As the widow of Capt. John Sheridan, Mary Downey Sheridan was a well-respected figure in Allegany County society. So it came as quite the shock to many of her friends and acquaintances when the 60-year-old woman married a man half her age.
“The marriage, which was unexpected, caused great surprise in social circles in which the Sheridans are very prominent,” The (Baltimore) Sun reported March 13, 1907.
Mary had first wed John Sheridan in 1872. He was 27, and she was 20. Sheridan had risen from humble beginnings to become a wealthy man. Upon his death in 1902, The (Piedmont) Herald reported, “As a boy without a dollar he commenced to work in a brickyard at Mt. Savage, of which industry he later became president.”
He earned his military rank fighting in the Union Army during the Civil War.
After the war, he returned to Mount Savage and worked for the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad.
He met Mary while working for the railroad. He lived at a hotel run by Owen Downey, Mary’s father. It was there the two met and fell in love.
“His home life was an ideal one. He was a kind and affectionate husband, a devoted father. Generous to a fault, he never let his right hand know what his left hand did, and his death will leave a vacancy in Allegany County, particularly at Mt. Savage, that can never be filled,” The Herald reported.
A year before his marriage, he left the railroad and became superintendent for the Atlantic Coal Co. at Pekin, and from there he rose quickly in status and wealth.
At the time of his death, coal had made him a millionaire. His estate paid Mary $200,000 upon his death with the remaining amount used to generate an annual income for her.
Few people knew that Sheridan’s health took a turn for the worse in 1901, so his death took many people by surprise. One person who wasn’t surprised was Dr. Edward Quarles, of Mount Savage. He was Sheridan’s doctor during the last few years of his life, and he had also become a family friend.
After Sheridan’s death, Mary’s life revolved around her friends and family. However, two of her children had died young, and the remaining two were in school in France.
One of her daughters, Kathleen, married a local man, B.H. Blays, in early 1907. After the wedding, Mary traveled to Chicago to visit her brother, George, and his wife, who were living at the Columbus Hospital.
It was there that she and Quarles married March 12.
From there, they traveled to Mexico for their honeymoon and onto Europe. The marriage not only came as a surprise to Mary’s friends, but also her daughter, Kathleen, whom The Sun reported, “when informed of her mother’s marriage this evening was greatly surprised. She had no idea that she had contemplated such a step.”
Kathleen’s wedding had been just a few weeks previously.
Upon the Quarles return to Mount Savage, the story gets confusing.
The 1910 Census lists Edward married to Hollie D. Quarles. Some researchers have taken this to mean that the marriage had ended within three years.
However, a closer look at the census form shows that what was written was Mollee D. Quarles.
This may have been Mary. Findagrave.com lists her as Mary Elizabeth “Mollie” Downey Sheridan-Quarles.
Also, the marriage records in Cook County when she married Quarles list her as Mollee D. Sheridan. The D in both instances would have stood for Downey.
The census also lists it as a second marriage for Mary and the first marriage for Edward.
The odd thing here is that her age is listed as 49. She would have actually been 58 years old at the time.
It is not the first time that a document lists her age incorrectly. For instance, the 1880 census lists her as being 26 years old when she would have been 28.
The 1910 discrepancy is the largest one found, though.
It is in the next decade that the couple seem to have separated. In the 1920 census, Edward is married to Marguerite Blackwell Quarles, 30 years old.
One reference in the (Bel Air) Aegis and Intelligencer lists their marriage date and September 18, 1917.
Edward and Marguerite were still married in 1930.
Then, in a surprising turn of events, Edward was hit by a truck while crossing a street in Washington, D.C., during a snowstorm Nov. 1, 1932. The accident fractured his skull, jaw and right leg. He died in the hospital two hours later.
Mary outlived her much younger ex-husband by four years, passing away in 1936.
It is interesting to note that although Quarles and Mary were definitely married, no publicly available documents or even their gravesites list their marriage.
Mary’s lists her marriage to John and Edward’s lists his marriage to Marguerite.
Mary, at least, seems to have been Catholic, so it is possible that she had her marriage to Edward annulled, and thus, refused to acknowledge it thereafter.
That would not explain why she kept his surname, though.
It is one of the oddities found looking back at life during an earlier time.