Detroit evening times., 1945-11-11

beauty. Sickes, more and more pre-occupied with
politics The Hill, was less and less at home
and Theresa more and more lonely
Key courted Theresa with all his skill and lack
OF Inhibition. Soon all of Capital society buzzed
with gossip of the KeySickles affair, with Daniel
Sickes himself the only person in Washington, ap
parently who was unaware of the situation.
But Washington gossips, then now, were IN
able to let well enough alone Finally an anonymous
letter informed the New Yl.k Congressman that
his lovely wife was secretly meeting KEY every
day in house Key had leased as rendezvous.
INCREDULOUS at first. Sickles soon confirmed the
truth and forced Theresa 10 write confession Of
her affair Then, armed with shotgun, the in
furiated Sickles prowed the streets of Washington
Sunday, Feb. "a, 1859, until he got Key in the
sights of his weapon and killed him.
The ensuing scandal rocked both political and
social circles. Public sympathy with the out
ragged husband who, in court, testified that he had
shot his rival because he polluted my Wife He
was acquitted of the charge OF murder when Their
esa's own confession was read 10 the jury.
Theresa stunned by the tragedy was expert.
encing WomanS lnhumanity TO woman. The girl
who had once been the belle Of London Washington
and New York, found herself Stunned.
Not q friend came to her defense-only lover
and that lover her husband! For Dan Sickes
stunned Society by taking her back.
But within a matter of months, Sickcs was
gone from Theresa's side, this time 10 fight the
Union side in the Civil War. The fiery man rose
to be not only a general but hero and a military
credit TO his country. At Gettysburg, he lost leg
The war finally concluded, Sickles came back
TO his family mansion on lower Fifth Avenue 10
kill -s-y merely took longer to dispatch Theresa
FC~ no leper ostraciZed more harshly
than Society ostraCzed Theresa In the years while
her hucband had been at the '"arS, the outCast
Theresa had brooded in her lonely home 50 long
that illness and death claimed her at 81.
THIS Is the logical end of the Sickles tragedy
But logic had little part in the Sickles family his
tory Laura, the only daughter Of Daniel and
Theresa Sickles a beauty and a madcap who
became estranged from her father. She spent
$4,000 inheritance from the Sickles grandfather
in rio:ous living and died literally in the gutter
BY this time SicEles the American AmbaS
sador TO Spain. There ne married Spanish woman
much younger than himself. But the happiness
that should have crowned his old age went glin-
mering when his term Ambassador was over
His Spanish wife refused TO TO America.
SCklcs returned TO the lonely mansion in lower
Fifth Avenue where his first wife had died. He
installed an attractive secretary in the house. Soon
the second h.,s. .oc<les in Spain accusing her
husband of infdelity.
Finally, in the spring of 1914 when Sickles
more than 80 years Old and it was obvious
that final illness was closing in upon him, his
Spanish wife persuaded TO come 10 Ne York
At last, after tumutuous career, Dan Sickles
died in 1914 just New York Society was bocom-
ing acquainted with beautiful Blanca de Saules
who-in another three years-was 10 stun Society
with the tragedy of killing, even Sici1es had
done almost % years earlier.
Next weeks article will tell of women squander.
ing fortunes attempting to crash SOcietys portals.