Mary Augusta "May" Yohé (April 6, 1866 – 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
The Hope Diamond is a diamond originally extracted in the 17th century from the Kollur Mine in Guntur, India. It is blue in color due to trace amounts of boron. Its exceptional size has revealed new information about the formation of diamonds. ...
. 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
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
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
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, where she died in near poverty.
Early years
Yohé was born in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...
, the daughter of William W. and Elizabeth (''nee'' Batcheller) Yohé. Her father, a veteran of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, 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 descendant of the
Narragansett people
The Narragansett people are an Algonquian American Indian tribe from Rhode Island. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe. They gained federal recognition in 1983.
The tribe was nearly la ...
, was a talented dressmaker, who according to Yohé had a clientele in Philadelphia that included many famous theater people of the day.
["The Strange Case of WPA Clerk Who Owned the Hope Diamond"]
''Life'' magazine, May 23, 1938, p. 39 As a young girl Yohé entertained the Eagle's guests by dancing and singing in the hotel lobby and recounting childhood stories. What became of her father is unclear. In 1878 he applied for a US Passport with plans to travel to Brazil while family lore has him dying in Colorado or Montana around 1885. At around the age of ten, Yohé was sent to Europe for a refined education, studying in Dresden and later at the Convent of the Sacré Coeur in Paris.
Career
![May Yohe 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/May_Yohe_2.jpg)
Yohé began her career as a
soprano, but within a short while her voice lowered into a
contralto
A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type.
The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...
that was described as peculiar.
[''The Daily Inter Ocean'' (Chicago, Illinois), July 4, 1888, Issue 105, col. F] She debuted as May Yohé (May derived from her initials) in January 1886 with the
McCaull Comic Opera Company as Dilly Dimple in "The Little Tycoon," a
comic opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
by Willard Spencer, presented at Temple Theatre in Philadelphia and in March of that year at the Standard Theatre in New York. In March 1887, she appeared in McCaull's
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
production of ''Lorraine'', composed by Rudolph Dellinger to a libretto by Oscar Walther, which was adapted in English by William J. Henderson.
[May Yohe]
at the IBDB Broadway database, accessed September 22, 2011 She then played in the same production at the
Chicago Opera House. In that production, she sang the following song with much success:
[''The Daily Inter Ocean'' (Chicago), July 4, 1887, Issue 102, p. 4, col. A]
:Every Flower that Blooms so Fair
:Every Birdlet that Beats the Air
:Has Heard of thy Beauty Rare
:Thy Beauty Beyond Compare
The song remained popular in the Chicago area for several years.
[ Later in 1887, with McCaull at the Chicago Opera House, she sang "Bid Me Good-By and Go" in the musical comedy ''Natural Gas'' by Henry Grattan Donnelly. Yohé's unique vocal quality attracted the attention of the manager of the Chicago Opera House, and she was engaged to play princess Zal-Am-Boo in Alfred Thompson's extravaganza '' Arabian Nights'', which premiered on June 2, 1887. The following year, she appeared in ''The Crystal Slipper: or Prince Pretliwittz and Little Cinderella'', also at the Chicago Opera House.][ In 1888, on the weekend that preceded the Fourth of July, Yohé travelled to ]Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, Ohio in the company of Edward Shaw, the son of W. W. Shaw, a major stockholder in the Chicago Opera House. She missed at least two performances before returning. Shaw’s young wife filed for divorce a week later.[ She subsequently toured in America and abroad with George Lederer's Players in the farce comedy ''U & I'' and as Celia Cliquot in ''Hoss and Hoss'', both in 1891.
]
In 1893, Yohé made her London debut as Martina in ''The Magic Opal'' by Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albéniz y Pascual (; 29 May 1860 – 18 May 1909) was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor. He is one of the foremost composers of the Post-Romantic era who also had a significant influence on his conte ...
, and the following year she played the title character in the musical ''The Lady Slavey
''The Lady Slavey'' was an 1894 operetta in two acts with a score by John Crook (with contributions by Henry Wood and Letty Lind, among others), to a libretto by George Dance (with additional lyrics by Adrian Ross, among others) which opened a ...
'', composed by Gustave Adolph Kerker, with a book by Sir George Dance, in which she sang “What’s a Poor Girl to Do”. She starred as the title character in the 1894 hit burlesque '' Little Christopher Columbus'', "a great personal success" for her.[Sims, George Robert]
, ''My Life: Sixty years' recollections of Bohemian London''
Eveleigh Nash Company Limited: London, 1917, p. 324 In an interview, Yohé said the music, "had to be specially written for me – crammed so to speak, into my voice’s shrunken circumference." While in London, she became a favorite of the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
(later King Edward VII).[ The next year she played the title role in the ]comic opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
''Dandy Dick Whittington
''Dandy Dick Whittington'' was an opéra bouffe in two acts, written by George Robert Sims and composed by Ivan Caryll, based on the folktale Dick Whittington and His Cat. In this version, Dandy Dick performs in a circus and loves the owners' ...
'', at the Avenue Theatre
The Playhouse Theatre is a West End theatre in the City of Westminster, located in Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square, central London. The Theatre was built by F. H. Fowler and Hill with a seating capacity of 1,200. It was rebuilt i ...
, written by George Robert Sims
George Robert Sims (2 September 1847 – 4 September 1922) was an English journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist and ''bon vivant''.
Sims began writing lively humour and satiric pieces for ''Fun'' magazine and ''The Referee'', but he was soon co ...
and composed by Ivan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin (12 May 1861 – 29 November 1921), better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian-born composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language, who made his career in London and later ...
. Sims noted that Yohé "could be rude o writers, composers and conductorsif she didn't get just what she wanted."[
In 1896, Yohé played the title role in the musical ''The Belle of Cairo'' at the ]Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
in London. She later returned twice to Broadway. There she was Lady Muriel Despair in the musical ''The Giddy Throng'' (1900–01) and appeared in the brief revival of the revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own dur ...
'' Mamzelle Champagne'' in 1906.[ That same year at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York, Yohé appeared in ''Mlle. Nitouche'', a piece that she had produced a decade or so earlier at the ]Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
and at the Duke of York's Theatre
The Duke of York's Theatre is a West End theatre in St Martin's Lane, in the City of Westminster, London. It was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte, who retained ownership of the theatre until her death in 1935. Designed by th ...
(then the Trafalgar Square Theatre) in London.
Marriages: 1893–1914
Yohé had three marriages, beginning in 1893.[Yohé's obituary notice]
Milestones, ''Time Magazine'', September 5, 1938, accessed September 21, 2011 The following is transcribed from a 1908 article:
Contemporaneous ''New York Times'' articles, while presenting facts that vary in some details from this account, confirm most of the facts in this article. One notes that Hope settled claims against him by Yohé for $5,000.
Hope and Strong
According to Yohé, she was introduced to Francis Hope at Delmonico's
Delmonico's is the name of a series of restaurants that operated in New York City, with the present version located at 56 Beaver Street in the Financial District of Manhattan. The original version was widely recognized as the United States ...
Restaurant in New York before she came to England in the early 1890s.[Gates, p. 83] The couple was often seen together at fashionable night spots around London.[''The Milwaukee Sentinel'', January 13, 1895; p. 4] On March 30, 1894, Burke's Peerage
Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great ...
announced their wedding. The wedding took place on November 27, 1893, at Hampstead Parrish in London. Press reports at the time claimed Hope’s family offered him around £200,000 to call off the engagement. In June 1894, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that Hope had filed for bankruptcy with liabilities amounting to £405,277 and assets of £194,042. At the time of her marriage to Hope, there had been reports in the press implying she had been married twice before: first, in San Francisco to the son of a General Williams, and next in Massachusetts to a local politician.
Yohé met Strong early in 1901 on the last leg of her world trip with Hope. In July of that year, Strong, who had served as Assistant Adjutant General in the Philippines, resigned his commission once it was reported in the press that he had been asked to leave by the manager of the California Hotel in San Francisco where the couple registered as H. L. Hastings and wife. Later the two sailed to Japan, where they lived for several months in Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...
. The following year, Hope lost a foot to a hunting accident, divorced his wife and again declared bankruptcy. Even though Major Strong had resigned his commission some months earlier, the War Department War Department may refer to:
* War Department (United Kingdom)
* United States Department of War (1789–1947)
See also
* War Office, a former department of the British Government
* Ministry of defence
* Ministry of War
* Ministry of Defence
* D ...
in Washington D.C. announced on March 22, 1902, the same day of Yohé’s divorce, his nomination for promotion to lieutenant colonel by brevet for his service in the Philippines.
In April 1902, they returned to America to live with Yohé’s mother at her residence in Hastings-on-Hudson
Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County located in the southwestern part of the town of Greenburgh in the state of New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, approximately north of midtown Manh ...
. Three months later, Yohé accused Strong of running off with her jewelry worth many thousands of dollars. With the financial assistance of Strong’s family, Yohé later reconciled with “Putty” while both were in Europe. A few months later, once her divorce decree from Hope was made absolute, they married in Buenos Ayres
Buenos Ayres is a town in Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in southwestern Trinidad, north of Erin and southeast of Point Fortin. Buenos Ayres is the hometown of the calypsonian Cro Cro. The Erin Savannas, one of the last remaining natural ...
on October 3, 1902. Strong later joined his wife on the vaudeville stage. In 1905 he declared bankruptcy, even though he and his wife were making $750 a week as entertainers. That December, Yohé filed for divorce, claiming desertion. Strong, who reportedly was living in Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...
after their divorce, died in New York in 1945 at the age of 70. In 1913 the press reported that Yohé and Francis Hope were reconciling. Hope declared the story to be preposterous.
Brief relationships
Yohé married Newton Brown, a New York journalist with theater connections, in April 1907. Their 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
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
miner by the name of Murphy. The child was reportedly born in September 1908, at Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
, 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
A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the " sett ...
set up by Strong’s mother.
About 1910, Yohé purchased a run-down boarding house in Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, Washington, which she ran for a few months before she married musician Frank M. Reynolds in Seattle. Reynolds was the son of an Upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...
college professor, who soon claimed he’d received a letter from his son refuting the story. 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.
Captain John Smuts
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
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
.[ 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
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, 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
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
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 the early 1920s, after auctioning off some valuable possessions and returning from a South American trip, Yohé and her husband toured the vaudeville circuit in the U.S. with an act based on the less-than-successful 1921 movie serial ''The Hope Diamond Mystery
''The Hope Diamond Mystery'' is a 1921 American 15-chapter action film serial directed by Stuart Paton and featuring Grace Darmond, George Chesebro, May Yohe, and Boris Karloff. The screenplay was written by Charles Goddard and John B. Clymer, b ...
'', which she helped write and promote. Later they invested in a California ranch. This venture failed and they soon returned to vaudeville, though this time with less success. They lost the remainder of their savings in a failed farming venture in New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...
. By 1924, the couple had settled in Boston, where John Smuts found work as a janitor.["Captain John Smuts, Veteran of 2 Wars", ''The New York Times'', January 12, 1939, p. 21]["May Yohe, Once Stage Queen, Dies", '' Hartford Courant'', August 29, 1938] 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.
Death
In 1938, Yohé applied for a $16.50-a-week clerical job with the Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(WPA) in Boston. Her husband’s health was failing, and she needed the income for his care. Yohé was turned down because she had given up her U.S. citizenship in the 1890s when she married Francis Hope. She applied to regain her citizenship and several weeks later, in May 1938, was given the job she had applied for.[U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes, 1794–1995, for Mary Augusta Smuts (ancestry.com)] Not long afterward, on August 29, 1938, she died in Boston of heart and kidney disease.[ Three thousand people attended her service, including Robert Thomas.]['']The Lowell Sun
''The Sun'', also known as ''The Lowell Sun'', is a daily newspaper based in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, serving towns in Massachusetts around the Greater Lowell area and beyond. As of 2011, its average daily circulation was about 42,9 ...
'', March 30, 1938, p. 3; ''The Lowell Sun'', August 29, 1938, p. 20; ''The Lowell Sun'', September 1, 1938, pp. 2 and 36 At the time of her death, Yohé’s most prized possession was a large photograph of Edward VII
Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.
The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...
, taken while he was still the Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
, and signed “To May, 1898".[ 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.][
The '' Hartford Courant'', in their obituary, quoted Yohé as follows: "I’ve done pretty nearly everything in my life, except theft and murder, but thank God, whatever I’ve done my heart's been in it."][
]
Notes
See also
*List of entertainers who married titled Britishers This is a list of notable singers, dancers and actors who married titled Britons (nobility and royalty).
:This list includes only those who contracted marriages.
*Anastasia Robinson and the Earl of Peterborough (1724)
* Lavinia Fenton and the Du ...
References
*Adams, William Davenport. ''A Dictionary of the Drama: a Guide to the Plays, Playwrights'', Vol. 1, Chatto & Windus, 1904
*Gates, Henry Leyford.
''The Mystery of the Hope Diamond''
1921
External links
*
"Fascinating Women: May Yohé"
at EdwardianPromenade.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yohe, May
1866 births
1938 deaths
American musical theatre actresses
People from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Music hall performers
Vaudeville performers
American burlesque performers
May
May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days.
May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...
19th-century American actresses
American stage actresses
American vedettes