Vengeance Is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle That Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud

A Secret Too Big to Keep: “Let the Old Men Settle It”

23 A Secret Too Big to Keep “Let the Old Men Settle It” FAMILIAR FOLKLORE has it that the husband is always the last to know. John Beal Sneed may not have been the last to discover his wife’s affair, but he certainly wasn’t the first. By the early fall of 1911, the intensity of the affair had become so heated that some family members and even some of the neighbors had become aware of it. Unlike Al Boyce and Lena Snyder Sneed, they all fully appreciated its gravity and how explosive that powder keg was in 1911 Texas society. But what to do? Al’s father, Colonel Albert G. Boyce, and the Colonel’s wife were aware of the affair by early July 1911, and they were alarmed by its implications. They attempted to discourage Al from continuing the relationship and proposed to take Al in New Orleans to see a doctor whom they believed might cure Al of his infatuation. Al refused to go unless Lena gave her consent. She agreed, but before the end of the month Al returned—still uncured and still infatuated with Lena. On October 6, Al’s brother Henry and Beal’s brother, Joe, met in Dalhart hoping to head off an impending family disaster. After much discussion they in effect decided to “let the old men settle it,” meaning Al’s father, Colonel Boyce; Lena’s father, Tom Snyder; and John Beal’s father, J. T. Sneed, Sr., the patriarchs of the three prominent families. Accordingly, Joe wired a heads-up to his father. 2 C H A P T E R 24 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E In the meantime, Henry and Joe did, however, propose a trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for Al. The waters of the Hot Springs were touted to possess wondrously therapeutic powers, curing most anything from hiccups to hysteria, and they hoped that a good soaking would cure Al’s passion. Al, however, didn’t really want to be cured. Another who discovered Lena’s “misconduct” was her neighbor, Mrs. S. A. Morris. She later related that one day in mid-September 1911 Lena came to her home and asked to use the phone, a request that piqued Mrs. Morris’s suspicions since Lena had a telephone in her own home. She described Lena as being nervous and suffering from “female troubles,” the exact nature of which she did not explain, nor was she pressed to do so in that era of Victorian delicacy . Mrs. Morris denied Lena’s telephone request.1 The affair was becoming more difficult to conceal as the lovers became increasingly reckless, and emboldened by their unbridled passion, they were heedless of the potential for disaster. Later evidence persuasively suggests that Lena’s “female troubles” were due to a pregnancy of which Al was the author, and that Lena had a miscarriage , probably in September 1911. Much later, Lena, concerned that newspapers might uncover the story, wrote Al this: “It would kill me to have it all in the papers . . . All the facts about the miscarriage I had would come out—and that it was you . . . Beal knew all the time.”2 The Sneed’s family physician, Dr. R. L. McMeans, later testified that Lena had been unwell during the summer and fall of 1911. According to Dr. McMeans, Lena was suffering from both physical and emotional problems, although, again, he was not pressed to be specific. The doctor simply concluded that “she was nervous and rundown and had been given a tonic.” Beal would later put his own spin on the matter; one that would be consistent with his strategy. He claimed that McMeans advised him that “if he didn’t take Lena to the sea coast or some low place in a reasonable time that she might lose her mind.”3 Later, Beal said that at the time he heard McMeans’s diagnosis he did not think Lena was insane. Exactly when John Beal Sneed learned that his wife and their childhood friend, Al Boyce, Jr., had been having an affair is not A Secret Too Big to Keep 25 clear—depends on who is telling the tale. Beal claimed that he first learned about it on October 13, 1911, when Lena confronted him, confessed, and asked for a divorce. Lena and Mrs. Boyce would later...