The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-09-08
REGlNA'S ROMANCE.
FROM BAREFOOT GIRL TO MILLION
AIRES WIDOW.

Her Miner Husband, Who Fell I'm
Love with Her a Little More Than
n Year Ago, When She Was Penni-
less, Is KiIled-Leaves the Young
Widow a Fortune of $1,000 900.
From the New York World.
A little more than a year ago Re-
gina Neville was a barefoot girl of the
mountains without a penny to her
name. To-day she is the widow of the
Croesus of Cripple Creek with a for
tune of $1o.Ooo.oOo.
ITO what use will she put her gold?"
is being asked by those who know the
young widows inexperience. OF society
and all its distractions, of the count
less expensive amusements of the mil
ilopaires of the East, this simple
young girl has had no taste, no knowl-
edge. With mines she is all too IA
miliar. With the products Of them
but all that lies before her. At IS, a
widow and with ten millions, the girl
knows but the first page of the book
of life.
All over the West they are telling
and retelling this story of Regina Ne
vile, whom the millionaire miner Sam
uel Strong loved as he first saw her,
a girl of 16. trudging along the noun
tainside, whom he wooed eagerly and
proudly won for his bride. and whom
he continued to love SO well that when
he fearlessly went to his death, not SO
many days ago, 1T was for the sake or
this same 18-year-old Regina.
For it was in defending his wife's
father, J. B. Neville, that Sam Strong,
who had escaped unscathed from hum
dreds of more dangerous and sensa-
tional adventures, incurred the wound
that killed him. Neville is alive and
unframed, but his daughter, now one
of the richest women in the West,
mourns, inconsolable, for the man who
died shielding him. The grief OF wild
owhood is yet too strong for Regina
Strong to have realized the power that
her dead husbands millions give her.
sam StrOng's Career.
There is hardly q man west OF the
Mississippi who could not tell you, and
tell with gusto, the long series OF vivid
and startling chapters that make up
the story of Sam Strong's career. Few
men, even in the adventurous country
where he lived. can boast biography
so rich in incident, and the miner-mil-
| lionaire was widely known. But the
| chapter that is oftenest talked of ana
| longest dwelt on is that of his roman
| tic marriage with pretty Regina Ne
| vile, who lacked several years of be-
| ing half his age. Even now, when sam
| Strong lies in his grave, killed by
| bullet from Grant Crumley's pistol, his
death is probably less regretted than
his young widows grief at losing him.
From which you will see that Mrs.
Regina Strong is held as something OF
a heroine in Colorado.
From the famous bonanza Strong
mine at Victor, Col. came the greater
part of Sam Strong's millions. The
mine was his own discovery, and was
the browning good fortune of his life
with the exception, of course, of Regina
Neville, who happened, by a curious CO.
| incidence, to live within stones
| throw of the mine.
The Nevilles were a poor family
whom persistent ill-fortune had driven
West from Connecticut to the gold
country. Once settled in Colorado, how
| ever, they were poorer than ever. The
secret of striking gold eluded John
| Neville, who grubbed patiently on.
| while mis- family lived in an insecure
little log cabin at Altman. Fortunately,
| it was small family, consisting only
| of the parents, a young son and Re-
| gina, few years older. Even at fifteen
/
| tive, brilliantly brunette in coloring,
was known throughout all the Cripple
| Creek section as a beauty. There was
| not a miner who would not take the
longest route to his work If he could
| get glimpse of Regina Neville on the
| way. The shy. quiet girl was as I'M
conscious of this alteration as of her
own beauty. She had never dreamed
of having a sweetheart. Her only
- he. Sx.kA
rupted schooling. The mountaineer's
daughter had ambition.
Love at First Sight.
One day the owner of the Strong
mine was making his lonely way from
Midway to the Free Coinage mine. On
the trail he met a sixteen-year- girl
in a shabby short dress, barefooted
and carrying a bundle of books under
her arm. These details Samuel Strong
passed over. What he saw was that
the girl had sweet,
merry face. with long-lash-
cd brown eyes, and that her heavy
brown hair rippled brightly down from
her bare head over her modestly COW
cred neck and shoulders. Samuel
Strong did not know that this was Re-
gina Neville. the prettiest girl in the
mountains, whose father was a poor
miner and whose home was in log
cabin. But he looked at her long and
hard till she had passed from sight
You might have thought her only a
winsome, gay-hearted child. Samuel
Strong saw in her a woman and his
bride. He loved heroine look had told
him that-and he owned ten millions.
Should he admit the possibility of OBJ
stacle?
IT fell in love with her then and
there" he told his friends afterward,
land made up my mind to make her
my wife. Ever since then she has been,
God bless her, the one woman in the
world! Till I saw her skipping along
the mountain trail that day my own
life, with all my millions, had seemed
a useless thing enough. But in that
moment I knew why 1 had lived. A
man doesn't hunt gold all his life for
nothing. His eyes get sharpened, and
by the time he is forty-one years old,
as / am, there's not much precious
metal can escape him. You see, 1t
didn't take a twinkling for me to tell
the difference between Regina and
every other woman that ever lived.
That's because I've done so much hunt
ing for gold"
The millionaire was, indeed, as you
may see, very much in earnest, So
much that he went the next day to the
little log cabin where the Nevilies lived
and told John Neville. with no more
circumlocution than miners ordinarily
use, that he wanted to marry his
donoI,tar There wos mot much Of an