Beatrice Klingle

Quick Facts

Place of Birth:

Washington, DC

Date of Birth:

July 18, 1867

Place of Death:

California

Date of Death:

June 20, 1895

Place of Burial:

Los Gatos, California

Cemetery Name:

Oak Hill Memorial Park

Susan Juliet Gay Beatrice Klingle was born in the house now known as the Peirce-Klingle Mansion on July 18, 1867. Her parents were Joshua Peirce Klingle and Laura Tiernan. The baby was known throughout her life as Beatrice. The other names given to the baby honored the women in the lives of her parents: Susan was Joshua Klingle's aunt and adoptive mother's name while Juliet was the name of his birth mother. Gay was the name of Laura Tiernan's mother. 

Beatrice Klingle lived a privileged life on what was then known as the Linnaean Hill estate started by Joshua Peirce. Few details about her childhood are known. Newspapers described her as "a popular belle in select society" in the city of Washington when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, her mother died in 1885 when Beatrice was 18-years-old.

Scandal!

Beatrice caused quite a scandal in Washington in September of 1885.

On the 15th of September, her father received a note from Beatrice. It was given to him by a servant who had driven her into town. The note was supposed to have said:

"Dearest Papa: You won't think it strange and you won't be angry with me. I told you I loved him. I couldn't help it. Now I am off to Baltimore with him to be married, but we shall return to the city to-night, and shall stay at the Hamilton House: now you won't be angry with me, papa, for loving my darling, will you?"

Klingle assumed that the man his daughter referred to was Edward Irving Darling, a composer who had been socializing in Washington with his mother at the time he and Beatrice met. Edward's mother, Sophronia "Flora" Adams Darling, was well connected through her family ties, literary pursuits and legal battles.

In newspaper accounts, it was believed that Edward Darling was almost a full decade older than Beatrice. In reality, there was only a four year age difference between the two. He visited the Klingle home but Klingle thought that Darling was paying too much attention to Beatrice. Klingle warned his daughter's suitor off and told him that "anything further than a friendship for his daughter was not desired." Though Darling later left his original lodgings at Hamilton House, he remained in Washington and Klingle felt that Darling and Beatrice were still meeting each other in spite of his warning, but could never prove it.

Beatrice went into the city by carriage on September 15th, and went into a store before having the servant drop her off in town. She claimed she was staying late in town to go to the theater and had the servant deliver the note to her father. Klingle was not fully convinced that his daughter had left Washington right away, as her note suggested, and he spent a tense evening searching for her in the city.

Newspapers from September 19, 1885 indicate that Edward and Beatrice did in fact go to Baltimore and were married there in the evening of September 15th. Newspapers in Baltimore and Washington ran the following story about the event:

"After the marriage, at 8:30 o'clock on Tuesday evening, at the Rev. Mr. Wroth's residence, No. 82 St. Paul street, the young couple went to Barnum's hotel. The father, who did not think his daughter was serious when she wrote in a note to him that she was going to Baltimore to get married, found them at Barnum's on Wednesday after they were married sure enough. They all returned to Washington the same day. The Rev. Mr. Wroth says he was very favorably impressed with both the young lady and the young man. They were very self-possessed, especially the young lady, and as they had a license and were both of age, and wanted to be married, he could not refuse. The license bore date some time previously, showing that the affair had been carefully planned. Mr. Wroth says the young man turned to the witnesses after the ceremony and thanked them, an act of courtesy he never before saw exhibited under such circumstances. The witnesses were persons who had been called in by Mr. Wroth, and were, of course, strangers to the bride and groom." -Baltimore Sun, September 19, 1885.

Life after elopement and tragedy

Beatrice and Edward first settled in New York after their marriage. They lived there for a time and had two children while living in the city, their eldest daughter Nancy Adams Peirce Klingle Darling in 1887 and their son Charles Tiernan Darling in 1889. The family moved to Detroit some time before 1890. The couple had one more child, Harvey Adams Darling who was born and died in 1890. Beatrice took care of the children and managed the home while Edward composed several "light operas" and worked with others on compositions. He submitted articles to political and historical journals and was well connected through his own network and that of his mother.

Edward took up a job as manager for the Grinnel Brothers Music House in Detroit in the 1890s. During a severe storm, Edward was thrown from a second story window of the Grinnel Brothers building. He was apparently trying to prevent a sign from falling through a large plate glass window when he fell. He broke 27 bones and required extensive medical care, but survived the fall. He was not the same after the accident.

On July 4, 1892, Beatrice received word that her father had died suddenly in Washington, DC. By that point, most of the land that had been Beatrice's childhood home had been aquired by the federal government and made into Rock Creek Park. Klingle was still a leading citizen and had amassed a great amount of wealth. As the only child, Beatrice inherited a large portion of the estate (the rest went to her step mother, Klingle's second wife). The estimated value of her inheritance at the time was rumored to be close to $1,000,000 in real estate and government bonds. Edward and Beatrice traveled to Washington for the funeral and to deal with the inheritance. Though somewhat recovered from his injuries, Edward took violently ill while staying in Washington, supposedly due to drinking bad milk. 

A second scandal

Beatrice's name was in all of the papers in 1895. By that point, Edward had been suffering from the lingering effects of his fall and an additional illness for several years. He died on February 13, 1894. 

Edward's mother almost immediately accused Beatrice of poisoning him, and claimed that he had made a deathbed declaration stating as much. Beatrice was supposed to have had an accomplice in murdering her husband---the doctor who had been treating him since his fall from the Grinnel Brothers building. Flora Darling brought her suspicions to the District Attorney Frazier of Detroit. Frazier heard the case but ultimately had to dismiss it. However, stating "the suspicion, while perhaps well founded, was not strong enough to warrant the arrest of the doctor and her daughter-in-law." Frazier is also said "to have announced at the time that should the wife ever marry the doctor the motive would become plain."

Beatrice and Dr. Francis X. Spranger were married publicly at the Corpus Christi cathedral in Baltimore, Maryland on March 6, 1895. They left shortly after for California to honeymoon.

Damning testimony 

Newspapers all over the country took up the story of the Washington heiress who poisoned her first husband and married the doctor who helped her commit the crime. Flora Adams used her connections and several attorneys were involved in investigating Edward's death. Documents and attestations were put into the court record, including a dying declaration from Edward that stated in part that "the variety and quantity of drugs he (Dr. Spranger) poured into me was sufficient to justify classing me as an annex to his laboratory. He gave no prescriptions, only medicine."

Edward's detailed account of the treatment he received from his wife and Doctor Spranger accused Beatrice of becoming openly hostile and abusive towards Edward after his injury. He claimed that the reports of any reliance on drugs and alcohol on his part were spread by Beatrice and Dr. Spranger to paint him in a poor light. The testimony provided a timeline that supposedly reported on the instances of poisoning and showed evidence that whenever Edward attempted to travel away from Beatrice and Dr. Spranger, his health improved. The declaration also claimed that when he left for New York on a brief trip in 1893, "She, with the children, was to go to Washington. She did not go. As soon as I left, December 8, she filed a bill for absolute divorce for drunkenness, non-support, cruelty and assertion, which she expected to obtain with alimony through default." 

Dr. and Mrs. Spranger vehemently denied the accusations made against them. When the newspapers first picked up the poisoning story a reporter visited them where they were staying in California. Beatrice is reported to have stated "this charge is simply monstrous, utterly ridiculous, too, when taken into the slightest consideration." They claimed that Mrs. Darling was insane and that many of the claims were untrue.

 As evidence of Flora's mental instabilities and cruelties, they reported that Flora had taken Beatrice and Edward's young daughter, Nancy, and put her in a convent, which traumatized the child. They also used Flora's constant altercations with organizations she was involved in. She was a founding member of organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution and Daughters of the War of 1812 but was often removed from those boards or left them due to butting heads with others.

Evidence was collected, testimonies gathered and the news was picked up by newspapers from coast to coast. Flora Adams Darling made sure that the story of the death of her son stayed in the papers and that Beatrice had no rest from suspicion while trying assert her innocence from California.

Beatrice was never brought up on charges for the possible poisoning of her first husband. She died in Los Gatos, California on June 20, 1895, supposedly of diabetes and the stress of the charges brought against her. She was interred in the vault of friends she and her second husband had made on their honeymoon. Over the months following her death, her will was filed in Washington, DC and it was shown that her estate was not in fact worth $1,000,000. Trusts were set up for Charles and Nancy and Dr. Spranger was one of the men listed by Beatrice for guardianship. Though some newspapers stated her remains would be taken to Detroit, that was not the case and in September of 1897 Beatrice's name appears once again in newspapers. Apparently her remains stayed in a rented alcove in the Gribner family vault. Thieves broke into the crypt and attempted to break into Mrs. Spranger's casket. It was believed the robbers were attempting to relieve her of any valuables that may have been buried with the deceased heiress. Grave markers exist for her in Los Gatos, California as well as in the Peirce family vault in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC.