Newspaper story about Xesia (1891) |
As a young journalist who
covered the theater, Allan Forman hung around eavesdropping and hoping for a
glimpse of the leading ladies.
In 1886, Allan’s long edgy article, “Around the Stage Door, Men Who Haunt It and Girls Who Pass through It,” was syndicated widely in the U.S.
In 1886, Allan’s long edgy article, “Around the Stage Door, Men Who Haunt It and Girls Who Pass through It,” was syndicated widely in the U.S.
Surely he spoke from
experience in describing the many ways that men made fools of themselves by fancying
actresses and singers, married and unmarried.
One that "knew" an actress -- sketch used in Allan's article |
In 1900, he met and married his own actress, Xesia Yrsa
Zephania Carlstedt.
Really? you say.
Do you mean
the Swedish-born Xesia Yrsa Zephania whose career never quite took off even though
she acted in such memorable plays as “The Noble Son,” “The Pearl of Pekin,” and
“The Corsair”?
Do you mean
Xesia Yrsa Zephania who inherited thousands of dollars from her former lover, a
Swedish baron named Falkenberg to whom she was promised in marriage by her
father, a consul general whose home was located next door to the baron’s castle?
The papers reported that she
ran away to America to be free of entanglements.
Cut to 1891.
“A Man About Town,” starring
Xesia, has just flopped in out-of-town tryouts. The cast practically walked back to New York, critics
say. Arriving home, the hapless Xesia received a thick envelope from a lawyer
detailing the bequest of “the man who loved her so well and so
unsuccessfully.”
It was the baron. He left her
$50,000!
She probably did receive the
money, although some whispered that in fact the baron had rejected Xesia
because she lacked aristocratic lineage.
It’s not as if her family was
undistinguished, however. Xesia’s father, Axel B. C. Carlstedt, descended from
a long line of musicians and composers. The position of organist in the
churches of Sodra Villie and Orsjo had been held by a member of the Carlstedt
family for more than 130 years.
Axel emigrated from Sweden to
the U. S. in 1872.
Upon arriving, he moved to
Massachusetts, studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, earned a
doctorate, married an American woman, and eventually founded the South Side
College of Music in Chicago.
Axel fathered 11 children. Some
were born in Sweden during his first marriage but the details are hard to figure
out.
What matters is that he went
about naming them “in the most delightful way,” to quote Mary Poppins.
Since his own name began with
the initials ABC, Axel continued the pattern with his children.
Thus:
Axel Bernhard Conrad, Jr.
Dagobert
Edvard Fritiof
Gustaf
Harald Julius
Knut Leonard Maltidius
Nellie Olivia Pauline
Quelie Rosalie Sophie
Theresa Urania Vilhelmina
and Xesia Yrsa Zephania.
The names of the last three children
did not fit the alphabetical pattern but exceeded expectations for ingenuity.
They were:
Aberta Agir Ostgota, Detolfta Johanna Marie, and Bror
Tretton Methodius.
While Axel taught music and
became a papa repeatedly, several of his children, including Xesia, gravitated
toward music and theater. She toured the country drawing slight attention for
her performances, for no Lillie Langtry was she.
Meanwhile, Allan ran his
magazine, The Journalist, and wrote
about everything. During the 1890s, he addressed “The Cigarette Question,” “The
Ways of Blackmailers, a risky business that doesn’t always pay,” and “The
Typewriter Question.”
He also complained about
“Eating to Honor Somebody”:
It always seems a trifle
absurd to me, to call together a lot of men to eat in honor of somebody. The
respect expressed by inducing dyspepsia may be genuine. Ovations and oysters,
sympathy and soup, releves and roasts, enthusiasm and entrees, homage and
hominy, compliments and champagne, may all go very well together but . . . I
should prefer a sandwich and a cup of coffee in a quiet corner.
Allan did not hesitate to be honored with a Chop Suey dinner, given by the Blue Pencil Club (1901) |
After their marriage, Xesia and Allan lived in Brooklyn until Allan’s father died in 1908. Then Allan retired
and began a renovation and expansion of Nabichaugue, the family’s Long Island
estate. He and Xesia lived there for the rest of their lives.
When Allan and Xesia renovated Nabichaugue before World War I, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran a long story about it. |
After Allan’s death in 1914 the
Baroness, as she now started to call herself, drew quite a bit of publicity when
she started farming at Nabichaugue to help the war effort.
It may be a far cry from
singing grand opera in the presence of cheering thousands to growing seed corn
. . . but it is understood that Mrs.
Allan Forman of this place agrees that producing seed corn, when you hit it
right, is fully as pleasant and almost as remunerative as appearing nightly in
the footlights.
She was an acclaimed
opera singer all along.
Xesia Y. Z. Carlstedt Forman; passport photo, 1930s |
https://www.throughthehourglass.com/2017/04/xesia.html