By Kendra Bobowick

Mary Hawley may have approved of an upcoming wine tasting and gala to benefit the Edmond Town Hall that she bequeathed to the town, but she would not have attended.

The Mary Hawley Society's namesake has been described as a recluse, as someone who rarely came out in public, and effectively kept her personality a secret. Author and historian Daniel Cruson admits that no personal letters or other documents turned up in his search to understand Newtown's benefactress. "You can't do it. Trying to get through to what Mary Hawley thought was very, very difficult," he said. Her actions, however, are clear.

The bold moves she made in her last ten years between 1920 and her death in 1930 still greet travelers passing through the heart of town — the C.H. Booth Library, Hawley School, and Edmond Town Hall. Although the library was built posthumously, her decision to build Hawley School in 1921 began her years of goodwill, which ended with Edmond Town Hall. As Mr Cruson notes in his book, Mary Elizabeth Hawley, she helped lay the cornerstone of the town hall in 1929 — a moment captured in one of the rare photographs of the adult Miss Hawley — which she did not have a chance to see completed. Miss Hawley died less than a year later, in May of 1930.

State-of-the-art at the time it was built, Edmond Town Hall now needs support. Can Mary Hawley help again?

The society has borrowed the town benefactress's name. With only a moment's thought, member Sandra Motyka said, "Well, who better?" The society will raise funds for projects that members believe will renew the building's vitality, but also intends to continue the goodwill Miss Hawley began. "We wouldn't have the building if not for her," Ms Motyka said. "It's a way of expanding her gift to town."

Ms Motyka takes her cue from Miss Hawley's will. "She started with a feeling of creating a place for the community, and that's what this society will be doing," she said. When municipal offices relocate to a refinished building at Fairfield Hills, the society will refocus the intent for Edmond Town Hall. Envisioning much of the floor space devoted to the community rather than the government, "So, we're going back to her original intentions," Ms Motyka said.

Unlike the Board of Managers with members who focus on maintenance and the building's day-to-day upkeep, the Mary Hawley Society will strive for capital improvements and preparing the historic building for the 21st Century. "We created something that can devote itself to fundraising and restoring the building," society member Jane Sharpe said. "It allows for a larger group to choose a focus." Their first project is to raise enough funds to refurbish the kitchen adjacent to the Alexandria Room. The society is planning a gala at Edmond Town Hall later this month (see separate story).

A Story Filled With Questions

Mary Hawley's honeymoon photo from 1885 captures a face flattened by sadness. Speculations and a few facts about her life as detailed in Mr Cruson's book begin to explain the expression shadowing her stare. Neither Mr Cruson nor the number of sources he consulted could illuminate her thoughts.

"I've got no way of getting inside her mindset," he said. "In terms of getting inside, there is nothing there."

In fact, her personality is as elusive as the sparse facts Mr Cruson was able to collect about her lifetime from 1857 to 1930. Details mark the years, but fail to tell the whole story. Specifically, her marriage creates more mystery than insight. Miss Hawley's gaze reaches from a page of portraits in Mr Cruson's dark account of her marriage to an interim pastor at Trinity Church where she taught Sunday school. Two comments specifically bracket the fleeting wedlock: Mr Cruson wrote, "The fact remains that at the age of 28, Mary Hawley was married to Rev [John Addison] Crockett and two days later they sailed to Europe." A later line in his narrative, which he discovered in a Newtown Bee editorial from 1900, reveals that problems separated the couple during the honeymoon. "In a short space of time, Mr Crockett returned home in one steamer, while the parents of Mrs Crockett hastened across the water to return with their daughter."

Facts behind the trouble that unraveled the young couple are still not known.

"The Hawley marriage folklore," as Mr Cruson wrote, remains more speculation than fact. "It is probable that after a couple weeks at sea, Rev Crockett's attitude changed toward his new wife." No one understands what happened, however. "To this day there is little obvious indication of what went wrong," Mr Cruson wrote.

In his, 18-page publication about Miss Hawley, Mr Cruson provided only the documented information he could find and admits that the rest is supposition. What went wrong with the young couple? Why had they been married out of town? Why did Mr Crockett neglect his new wife? In the opening line of his book, Mr Cruson stated, "There is no more widely recognized historic personality — there is also no one — about whom we know so little." The few pieces of information he had came from the press. "The lure of this mystery led us back to the newspaper accounts of the few facts that we had about her life," the book reveals. Newspapers plus several documents and town records offered a "good, though skeletal," sketch of Miss Hawley's life.

She met Mr Crockett and the couple later married. As he points out in Mary Elizabeth Hawley, Mr Cruson noted that the couple was married out of town in a lackluster ceremony that did not fit with the Hawleys wealth and social status.

Only four people were at Mary's wedding — the bride and groom and Miss Hawley's mother and father. With these clues he said, "This led to me speculating that this was a forced marriage." The couple traveled overseas for their honeymoon, which also made Mr Cruson curious. His research revealed that Miss Hawley became ill on her honeymoon, but he has not been able to find any information on what was wrong with the bride.

Answering several of his questions to the mystery, Mr Cruson speculates that Mary Hawley may have been pregnant. "Maybe they go to Europe, have the baby, come back and [the baby] is legitimate." News accounts, however, offer one unfortunate fact. Mr Crockett's behavior toward his new wife was cold. "Aboard ship, he starts ignoring her," Mr Cruson said. Mary Hawley was ill and had to call for her parents, who brought her home while the groom roamed Italy without them.

"I suspect the child was a stillborn," Mr Cruson said. Drawing a possible conclusion, Mr Cruson considered Mr Crockett's behavior. "Maybe he no longer found a reason to remain in the marriage." Stressing that he was unable to find any documentation for his thoughts, the historian said, "It was the timing and the way the pieces fit, but we don't know that, we really don't."

The reasons behind the late resident's actions cannot be confirmed. The facts remain: "She did become ill and her husband left her. He ignored her and walked away. She was married to a man who abandoned her."

A Victorian Tragedy

"It was a true Victorian tragedy," Mr Cruson said this week.

Mary's mother Sarah Hawley "was a complex woman who dominated her family," Mr Cruson said. After the Hawleys traveled to Europe to bring their daughter home, Mr Cruson guessed at the atmosphere in their household. "When Sarah brought her daughter home in 1885 I think there was a lot of 'I told you so,' going on, and she blamed Mary for the scandal."

Mr Cruson said, "She lived with this until 1920." Sarah Hawley died that year. Mary was in her early 60s. Why didn't she simply leave her mother?

"That's a very modern answer," Mr Cruson observed. "She grew up in the Civil War time, and [at 28 years old] was an old maid in 1885 standards, and got married because she had to." He imagines a difficult scenario following her failed marriage. "She lived with this and she didn't come out until the last ten years of her life." After her mother's death, Mr Cruson credits one of Miss Hawley's longtime friends, Arthur Nettleton, for helping Miss Hawley use part of her inherited family fortune to benefit the town.

Adding to the scandal that likely further distressed Miss Hawley's mother, and was public knowledge at the time, was Miss Hawley's divorce. Miss Hawley, however, did not file for divorce until 15 years after her marriage had disintegrated. The divorce closely followed her father's death and Mr Cruson believes Miss Hawley was preventing her husband from standing in line to inherit her fortune.