Even though Miss Henderson had a lot of male friends, no one
apparently noticed that she may have been interested in one
particular individual. She was a very private person in matters like
this, so only her sisters and her friend Travers knew that she
entertained any thought of getting married. "Not a living soul in
this town knows we ever thought of matrimony, and never would from
me," she said in a letter to Travers on November 14, 1919.14
She made some wedding preparations but she and her husband-to-be
never set a date. She did bake a wedding cake at the same time that
Mrs. Ash was baking her own wedding cake. "Mrs. Ash knows but is as
close as the grave," she confessed. She ordered a blue
silvertone-coloured suit from Simpson's for $39.98 and asked her
sister Jean, who lived in Kelowna, to get her a pink Georgette
blouse. "When I do take the plunge there will be no wedding, just go
to the preacher's and get tied. I bought $150 victory bonds to-day.
I'll have $400 altogether. Not bad, eh?"15 Her husband-to-be
(identified only as Jack H.S.) got the license and bought two rings
when he was in Edmonton.
In spite of all these preparations, arguments apparently occurred
between them and the wedding plans were cancelled. "I forgot what
was said and done," she confessed afterwards. "Anyway my suit went
back to Simpsons to-day. God help us what a mercy you didn't know
the brute's last name. I'd have died in my tracks if such a letter
had ever come through the post office here. Lord, what a narrow
escape. It makes me shiver. Not a living soul in this town knows we
ever thought of matrimony and never would from me That is largely
the reason I am determined to go out of town."16
Once returned from a holiday trip to Edmonton, the teacher seemed to
accept the fact that her marriage plans had collapsed. "Believe me,"
she said in a letter to Travers, "I see now everything was all for
the best. I'm more than thankful that we did smash up but it hurt at
the time."17
In that same letter, she told Travers that her intended husband had
joined the dramatic club, and " promptly resigned because I didn't
think I was called upon to endure the aggravation of acting with
him. One of his lady friends is in the play. They wouldn't try to
put on the play without I.18 He was peacefully told to stay home and
I am back in the cast... I feel so disgusted that I'd like to get a
thousand miles away from here. There are two dances a week but I've
been to only two since the holidays."19 That incident was her only
near-brush with marriage and she remained single for the rest of her
life.
Not long after the wedding plan crisis, she received much sadder
news when a wire came from Travers stating that their friend Crowe
was missing during a fire at the Lincoln Hotel in Seattle.20 The
telegraph operator and his wife in Spirit River both knew the
Lincoln Hotel and said it was nothing but a fire trap. Both of
Crowe's friends remembered what a heavy sleeper she was, and Travers
always worried about leaving her alone. After receiving Travers'
second wire confirming her death. Miss Henderson sent a prompt letter to her: "For my part I've had no hope since
the first wire. It all seemed like the work of fate. Last letter I
had from Crowe, she told me she felt settled indefinitely in
Seattle, job was just to her liking and she loved hotel life and
also the city. She vowed no more small towns for her ever. Well,
just as she got the things she longed for and felt quite satisfied
her life was cut off." After thinking so much about Crowe who was
the only one to perish in the fire, Miss Henderson's thought was "it
just looks as if it was to be."21
Heritage Community Foundation Presents
