On this day in 1884, cattle baron in the American West, John Chisum died in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where he had repeatedly sought treatments, due to complications from surgery to remove a growth from his jaw, at the age of 60. Born John Simpson Chisum on 15 August 1824 in Hardeman County, Tennessee. Chisum moved with his family to Texas in 1837, finding work as a building contractor. He also served as county clerk in Lamar County. Chisum was of Scottish, English, and Welsh descent. In 1854, Chisum became engaged in the cattle business and became one of the first to send his herds to New Mexico Territory. He obtained land along the Pecos River by right of occupancy and eventually became the owner of a large ranch in the Bosque Grande, about forty miles south of Fort Sumner, with over 100,000 head of cattle. In 1866-67, Chisum formed a partnership with cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving to assemble and drive herds of cattle for sale to the United States Army in Fort Sumner and Santa Fe, New Mexico, to provide cattle to miners in Colorado as well as provide cattle to the Bell Ranch. A gambler, Chisum frequently played poker with Texas John Slaughter, a lawman in Texas and later the Arizona Territory. Chisum with money, advice, and influence behind the scenes, played a role in the Lincoln County War between the opposing factions of cattle farmers and business owners, and involving Billy the Kid. Chisum never married.
The Final Footprint – Chisum is interred in the Chisum Family Cemetery in Paris, Texas. He left his estate worth $500,000 to his brothers Pitzer and James. While living in Bolivar, Texas, he lived with a young slave girl named Jensie and had two daughters with her. The relationship is described in a book titled Three Ranches West. Chisum had an extended family living with him at the South Springs ranch in Roswell. Chisum’s niece Sallie, daughter of his brother James, became a beloved figure in the area, where she lived until 1934. Sallie kept a diary or journal that has historical importance because of its references to Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, both of whom she knew. She and John Chisum are honored by statues to their memory in Roswell and Artesia, New Mexico. Chisum has been portrayed on film by John Wayne in Chisum (1970) and James Coburn in Young Guns II (1990).
On this day in 1979, art collector, bohemian and socialite Peggy Guggenheim died from a stroke in Camposampiero near Padua, Italy at the age of 81. Born Marguerite Guggenheim on August 26, 1898 in Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Peggy Guggenheim created a noted art collection in Europe and America primarily between 1938 and 1946. She exhibited this collection as she built it and in 1949, settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.
She claimed to have had affairs with numerous artists and writers, and in return many artists and others have claimed affairs with her.
Her first marriage was to Laurence Vail, a Dada sculptor and writer with whom she had two children, Michael Cedric Sindbad Vail (1923–1986) and Pegeen Vail Guggenheim (1925-1967). They divorced about 1928 following his affair with writer Kay Boyle, whom he later married. Soon after her first marriage dissolved, she had an affair with John Ferrar Holms, a writer with writer’s block who had been a war hero. Starting in December 1939, she and Samuel Beckett had a brief but intense affair, and he encouraged her to turn exclusively to modern art. She married her second husband, painter Max Ernst, in 1941 and divorced him in 1946.
The Final Footprint
Her cremated remains are interred in the garden (later: Nasher Sculpture Garden) of her home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (inside the Peggy Guggenheim Collection), next to her beloved Lhasa Apso dogs.
#RIP #OTD in 1982 actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter (Dragnet) Jack Webb died of a heart attack in West Hollywood, aged 62. Sheltering Hills Plot 1999, Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles
On this day in 2000, comedian, conductor and pianist, The Clown Prince of Denmark, The Unmelancholy Dane, The Great Dane, Victor Borge, died in Greenwich, Connecticut at the age of 91. Born Børge Rosenbaum on 3 January 1909 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Borge was married twice; Elsie Chilton (1933 – divorce) and Sarabel Sanna Scraper (1953 – 2000 her death).
The Final Footprint – Borge was cremated. Part of his cremated remains were interred with his second wife at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, with a replica of Danish icon The Little Mermaid sitting on a large rock at the gravesite, the other part with his parents in Western Jewish Cemetery (Mosaisk Vestre Begravelsesplads), Copenhagen, Denmark.
#RIP #OTD in 2021 writer (Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking), journalist, Joan Didion died from complications of Parkinson’s disease at her home in Manhattan aged 87. Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, Manhattan.
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