A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [24]
Less than a year had passed when Maria was faced with what must have been the hardest choice of her life.
It so happened that a dry-goods store was opening in Buffalo, and through a Halpin family friend who was cofinancing the new venture, Maria was offered a sales position. Getting in on the ground floor of a good business was a once-in-a-lifetime prospect, a rare entrepreneurial opportunity for a woman in the 19th century. But it meant quitting her job at the Iron Palace, leaving her in-laws, and moving to another city.
In 1871, Maria found herself on the train to Buffalo with but one of her children—little Freddie. She’d left her daughter behind with the Halpins in Jersey City, thinking that Ada would be happier staying with her grandparents until things got settled. The reality was that without a family support structure in place in Buffalo, Maria would have found it impossible to work full-time and take care of two little ones. Her quandary was not unlike that of any 21st-century woman struggling with the challenges posed by single motherhood.
Maria and Freddie arrived in Buffalo like all newcomers to a strange city, a little awed and probably a touch terrified. The first order of business was finding a place to live. One of the best boardinghouses in the city was run by Mrs. J. C. Randall, at 39 Swan Street. Mark Twain, under his birth name, Samuel Clemens, had lived there in 1869 when he served as an editor of the Buffalo Express newspaper, whose office was conveniently located down the street at 14 East Swan. Maria found Mrs. Randall’s rooming house to be clean and respectable, and a chief benefit was the neighborhood. Next door stood the magnificent St. John’s Episcopal Church, the third oldest Episcopal congregation in Buffalo, cofounded by the businessman William Fargo. Maria joined the St. John’s community and was soon mingling with the finest and most prominent families in the city’s Protestant establishment.
Maria struck anyone who encountered her in 1871 as someone special. One of her neighbors, Mrs. William Baker, took note of her “remarkable beauty and rare accomplishments,” adding that she was, “beyond suspicion.” Maria’s knowledge of French gave her an exotic air of sophistication that certain men in Buffalo apparently found enticing. Later, her fluency in the language would come back to haunt her in the court of public opinion.
Of those early days in Buffalo Maria would later say that her personal character was “pure and spotless.” Mrs. Baker was awed by Maria’s special gifts. She could talk to the most educated man or woman in Buffalo and come across as clever, but genuine. She was a born saleswoman. Pushed to say something provocative about her, Mrs. Baker finally acknowledged that her friend was deficient in one quarter—she was a “bad housekeeper.”
When Maria came to live in Buffalo, even though her period of deep mourning for her husband, with its rigid requirements, had passed, she was still wearing widow’s black. She now entered the next stipulated stage of widowhood—half mourning; that meant she was no longer wearing a veil. Nor was she limited to wearing all black; patterned fabrics and dark colors such as gray, mauve, violet, and lavender were permissible, as long as black was included.
In the early 1870s when Maria moved to Buffalo, it was a city of contrasts