The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-01-02

attention of the A> |
whole nation A------aSsaEn
and of Presi- Mrs. Adna r. ChatTee
dent Mckinley
especially was called to the brave fight
er. After that affair was over his pro-
motion to a major generalship in the
regular army and his appointment as
military governor of the Philippines in
1901 could hardly help putting a differ
ent face on the social phase of life for
his devoted wife.
She is a lady adapted to shine in So
eiety. For nearly thirty years she has
tramped up and down the earth as the
wife of a soldier, and all that while she
was learning things. Her maiden name
was Annie Frances Rockwell, and in
1875 at Junction City, Kan, she was
married to Captain Adna Romanza
Chaffee of the Sixth United States cav
airy. A fact not generally known is
that her father. George Rockwell, was
captain of the citizens league which
drove the Mormons out of Nauvoo and
Illinois.
A year after Mrs. Chaffee's marriage
her husband was ordered to a lonely
post in Arizona. The young wife gath
cred up her belongings and jOurneyed
with her husband across the desert in
an army wagon to the lonely Arizona
post. There was no railroad in those
days, and the Great American desert
was still a region haunted by terrors
known and unknown. Amid cactus and
sage growths, shifting sands, blistering
heat and treacherous savages young
Mrs. Chaffee passed the next five years
of her life. That was one experience.
For twenty years there was no
change except that of moving from
one army camp to another in the In
dian regions, now north, now east. then
west-wherever the fighting husband
was ordered. Meantime that doughty
fighter was promoted to be major of
the Ninth cavalry in 1888, then in 1897
lieutenant colonel, and finally by 1899
he had been raised to a colonelcy in
the regular army, though by that time
he was a brigadier general in the vol
unteer army which went to Cuba for
the Spanish American war.
To Cuba went with him Mrs. Chaffee,
gathering there, as always, experience
and curios. Mrs. Chaffee. besides her
admirable domestic and social quali-
ties, is a curio collector. Meantime
three children had been born to the
wife who had wandered up and down
the Union with her husband wherever
there were Indians for him to set in
order and keep so. officers wives who
have any life and spirit in them testify
that this life in camp is not SO bad,
and many look back to it as to their
pleasantest remembrance. Moving?
That is not so hard. One day you will
be quietly settled in your tent home.
they say, expecting no change. Then
suddenly the order comes to go some
where else, and, like a gypsy camp,
the whole detachment moves on. Or
derlies come and take down the tent
house in less than no time. The whole
kit, pots, pans, blankets, babies and
boxes are loaded into great army wag
ons.
The mule tramp is heard in the gray
morning air
Away rides the gypsy, but who can tell
where?
So it was with the American officers
wife who a generation ago went with
her husband out on the Indian from
tier. Arrived at the destination, it does
not take the handy orderlies more than
an hour to set up the tent house again
all ready for occupancy, and there you
are!
After the war in Cuba and after Gen
eral Chaffee had recovered from the
wound he received at Santiago the
Boxer war suddenly blazed out in Chi
ma, and there Chaffee was sent. There,
! for the first time since she had been
his WIFE Mrs. Chaffee did not accom-
pany him. Instead she went to quiet
Connecticut town with her three chill
dren to await results. After China the
Philippines, 1901, and now once more
his faithful wife packed her kit and
went with him. Near Yokohama the
| disturbed Pacific caught their vessel
! in typhoon, which drove ships boat
| clean through the side of their deck
cabin and came near being the end
then and there of this brave couple.
They escaped, however, and General
and Mrs. Chaffee remained in the Phil
! ippines till the autumn of 1902. Then
| General Chaffee returned to the States
| to take command of the department of
| the east at Governors island. New York,
preparatory to being landed at Wash
| ington, the final Mecca of the hopes of
army officers when the years retire
| them.
Under the new army regulations Ma
| jor General Chaffee becomes chief of
! the military executive staff Jan. 9. He
| has been for some time assistant chief.
And with the dizziness she learned on
long marches Mrs. Chaffee has quickly
| established a beautiful home on Con-
necticut Avenue heights, Washington.
| Here are tastefully arranged the treas
ures she herself has gathered from
many lands well as others various
| friends have brought her. Her parlor
| is a Chinese room adorned with rare
/ hangings and that precious black teak