A Real Life Evangeline

     Evangeline was a famous poem by Longfellow about a woman who lost her lover, Gabriel during the Acadian expulsions, and continued searching for him for years, only to be reunited with him at his deathbed. Recently, however, while searching through the Trove of digitalised Australian newspapers, I came across an article entitled, "Evangeline in Real Life". It was apparently originally published in the New York World some time in 1877, but I shall cite the earliest Australian report, that of the Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney) of Saturday 10 November 1877, on page 31. It's a pity they failed to mention the lady's name. One is also bound to wonder whether her "Gabriel" wanted to be found, since he could easily have written to her, if for some reason he was unable to return immediately.

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 The story of Evangeline is repeated, with wonderful fidelity in all its details in the experience of a young French girl, a resident of Marseilles. She was engaged to a sailor to whom she was to be married on his return from a voyage to New York. He did not return, and after a year she got a berth as stewardess's assistant on one of the Havre Steamers, to come here in search of him. On the passage a rich American lady became interested in her story, and resolved to help her to find out her lover. In New York she learned that he had gone to Canada. For months she travelled about the Dominion, sometimes on his track, and again losing every clue as to his whereabouts. She returned to New York, and one day while standing at Broadway crossing, waiting her turn to get across, she saw the object of her long search on the other side. She shrieked his name and ran into the middle of the street, but a policeman caught her and saved her from the wheels of the string of vehicles." Angel of God there was none," she never again saw the Gabriel she had so long sought and so nearly found. She learned then that he had sailed for San Francisco, and so went overland to California to meet him. Arrived on the Pacific coast, she found that her lover had fallen overboard just outside the Heads and been drowned. Meanwhile, "the body of a young man, dressed in sailor's clothes, was cast ashore on the beach, carried to the Coroner's office, and, not being identified, was interred in the public cemetery. A water-sodden pocket-book was taken from the dead man, which contained only a few letters written in French and unaddressed. The girl hearing of this went to the Coroner's office and found that the letters were hers. The waves had tardily and partially recompensed her devoted search, and she was able to find the grave of her lover.
New York World