To call you father don’t seem natural any more, as I feel as if something had come between us.
—Mattie Walkup Hood (1885)
Founded in 1857, the city of Emporia, Kansas, had 12,000 inhabitants in 1885 (today there are 30,000). Located a little over halfway between Wichita and Topeka, and relatively close to Kansas City, it could hardly be considered the Wild West—not like Dodge City or some other Kansas towns. Moreover, it boasted a teachers’ college (today Emporia State University), several newspapers, and a thriving agricultural and commercial center. The Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway ran right through town, giving Emporians access to larger cities. But it wasn’t New Orleans, not by a long shot.
It is not to be supposed that James Reeves Walkup’s family and friends sat idly by while he indulged himself in his courtship of a teenager younger than his youngest child. When he returned in January 1885 from his visit to the Exposition, raving about the charms of the lovely Miss Wallace, his friends humored him for a while but then grew alarmed, as it dawned on them that he was really serious about pursuing this.1
Two men, whose names were never revealed, did what most astute people do today: They did a background check on the Wallaces by going down to New Orleans and asking around. They heard about the Mascot shooting incident and immediately went to that newspaper’s offices to find out whether the Wallaces who were the subject of the fracas were the same ones who lived at 222 Canal Street. Indeed, they were.
These men revealed to the editor that they were in New Orleans to get information that would help discourage a friend of theirs (“an old man with grown children”) from making a terrible mistake because of his infatuation with Minnie. They believed he was being encouraged in this by Minnie’s mother. The Mascot editor sent them to James Wallace for further information.
Sometime later, another man called at the Mascot offices, claiming to be a relative of James Walkup and wanting information on the Wallace family. “The happiness and honor of my family depend on this,” he told them. But in this case, we can surmise who the likeliest “relative” was: Harry Hood, the husband of Walkup’s daughter Mattie.
Henry Platt “Harry” Hood was the son of Major Calvin Hood, the most influential citizen of Emporia. Almost nothing happened of a political or economic nature in which Major Hood (a Civil War veteran who was never referred to as anything but “Major Hood,” usually in tones of awe) was not in some way involved. He had made his fortune primarily in cattle but had also invested successfully in mines, beef contracts, and real estate. In 1885 he was the president of the Emporia National Bank. He loaned money both as a banker and as a private individual, and many there were in Emporia who owed money and favors to Major Hood.2
Mattie Hood was extremely upset at the news that her father wanted to marry the teenager from New Orleans. After the girls’ mother died, Walkup promised her he would not get married again until after Libbie left home. Now he was not only going back on his promise but jeopardizing their inheritance. Why would such a young girl consent to marry a man thirty-two years older than she, and after such a short acquaintance, unless she was after his money? Mattie’s heart broke as she thought of her dead mother, who had worked so hard for James Walkup and probably died as a result of it. She thought her father was being terribly disloyal.3
So the inquirer in New Orleans had to be Harry Hood, and we have further proof of this in Mattie’s scolding letter to her father, in which she reveals something that nobody else ever mentioned: the murder in the Wallace boardinghouse. Only someone on the scene in New Orleans could have dug up that rumor, which may, in fact, refer to the Mascot shooting.
At the time of Walkup’s marriage, Mattie and Harry Hood were on an extended vacation in Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado, so there was no question of their attending the wedding even if they had wanted to (and they clearly did not). But what about Libbie? She had gone down to New Orleans with her father to meet the prospective bride and, from all accounts, was quite taken with her. The two girls went shopping together and seemed to get along famously. And when Minnie went to Emporia to check out the situation there, she and Libbie spent many hours together riding around in Minnie’s new horse and buggy.
But somewhere between that first visit and the wedding, Libbie changed her mind and turned against Minnie, making up an excuse as to why she couldn’t attend the ceremony after all. What happened? Was she astute enough to see through Minnie? Probably not. Libbie appears to have been a naïve girl, overly influenced by her older sister, Mattie. Mattie would have chided her for disloyalty to their mother and told her they had to present a united front against this intruder. In a revealing gesture, Libbie left for Wagon Wheel Gap within a few days of the return of the newlyweds and would not be back to Emporia for three weeks.
In Cincinnati, the wedding party discovered that, since neither Minnie nor James was a resident of Ohio, no marriage could be performed. They went across the river to Covington, Kentucky, found a Methodist minister (after more wrangling on Walkup’s part over which religious denomination would prevail), and—on July 22, 1885—were pronounced man and wife. The bride gave her age as seventeen (she was sixteen), and the groom gave his as forty-four (he would be forty-nine in August).4
There was no honeymoon. While there was some talk of Niagara Falls, no serious effort was made to get there. James Walkup seemed anxious to get back to Emporia: Not only was he acting mayor while Whittlesey was on his own honeymoon, but he couldn’t wait to show off his new trophy wife to his friends. He wired ahead and made sure that everyone knew when they would be arriving.
Minnie was overwhelmed by the reception at the train station in Emporia and at the wedding/welcome party held at the Walkup house for the whole town to meet the new bride. The beer and wine flowed freely, and things got fairly raucous. (Mattie wrote to her father that she had heard “that the night you came home there was a crowd, Tom, Dick, and Harry come up and brought beer and all got drunk; and I don’t know what all.”) As for Minnie, she bragged to her family that it was the biggest party ever seen in Emporia.5
And so Minnie settled into her new life. On the way back to Emporia, on their wedding night, she had complained of a headache (to avoid sex?), but she could not have headaches forever, and her mother, her main support system, had gone back to New Orleans. In spite of the friendly neighbors, she must have felt somewhat frightened and alone. She could see that Libbie was now cold and aloof, and on her way to Colorado, leaving Minnie with James and their nineteen-year-old African American servant, Mary Moss.
Minnie had not been raised to be a housewife. Despite her mother’s needing help around the boardinghouse, the only jobs she seems to have had there were entertaining the guests and being beautiful. She once let it slip to a reporter that she had never learned to do housework, leaving him to wonder why her mother had not prepared her for marriage.6 Two possible answers present themselves, given Minnie’s later history: She was raised to be a courtesan; or she was raised to be the wife of a man with money and servants.
Mary Moss had been hired by James Walkup in May 1885, and there were rumors that she was also his mistress. After Minnie came to live with him, Walkup got angry at Mary and fired her because she had a habit of staying out late at night, usually not returning to the home until 4:00 A.M. (Mary said she was fired because his dinner was late.) But Minnie, no doubt wanting some female companionship and decidedly not wanting to do the housework herself, got her husband to reverse his decision.7
True to his word, James Walkup wanted to follow through on his promises to help Minnie’s family. He kept offering to send money to Mrs. Wallace or to buy her clothing or a house, but both Minnie and her mother claimed these were refused out of pride. He sent $25 to Willie Willis to come to Emporia, which was only $5 less than Willie made in a month at his court job, and the young man—unlike his cousin and his aunt—was not proud: He arrived in Emporia on August 7. Walkup would be sending him to school in the fall, but before then he put him to work in his downtown office as a clerk and errand boy.8
Although Mrs. Wallace would claim otherwise, Willie was undisciplined, irascible, and profane. He did not hesitate to speak his mind, often not thinking it through before he did so. He irreverently referred to James Walkup as “the old man” and bragged that if he himself ever left Emporia, Minnie would, too, married or not. But he seems to have been a good worker, nonetheless, and Walkup often took him when he inspected his various properties.9
As for Walkup’s promise to better Edward Findlay’s lot in life, it can only be said that he did his best, offering him ownership of a grocery store, a coal mine, or a farm. But, while Findlay expressed mild (and unenthusiastic) interest in the coal mine, he turned down the other two: “I’m no farmer and I’m no grocer.”10
And what of Minnie? How was she faring in married life? We know very little behind the scenes except that she said—untruthfully—that her husband was away frequently during that month. Surely, Minnie must have seen the signs of Walkup’s stubborn nature before she married him, signs evident to readers nearly 125 years later. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Despite his generosity, he was crude and overbearing, not at all genteel and refined like the cultured gentlemen of New Orleans. Did she think he would change after the wedding? And there were those reports of his almost insatiable sexual appetite, which might have been exaggerated but almost certainly were at least partially true. All in all, it might have been a lot more than Minnie bargained for, notwithstanding her desire to help her family.
But, in the meantime, Minnie busied herself with what she liked to do best: shop. She was incredibly vain and was constantly looking for ways to present herself to the best advantage, to hear the “oohs” and “ahs” she was so used to in New Orleans. (She even complained to a neighbor that people in Emporia were not as complimentary of her beauty as they had been in New Orleans.)11
The best place to shop in Emporia was G. W. Newman’s Department Store on Commercial Street, the street that ran one block over from and parallel to their home on Merchants Street. James Walkup had an account at Newman’s and Minnie took full advantage of it. In the month of August alone, and only two weeks into it, she had charged $180 worth of clothing and other items, the equivalent of over $4,100 today.12
On August 10, Minnie asked saleswoman Eunice Bartlett how often Walkup paid his bill. Eunice told her the bills were sent out the first of the month. “Has it been sent out for this month yet?” Minnie asked her. When told it had been, she asked if what she purchased that day would not appear on the bill until the following month. When Eunice told her that was correct, Minnie said, “Well, I’ll go ahead and get that piece of silk, after all.” Just a few days after this transaction, she was back at Newman’s to purchase over $100 worth of goods from another saleswoman, Maggie Evans.
Some of these purchases were put in shipping crates and sent to New Orleans: There were cloaks and dresses and scarves and shawls and china cups, among other things. And once, possibly, a cloak or two belonging to the Walkup girls.13
Minnie seemed to want to have things both ways: She wanted to be noticed and praised by her neighbors, but she also wanted to be able to move in privacy when it suited her. Now, this might have been possible in New Orleans, but it was certainly not the case in Emporia. She had no idea that Argus-eyed neighbor women were watching her closely and sending on information to Mattie Hood in Colorado. They were the ones who noticed those big boxes being picked up by Wells Fargo Express for shipping.14
Although James Walkup hadn’t yet received his bill for August, he must have had an inkling that his account at Newman’s was turning into a runaway train. When Minnie tried to get the Wells Fargo Express man to put the latest shipping charges on the Newman’s account, it was the last straw. Walkup took Minnie down to the Express office to see what was going on. The driver, H. V. Brown, told him that he had picked up the box at the Walkup residence and was told by Minnie to take it to Newman’s, get the express charges put on the account, then ship it to St. Louis. Brown took it to the office but did not go to Newman’s for the money.15
Minnie and James left the Wells Fargo office and had a heated exchange on the sidewalk. Several minutes later, Walkup came back in by himself, asked agent James Collard for a hatchet, and opened the box. Collard could see a cloak, a scarf, and a cup, but that was all before Walkup replaced the cover and stalked out. The box sat there for another ten days before Willie Willis came by with the Bill & Walkup Company wagon to take it back to the Wallace home.
For Minnie, this public humiliation may have been the final straw.