RSS
Home
The Lyon letters- Her answer
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
This is part of an ongoing series on Albuquerque history, based on the experiences of Dr. William B. Lyon and his fiance Corie Bowman, as related by them in letters sent in the years 1881-1882. Today's article features the resolution of their courtship, just prior to William Lyon's departure to New Albuquerque.
William Lyon had a hard time waiting for Corie Bowman's decision. She had told him that she would give an answer to his implicit marriage proposal “by spring". In the intervening months she discussed the matter with her parents and minister. William continued to visit the Bowman household during the month of December, but now his arrival caused consternation for not only Corie, but also her mother and father.
The day after Christmas, Jane Bowman, Corie’s mother, took William aside and, tactfully, expressed her concerns. “Your mother told me today, in her kind and gentle way, that she thought I might be mistaken in my feelings toward you,” William wrote in a letter he gave to Corie that night. “And that you, she thought, shared her doubts.” In the face of this accusation, William went on to forcefully deny any possibility of ambiguity on his part. “If I know anything,” he wrote. “I know this- that I love you with my whole heart and mind and soul.”
Corie, however, found herself deeply conflicted in her feelings toward the older doctor, and especially in his troubling tendency toward atheism. On January 5, 1882, after William had pressed her for an early decision on the proposal, she wrote “I cannot understand my own feelings in regard to you. Sometimes, especially when I read your letters… I almost feel as if I loved you, and then again I am almost sure I do not.” Pointedly, she continued, “I don’t want you to think that I make your coming into the Church a condition of my marrying you. That would be too much like bribery… I want you to confess Christ for your own sake…”
Again, religion had reared its head, and William was quick to act on Corie's overt-in-spite-of-herself condition. “I know you would not have me profess religion to gain you, but in spite of myself, in spite of everything, religion and the Church look altogether differently to me because you are in it,” he wrote in a hurried response. “I think I never before realized what is meant by ‘the beauty of holiness.’”
At this point, January 6th, 1882, the letters between Corie and William stopped for nearly two months. When they began again on February 28th, they were no longer letters of courtship, full of uncertainty and confusion, but rather the letters of an engaged couple soon to be married. Obviously, Corie made her decision to assent to William’s overtures, but given her stated and seemingly deep-seated doubts, one cannot help but wonder as to what exactly prompted her to decide in his favor. Unfortunately, subsequent letters are silent on this matter.
Given that Corie’s main objections to William centered around his atheistic tendencies, and that her pre-engagement letters seem to reveal a growing affection for him in spite of herself, it is very likely that it was William’s stated willingness to accept religion into his life that finally warmed Corie to say yes to his proposal, no matter how transparently perfunctory his ‘conversion’ may have been. He was, after all, an intelligent man, eloquent in expressing himself via the written word, and a doctor to boot. Once the initial shock of his revelation of love wore off, Corie must have realized that the doctor was an excellent candidate for marriage. Objectively speaking, although her girlish desire to “love instantly and without thought” might remain unfulfilled, there was only one area where the good doctor fell short in her eyes- his lack of a belief in the Christian God. When William made it clear that he would at least open himself up to the possibility of the Church having a role in his life, Corie perhaps decided that was close enough, and that God would hopefully do the rest. Regardless, this was not the last time that religion would be a source of conflict in their relationship.
Next- The Road to New Albuquerque
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
