Miscellaneous, Strange history of Amanda Dyo, 1888

A Strange History

Afton Enterprise,  July 12, 1888

 

An old woman by the name of Amanda Dyo, who died in the Chenango county [NY] poor house one day last week, led a most strange and singular life, and had a sister who married a man of great wealth and influence in New York, where she had made her home in early life.  While yet a young woman with all the advantages of wealth and family, she left an elegant house clandestinely and somewhere in the country met and married a man by the name of Harvey Dyo, who was remarkable for his uncouth and slovenly appearance, and for his intemperate and vicious habits.  The two came to South Oxford [Chenango Co., NY] some 30 years ago, built a rude cabin or shanty far back in the woods, and lived there for a number of years, earning and enjoying a precarious living.  They were supplied especially in two essentials of comfort, whiskey and tobacco.  After some years their place of residence in the woods became known to the rich relatives in the city, and they sent an urgent invitation for the woman to return to her city home and enjoy a life of ease and luxury.  After much persuasion and entreaty the invitation was accepted.  But after a brief visit the woman again left the home of those relatives in the night time unknown to all, and returned to the old cabin in the woods, where the couple continued to live some years longer and until the man, infirm and feeble, and almost idiotic, was carried to the poorhouse, and still the wife refused to be separated.  The rich relatives hearing of this last, again invited, remonstrated and entreated, but all in vain.  They went together to the place of last resort and lived there ten or fifteen long years, and were only separated a few days since by the death of the woman, as stated.  This strange and singular woman was well educated and accomplished and of fine personal appearance when young; while the man for whom she sacrificed and threw all away, was incomparably opposite, becoming in middle life disagreeable, repulsive and almost hideous in his very appearance.  Surely truth is sometime stranger than fiction.