Part 3 – The Arduous Life of a Senator
by Francisco A. Rios
Using letterhead stationery of the United States Senate for the envelope and his letter, Horace Tabor wrote to Lizzie McCourt at Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Feb 20 1883 as follows:
My Darling little girl
I do so want to see you it seems an age since I saw you last It will be so charming when you can be with me all the time the little things you toht me to do is being done all right our session yesterday lasted from 11 am to 2 this morning that was 15 hours and I do not like very the office of Senator but the honors are great they are next to President your old friend Senator Sawyer is very pleasant. I have a dinner party of Senators next Saturday night. I want you to love me and help me carry out my wishes. That is to have you all the time. I love you more than all the world and I am so glad that we met What if we had never met this world would have been a blank to me and I think it would have been lonely to you give my love to all and come to me as soon as you agreed to for you must be mine in every sense of the word When I go you go and when I stay you stay love me love me all your warm heart can love love love Kiss
HAWTabor
Horace’s early letters to Lizzie are exuberant, expansive and naively passionate. Given his love for Lizzie, we can forgive his boyish enthusiasm and his rush of words, his brusque transitions, and his spelling and punctuation, the least of his concerns. Three days later, on the 23rd, his letter to Lizzie reads:
My darling
Everything is working all right. I have quite a grand dinner tomorrow night in fact the best the best that has been held here for a long time and I do not know that it has ever been excelled. I have to it the President, Senators Sherman Merrill and a lot of the best there will be 20 altogether… The room will be hung luxuriantly with flowers and will be lovely I shall write you no more for you will not get it for you will start tuesday night I presume by the Limited on the Penna route that will get you here Wednesday night and I shall meet you at the train You must wire me from Pittsburg or have Pete do it and wire me just before you start. I may write you again tomorrow for I have something fortuitas to tell you. I love you to death and we will be so happy Nothing shall mar our happiness for you are all my very very own and I am yours from hair to toes and back again. We are at the present time having quite a time in the Senate there is not a quorum and there is lots of filibustering it is 8-15 pm and we may stay all night but probably not… Write me all the news that is how you are getting along I love you I love you Kiss Kiss for ever and ever love love love love love Kiss Kiss love love love love love Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss
Imagine the scene in the chamber of the United States Senate: calls for absent senators, in hopes of reaching a quorum, the endless filibustering—and Senator Tabor writing feverishly love love Kiss Kiss over and over again. He did tell Lizzie once that he thought he was “doing good for silver” in Washington, but we can see from his letters that what he really enjoyed was being at the center of power.
Now, that dinner. Unfortunately, Horace wrote in ink on both sides of four pages, so that the ink shows through from one page to another. Then, instead of using a fifth page, he writes up the margins and above the Senate letterhead, all of which makes this letter extremely difficult to read; some words and phrases are illegible. Lizzie is now in Chicago, on her way to Washington. Horace writes on Feb 24 1883:
Darling I have had the crowning event of my life politically tonight a grand Grand Dinner attended by the President of the United States and the notable men of both the senate and the house and a grand grand dinner I had the room so decorated with flowers that it perfumed it… other engagements perhaps he had but I tell you he will kick himself when he knows I have had the grand banquet that I have Now comes the crowning event of my life domestically and that is my marriage to the woman I love and love to death Oh babe you are all mine mine forever and what joy it is. It seems almost as if it is to much happiness for mortals but it belongs to us we give ourselves to one another and whose business is it we do not rob anybody of anything that belongs to them we are… have full right to love and give ourselves to the one we love and do that we will and the last day of our lives and after death we will love each other in spirit you me will certainly love in spirit oh glorious the thought. You say you will be happy to go when I go and come when I come well that shall be I got your letter just now of the 23 I think… I will have all ready and love you more than ever and will always do so you must love me or I perish and I do so well know that you do My wife My Wife Kiss Kiss The old critter is in California… come by the Pennsylvania route no change cars to Washington and wire me when you start I meet you at Depot in ____burgh or rather the morning of the 25th it being one oclock
Who is the “old critter” in California in 1883? Perhaps, having just written “My Wife My Wife,” Horace thinks involuntarily of Augusta. Who knows? What we do know is that Augusta was living in Pasadena at the time of her death in 1895. The phrase is ungenerous on Horace’s part, but then he is feeling giddy with anticipation. And who can blame him? In a few days, he will marry the love of his life.
Dr. Francisco A. Rios is a Colorado native who taught Spanish literature, culture, civilization and language for 30 years at the University of Colorado at Denver. He was also Chairman of the Dept. of Modern Languages for ten of those years. He is now a volunteer for the Colorado History Museum and for the Denver Police Department.
