Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-06-23
ROMANCE OF THE OIL KING
Refused Rockefeller when MaEnate
Proposed, and woman is Now
Dying n Pauper.

Inc hands OF my CLOCK are at hVe min
utes to u and can hear in anticipation
Of their imminent coming. the strokes as
they will ring out my life"
So says Miss Mary Gegora Barbeaux the
most remarkable patient the Los Angeles
County hospital has had in years. for this
aged woman, with the face of an aristocrat
and the brow Of a seeress might be moving
a queen among the elect. yet she has chosen
life than which there could be none more
humble and obscure.
II was just year ago that Miss Bar
beaux came into public notice in a fashion
somewhat startling and emphasized the be-
lief long prevalent at the hospital that hers
was a strange and almost unaccountable
personality.
Nurses had known up to that time that
Miss Barbeaux was a vassar graduate and
that her rearing had been that OF rich
young woman who had had. besides, the ad-
vantages OF breeding and social prestige.
But there was long hiatus in her history
which they could not bridge. and it was
never known how she came to be ward
OF a county poor farm. Her removal to the
hospital was. of course. a natural step when
she became too III to stay at the farm.
When letter was received by Miss Bar
beaux from a firm in Albany n. Y, law
yers something over year ago notifying
her, she said. that retired sea captain
uncle had died, leaving her his entire for
tune OF $4,000 the speculation about the
old woman's past was renewed tenfold.
Yet more startling than this proffered ele
walton of a pauper, though she was the
Queen of the Wards" to great and in
slant wealth was her own attitude
81 will not accept the fortune" she said,
-
Two other letters came from the lawyers.
but her position was not changed, and she
wrote refusing TO be considered as an heir.
She burned the letters, and would not even
give the curious the satisfaction OF know
ing where they might get further informa-
ton about the great inheritance. For
months Miss Barbeaux received letters
from all parts of the United States and
from many foreign countries until they
numbered into the hundreds. Most of these
solicited gifts, donations for institutions
and requests OF divers kinds
II came out at that time also, through
the admission made by her. that Miss Bar
beaux had been intimately acquainted with
John d. Rockefeller in the years OF her
young womanhood and had received pro-
posal OF marriage from the future Standard
oil magnate. 3D.
The letters have ceased, the memories OF
her petted girlhood, Of wealth, homage and
sordid deprivations have gone from the
aged woman's mind and she is waiting for
the veil over the future to be torn asunder.
IT am dying" says this woman Of the
high arched brow and silver hair, but even
at the approach Of death Mary Barbeaux
is not as others, for she holds strange no
tions not only of life, but Of the career
in death" of the human family.
People wonder about the future" she
says. ITO me 1t seems simple, though I
may seem simple to voice my belief I
wondered when was younger why the Al
mighty had peopled His universe with such
multitude of worlds. The old idea was
that they were to furnish us with light,
but my mind, going out and still on and
on into space, could imagine worlds so far
that infnitude alone represents their re-
moval from US No, that is a foolish,
child's notion. They are covered with peo-
pie, as our little world is, and I believe
that shall leave soon for one OF them
l am not a theosophist, but / am con-
WINGED that we go from one world or planet
to another, and that each finds our state
better than the last. But il is not the
nirvana Of the Buddhists we finally attain.
II Is the world that finds us filtered OF all
sin-it may be Mars or Neptune or some
other invisible and inconceivably distant
globe at the furthest rim of space. And
this earth Of ours is the beginning of our
existence, believe, for the kind God would
not permit greater suffering than falls 70
His children here. Los Angeles E,x,ro
liner.