the subjects of her photography, and she generally arranged them within the backdrop of the vast and empty spaces, as though she were using them for accents in a giant sized and barren English garden. The people, except for her British friends and her self-conscious self-portraits, generally feel remote from the viewer on the other side of the lens.
She did, however, fully adopt and thrive on the hard-scrabble work ethic necessary to survival on the edge off the Badlands. Her weathered looks eventually made her
indistinguishable in appearance (if not in speech and learning) from her subjects. "Manual labor is about all I care about," she once wrote. "I like to break colts, brand calves, cut down trees, ride and work in the garden." Ewen and her sometime boarders did little in this vein, much to her annoyance and aggravation.
Lucey portrays her, and Evelyn no doubt saw herself, as distinctly self-sufficient and at odds with conventional Victorian attitudes toward the role of women. She did, for example, refuse to ride side-saddle and introduced the split skirt which apparently caused some commotion among the citizens of Miles City. She also prided herself on her swimming ability, venturing to cross the Yellowstone in current when many of the cowboys and others feared to do so.
My sense is that Evelyn's self-sufficiency was widely admired among the
XIT cowboys and the German-Russian farming community, two groups with which she shared her attitudes and work ethic.
There may have been some division of labor among the men and women in the farming community; they did, after all, average about 10 children per family, and none, so far as I know were birthed by men. Most woman, on the other hand, could and did handle a plow team, cut a cord of wood, plant and harvest a very large garden and ride a horse (though few, I expect, had ever seen a side saddle). The families worked, for the most part, on implicit and explicit assumptions of a partnership between equals, a practical necessity for scratching out a living in dry land farming.
It is tempting, but wrong, to dwell too much on facile contrasts between these two fin de siecle Victorian women, viewing Leiter as the last vestige of the bird in the gilded cage and Cameron as the pioneer, literally and figuratively, of the modern woman. Both received the benefits, albeit for different ends, of a classic liberal arts education, and both had the mental faculties to benefit greatly from it and both were highly successful in adapting it to their unique circumstances.
In the next few stories we will see how Victorian aspirations and pioneer character merged in the woman from whom the Guelffs, Bells, Siegles and Holzworths descended. I wager the reader will see shadows of Cameron's character as well as a Leiter side in all of them.
