Movie Kisses Series 5/8/2024 Quigley Down Under #prairierosepubs #moviekisses

Here we are at the fifth installment of my year-long look at The Kiss in historically-set movies.

 Recap of movie kisses so far:

January Kiss –The Phantom of the Opera 

February Kiss – The Princess Bride

March Kiss – The African Queen

April Kiss – Shakespeare in Love

The May movie kiss comes to you from the 1990 movie, Quigley Down Under. The casting is perfect:

Tom Selleck plays the American cowboy who travels to Australia in answer to an ad for a sharpshooter;

Laura San Giacomo plays “Crazy” Cora Cobb, a woman cruelly abandoned when her husband put her on a ship to Australia as punishment for the death of their baby;

and

Alan Rickman as Elliot Marston, the man who advertised for a sharpshooter and who is a nasty bit of goods.

We hope from the moment Quigley comes to Cora’s defense in the first minutes of the movie that they will end up together. We watch their feelings for each other develop during the trials and hardships they share as they survive the hardships of the Australian outback.

We experience a couple of ‘near kiss’ moments. When Quigley rides away from Cora near the end of the movie then stops and looks back at her, our hearts leap into our throats and our eyes mist over. We know he loves her, because he stops to look back. She knows it, too.

The business with Marston is unfinished, and both Quigley and Cora know he has to face down Marston, which is why Quigley leaves Cora behind. Right now, we’re a little nervous that they (and us) will be cheated out of their kiss.

But not to worry. They are reunited at the ship that will take them back to America. The kiss we’ve waited for doesn’t disappoint. It’s a happy, feel good moment, and we can’t stop smiling.

 See you next month for more kisses from the big screen.

www.kayespencer.com

The Texas Embassy

The Texas Embassy

C.A Asbrey 

A small plaque in an alley in London declares that the Republic of Texas had a small embassy over a wine shop in London from 1842 to 1845. It's at the entrance a small alley in Pickering Place off St. James’s Street and reminds us, that for a very short time, The Republic of Texas (declared in 1836) quickly tried to establish international relations. A number of Texas Legations were established in Washington, D.C., London, and Paris in 1836. The Paris Embassy is in The Place Vendôme in the 1st arrondissement, and is known as Hôtel Bataille de Francès. 

These diplomatic missions were designed to promote the new republic, but the one in London is notable due to a few quirks in the tale. 

Even at the time of opening, the Texas Embassy in London was above a wine merchant's premises in London. It's still there today, having opened over three hundred years ago on land where Henry VIII used to enjoy hunting parties with Anne Boleyn. Patrons to Berry Bros and Rudd included Lord Byron, and it was on their scales that he unveiled his famous weight loss after dieting, having gone from thirteen stone twelve pounds in boots, hat, and all his clothes (194lbs) to ten stone (140lbs). The business was founded in 1698 as high-end grocers, but they didn't become wine merchants until the late eighteenth century, with the present premises being built in 1730. Apart from Bryon, famous clients included Beau Brummell, William Pitt the Younger, and the Aga Khan, so you can see that Texas was in a good area. In fact, it is very close to St. James's Palace. 

Under the shop, there are two acres of wine cellars and caves, and the buildings were home to a high end Georgian brothel and gambling den, and the courtyard at the back was previously used for cock-fighting. 

Houston sent Secretary of State Dr. Ashbel Smith to serve as the Texas Legation representative, and Britain welcomed the Texas Legation. Goods were traded and there was even an offer from the UK to help protect the Texan borders from the USA. The then Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, had talks aimed at funding the abolition of slavery in Texas, but Smith informed him that it was "impossible for Texas to accept any sort of a British subsidy for the abolition of slavery without a greater sacrifice of national dignity than she was willing to make.”

That decision has led historians to speculate that it hastened the end of Texan independence, reducing support from European nations, and making it harder to resist annexation. Britain wanted a tactical counterweight to the USA, but there is also little doubt that the Conservative government was reluctant to spend money in areas where they had few political vested interests, and a reluctance to engage with America or Mexico in border disputes. Britain was certainly not squeamish enough about slavery to refuse Texan cotton.

The Texan Embassy closed in 1845, but not before a now-legendary party in which much wine and liquor was consumed. The Texans went home, but left behind a debt of £160 in unpaid rent, a massive £16,198.75 today ($20,330.73). That bill remained unpaid for over a century until Texas’s sesquicentennial year. 26 Texans dressed in Texas buckskin settled the bill with Berry Brothers & Rudd in Republic of Texas bank notes. Berry Brothers & Rudd honoured the relationship by launching a new brand of whiskey named “Tex Leg Bourbon Whiskey.” The visit was arranged by the Anglo-Texan Society, of whom the author Graham Greene was a founding member. The society was founded after Greene and actor-producer John Sutro when they heard some visiting Texans complain about British reserve. It was that society who installed the plaque marking the premises in 1963. It disbanded in 1979.

 

   

Sarah Jane Durkee Anderson

Post (C) Doris McCraw

aka Angela Raines

Photo (C) Doris McCraw
Chapel @ Evergreen Cemetery, Colorado Springs, CO.

Sarah Jane Durkee Anderson was born to St. Louis, Missouri banker Dwight Durkee, and Sarah Jane Davis Durkee in March of 1856. This made her, according to the 1972 book, " Five Hundred First Families of America", by Alexander Du Bin, a person of some importance, in terms of her heritage. 

So far, there is not much to be found about Sarah's early life. She was one of probably four children. She married Dr. Boswell P. Andersonm born around 1845, on January 2, 1879, at the Church of Holy Communion (?), in St. Louis. Her parents were in attendance, and according to the records, helped serve as witnesses. The couple settled in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Dr. Anderson was an early doctor in the region and was instrumental in much of the growth of the medical mecca of the area, including a term as the President of the Colorado Medical Society. He served in the CSA as one of Mosby's raiders in the Civil War and carried a bullet for the rest of his life from that conflict.

As the wife of such a prominent person, Sarah took part in charity events, traveled, and raising three of the couple's surviving six children. She was part of a circle of prominent people in the region.

The below article from the March 30, 1912 issue of the Rocky Mountain News illustrates this point.

Her husband passed on August 29, 1919. Sarah lived another twenty-one years, passing on July 10, 1940, at age eighty-six.

Given her background, she was probably comfortable in the circle of people she associated with. However, one does wonder how she fared with such a prominent husband who, according to stories, drank and partied fairly heavily. We can only infer, for no records of writings exist or have been found so far. As a historian, I can only hope.

One thing is certain, Sarah and her husband worked together along with others in the community leaving the conflict that was the Civil War out of their part in the growing community. The history wasn't hidden, it simply was not the most important part of their community involvement.

For links to past writing on Civil War Veterans and Civil War Wives: 

Esther Walker, Part 2 - Western Fictioneers

Esther Walker - Prairie Rose Publications

Alpheus R. Eastman - Western Fictioneers Blog

Helen Rood Dillon - Prairie Rose Publications Blog

Virginia Strickler - Prairie Rose Publications Blog

Henry C. Davis - Western Fictioneers Blog

Chester H. Dillon - Western Fictioneers Blog

For anyone interested, I have a monthly substack newsletter: Thoughts and Tips on History

Until Next Time: Stay safe, Stay happy, and Stay healthy. 

Doris