Letters to Alice: Birth of the Kleberg-King Ranch Dynasty

My Dear Little Heart

35 The Love Letters, 1884–1887 I F we are To believe the letters of Robert Justus Kleberg Sr. to Alice Gertrudis King (and, after reading them, who could not believe ?), when he met Alice he fell deeply in love with this child of a larger-than-life Irish sea captain and the refined Southern daughter of a Presbyterian minister. The Kleberg-King union must have been a marriage of great love, for this cache of Victorian love letters reveals a man at times seemingly besotted with ardor. They also provide a glimpse of the Victorian-era world in which these two moved and the people and events of their lives from April 12, 1884, to August 17, 1887. My Dear Little Heart  [Addressed to] Miss Alice King at Santa Gertrudis, Collins P.O.1, Nueces Co. Texas Corpus Christi April 18 Friday 12, C. W. [sic] 1884 My Dear Little Heart This is a good time of the night to begin writing an answer to your kind and interesting letter of day before yesterday— I received it last night and was tempted to answer it [at] once in order to give vent to my emotions in some way but I thought that would be almost too prompt an answer, that you could 36 The Love Letters hardly submit to an affliction of this kind so frequently, so I simply took myself to my lonely room and there indulged in quiet reflection over the future, the present, and the past until I unconsciously found myself dreaming instead of thinking— dreaming of you, my little Darling, dreams so happy that the only regret they bring is that they are dreams and not reality.Yet I have the consolation of having enjoyed that happiness even if it is but imaginary—I cannot tell you, my little heart, with what emotions your candid expression of your love for me filled me. It fills my breast with pride and my soul with a peace that I never before experienced. I feel that I have won forever the greatest and most precious prize that man can win—the unreserved and never dying love of a true and pure woman—but every attempt at describing, in expressing in words my feelings, proves but too plainly that is not the way to do it. I hope that I may be able to give better evidences of it than that. I only wish, my little darling, that I could help you bear your troubles better. Rest assured that [I] appreciate your confiding them to me, and that you certainly have my sympathy. I hope that someday I can take some of them on my shoulders. They are better fitted for burdens than yours, and are more accustomed to their weight—and remember, my little heart, that all these troubles will make us appreciate the blessing we enjoy now and that may be in store for us in the future evermore— The troubles to which Robert was referring would include the aftermath of Robert E. Lee King’s death on March 1, 1883, in St. Louis. Alice’s mother was still in St. Louis at this time, so Alice was thus in charge of tending to her father.2 I am sorry that I have not been able to see you before now but unexpected business will detain me until next week when I hope to be at Santa Gertrudis. I have been busily engaged in consummating a sale of Mrs. Rogers’ Ranch and cattle in this county to 37 1884–1887 the Mr. Rachal. It is quite a little piece of work but I shall finish it next Tuesday when I will have to go out to the Rabb Ranch to close up the transaction—but these matters do not interest you nor do I think much of them when my thoughts turn to you. It seems true now that I would give all these days that I am spending away from you for one sweet kiss from my own little heart. Martha Rabb Rogers—“The Cattle Queen of Texas”—had married Methodist minister C. M. Rogers, who quickly went through her fortune , forcing the sale of the ranch in 1884.The buyer, Rachal, later sold it to the Driscolls. The oil later discovered on the ranch became the basis for the Driscoll family fortune.3 I received a letter tonight from my brother telling me...