Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2018 - 111

A life in letters
If Fox was devastated by the divorce
he didn't show it, at least not in letters
home. By March 9, 1914, in correspondence penned on stationary from Melton
Mowbray, England, Fox was in high spirits, noting that his travel abroad plans included a visit to the theatre, a stop in Paris
and dinner with the Duke and Duchess
of Sutherland: "Personally I feel like a
king and am having the very time of my
life," he wrote. (Earlier in his career, Fox
had traveled to Cuba as a correspondent
covering the Spanish-American War for
Harper's and to Japan, covering the RussoJapanese War for Scribner's. But his postdivorce trip was his first opportunity to
experience Europe.)
The final years of Fox's life were spent
in Big Stone Gap, where he wrote and
published two more books-"The Heart
of the Hills" (1913) and "In Happy Valley" (1917)-and worked on a third, "Erskine Dale: Pioneer," which was published

Struck by the talent he saw in
Fox's prose, future president
Theodore Roosevelt wrote to
him on June 4, 1894, as "a fellow
Harvard man."
posthumously in 1920. He died on July 8,
1919, at age 56, from pneumonia.
In its obituary, The New York Times reported that Fox had once been asked how
he came to know the mountaineers about
whom he wrote. His reply seemed to express his feeling that he'd lived among
them-and in a certain sense, become
one himself.
Fox's sister, Elizabeth Fox Moore,
wrote that upon his death, a page of manuscript for "Erskine Dale" was still in his
typewriter. On it were the last words Fox
is believed to have written: "'It is well,' he
repeated and wearily his eyes closed. And
thus Erskine knew it would be."

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

for days at a time, never telling [Scheff]
where he was going nor when he would
return," York writes. But biographer Warren Titus seems to place the blame more
squarely on Scheff's shoulders, asserting
that "Fritzi was too wedded to her career
really to take marriage seriously."
Either way, by early 1913, the ill-fated
union had run its course, and Scheff filed
for divorce. The New York Times noted in
announcing the split that "Rumors that
Mrs. Fox and her husband had not found
their lives suited to each other . . . have
long been current." (Scheff would go on
to wed for a third time later that same
year. Her final marriage-to George Anderson, a co-star-also ultimately ended
in divorce.)
Following her divorce from Fox, Scheff
faced financial turmoil. In a letter that's
been dated to Aug. 1, 1913 by University of Kentucky library archivists, Fox
wrote home to warn his mother: "Sam
[last name unclear] has just written to me
that Fritzi is going into bankruptcy and
that she is going down to Big Stone Gap
to look after her interests there! I think
she must be mad. I am writing Sam to
dissuade her and that you and Minnie
should probably leave town to avoid the
torture of being there when she comes."

Fritzi Scheff's fame was such that The New York Times ran seven articles during the years
between 1901 and 1910 about her penchant for fainting on stage.

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