On Valentine’s Day in 1881, Charles and Alicia Conrad were newlyweds.

Big events were happening that year as the Victorian Era was winding down. The American Red Cross was founded; the world’s first electric tram went into service in Germany; the United States’ 20th president, James Garfield, was assassinated.

And Charles and Alicia began the year in love. 

They married in Fort Benton on Jan. 4, 1881, not knowing that a decade later they’d be one of the Flathead Valley’s most prominent couples as Charles set about founding Kalispell, or that their Kalispell mansion would one day become a prized Kalispell landmark and museum.

The Rev. C.S. Blackiston presided over what was likely a small, but intimate ceremony at the home of the bride’s mother. It was a Tuesday morning, and 31 degrees below zero that day.

“This did not deter them from starting on the honeymoon they had planned,” author James E. Murphy notes in “Half Interest in a Silver Dollar: The Saga of Charles E. Conrad.” “...they went by sleigh to Helena, an arduous trip in any weather.”

It was a lavish trip that lasted into October, according to the Fort Benton River Press newspaper archives. From Helena the newlyweds went by stagecoach to Odgen in the Utah Territory, then took a train to the East Coast where they visited many major cities before traveling to Halifax, Nova Scotia, so Charles could meet Alicia’s seven stepsisters.

The last leg of the extended trip, which probably mixed Charles’ varied business interests with pleasure, was a journey to Charles’ boyhood home in Virginia.

Once they returned to Fort Benton, Alicia, or Lettie as she was called by family members, faced the task of finding room for dozens and dozens of ornate wedding gifts. Archives at the Conrad Mansion in Kalispell include a six-page itemized list of wedding gifts.

They were given pearl-handled fruit knives and oyster forks, oil paintings, embroidered handkerchiefs and several silver cream and sugar sets. Painted cake plates, cut glass vases and a Damask tablecloth are on the list. Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph Dorn of Spokane gave the Conrads two California gold pieces. They also received a Staffordshire mayonnaise set and a mounted bear head.

what were the Conrads like as a married couple? Today, the well-to-do couple might get their own reality TV show — “Keeping up with the Conrads” — but in their day, the Victorian protocol was prim and proper.

Historians can glean insight, though, from the reams of handwritten letters that were saved by the Conrad family and are now preserved in the archives at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Library. Volumes of old letters and other family papers were turned over to the university when the mansion was given to the city of Kalispell in 1974 and restoration was begun. Copies of many of the handwritten letters are on file at the mansion.

“Letters were kept and cherished in those days,” said Richard Hardesty, a volunteer archivist who has extensively researched the Conrads’ history.

Charles, already a successful businessman when they married, frequently was away on extended business trips. From tender greetings to details about the normal routine of daily live in the late 1800s, the letters are a snapshot of those years. At one point Charles wrote about the frustrations of negotiating with Flathead Valley farmers to secure land for the Kalispell townsite.

Reading between the lines, there were lonely times for Alicia. In a letter penned in February 1893 she muses: “...I imagine you are in Toronto tonight. I wonder if you are thinking of us...”

The letters are peppered with terms of endearment: “Your loving little wife, Lettie, “Good night dear, dear boy,” “My darling Lettie.”

The letters indicate the couple cared deeply about their children, Charles D., Catherine and Alicia.

“Hug Alicia (their youngest daughter) close and keep her warm while I am away,” Charles wrote in 1901 while on business in Spokane.

Charles was a Southern gentleman, raised in the refined tradition of the Old South. But the Civil War put a damper on his education, when at age 13 he joined the Mosby Rangers — the 43rd Battalion, 1st Virginia Cavalry — as its youngest member.

“Charlie was a bit on the shy side,” Hardesty surmised. “He valued education, and he educated himself through the years. And he would have been very aware of his rough edges.”

Alicia Davenport Stanford was 18 when she and her widowed mother left Halifax and arrived in Fort Benton in 1879.

“She had lived in luxury with a family long accustomed to intellectual and cultural pursuits,” Murphy wrote, noting that the death and bankruptcy of her father prompted them to journey westward.

By November 1879 Alicia and another woman had opened a Select School for Young Ladies and Children, bringing culture to rough-and-tumble Fort Benton by offering instruction in everything from geography to philosophy and penmanship.

Charles met his future wife through her brother, James Stanford, and it wasn’t long before he began courting Alicia “on a rather formal and restrained basis,” Murphy wrote. He’d send her hand-delivered notes inviting her to events of the day:

“My dear friend. May I have the pleasure of your company to the concert tomorrow evening?” Your friend, C.E. Conrad.

“He was very formal, and careful to treat her like a lady,” Hardesty said.

But amid the formality, “he went nuts for her,” he added.

According to Murphy’s book, Alicia could have had her pick of suitors in the frontier town where women, especially cultured women, were far outnumbered by men.

“Her beauty, talents and open and friendly disposition soon attracted would-be husbands not only in Fort Benton but also in the outlying settlements, and even among young men passing through,” Murphy wrote. “Her only problem was in choosing one from the many available.”

Murphy’s book recounts a rather curious episode during the courtship that had the potential to upend the relationship. Charles sent Alicia a Christmas gift that “was probably quite elaborate.” Then on Jan. 1, 1880, sent her a necklace to complete the present.

“The courtship seems to have hit a snag following this Christmas gift,” he said, citing an almost illegible letter to Charles in which she wrote:

“My dear Mr. Conrad. I am ever so sorry my note pained you but it was written on the spur of the moment and one of my sudden impulses took possession of me. It occurred to me that your beautiful present...might appear as an obstacle in the way of your paying attention to other ladies — and I thought it would be better to act as I did...it was not that I valued your friendship less — but I do not want to lose it.”

Hardesty wonders if perhaps Alicia had her heart set on someone else, and if her mother encouraged her to continue seeing Charles. At any rate, the relationship continued and by the fall of 1880 Charles was ready to propose — in a letter.

There was, however, his previous marriage to a Blackfeet Indian woman — an Indian princess as the story goes — to explain to Alicia.

Charles and first wife, Sings-in-the-Middle, had a son, Charles Edward Conrad Jr. She eventually returned to her father’s tribe in Canada, where she died of influenza, according to the Conrad Mansion website.

Murphy’s book, however, says that the Indian wife had taken another husband and died in childbirth.

Hardesty said historians don’t know for sure what happened to Charles’ first wife. He suspects both accounts have “grains of truth.”

Charles apparently was quite up front with Alicia about his first wife and his 5-year-old son, who at the time was attending a Catholic school in Montreal.

“The thing topmost in his mind was to make Alicia an offer of marriage, but he wanted her to be aware of the things in his life that might prove to be impediments,” Murphy wrote. “He called on her immediately and told of his life before her arrival in Fort Benton.”

In his written proposal to Alicia, Charles doesn’t refer to his first wife, but does mention his “former character” and that he’d “led somewhat a reckless life.”

Undeterred by his past, and perhaps looking ahead to the comfortable life Charles could provide for her, Alicia accepted the proposal in the fall of 1880. And in doing so, she sealed her place in history as the wife and partner of one of Montana’s foremost pioneers.

The proposal:

Sept. 15, 1880

My Dear Miss Lettie,

Undoubtedly you will not be surprised at me saying that I am very much in love with you, as my actions have betrayed me ere this.

Dear Miss Lettie, I feel there is a great barrier between us and that is my former character. Previous to the advent of ladies into the North West, I, like many others, led somewhat a reckless life (undoubtedly of which you have heard), but meeting you, and my love for you leaves nothing undone to make you happy. I believe you to be a liberal-minded and unselfish woman, which I think you will find accords my disposition.

I have felt at times not worthy of you and have tried to suppress my feelings (thinking I would lead a bachelor’s life) but time only adds flames to my love for you, and I feel that my life will be a blank without you.

Awaiting your reply with a good deal of anxiety.

I am as ever, Yours affectionately,

C.E. Conrad

_______________________

Snippets from early letters:

Feb. 18, 1883,

My Dear Charlie,

...Valentine’s Day has just passed and Oh! the fun!!!

I saw Mrs. Merry at the store buying such a love of a valentine — all posies and skewered hearts, and I just withered her with one eye of my spec’ and she dropped it and bought a prayer book instead...

Feb. 26, 1883,

From Lettie to Charlie,

...I imagine you are in Toronto tonight. I wonder if you are thinking of us...

March 1, 1883 (a letter from Lettie to Charles regarding concerns about baby Charlie’s size)

...the mite weighs 18 lbs. with all his wraps on (which weigh at least 4 lbs.) just thing yesterday he was 5 months old, and Mollie’s baby just 2 months old is 18 pounds in his night gown, but what C.D. lacks in weight he makes up in cuteness...

Good night, dear, dear boy, have a good time and think sometimes of your loving wife,

Lettie Conrad

Nov. 29, 1889 (a letter from Charles to daughter Kate, sent from the Montana Club in Helena)

My darling little Kate,

Your nice little letter reached me yesterday, and you do not know how pleased I was to receive it. I will come home just as soon as I can. Tell mama I will wire when I start.

Tell Bubody that I will bring him Tom Sawyer and some of the prettiest marbles he ever saw and I have got for you the funniest Dolly. Oh! my. Kiss mama and Charly for me,

Your loving father

Feb. 12, 1890 (from Demersville)

Dear Lettie,

...I have been having an awful siege with these farmers here trying to secure enough land for townsite purposes at a fair price...

April 6, 1891 (on Helena Hotel Co. stationery)

My darling Lettie,

I thought I would write you tonight and let you know how our darling boy is getting along. He has been very good and seems happy. We found the flannel Waists. Shoes, stockings, 2 bean shooters and 4 pounds of bullets, which he says he wants to kill squirrels with.

Yes, and we found a pair of blue overalls that just fit him. After coming home from shopping I left him in the room whilst I went to get shaved, when I came back, he had on a flannel waist and his overalls. Bless his heart, he is lying on the bed sweetly sleeping while I write this.

Love to all, lots of kisses for you and Kate,

Your devoted husband,

C.E. Conrad

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.