The WPA worker who twice wore the Hope Diamond

Above: May Yohe, unknown date (but probably around 1900-1905). Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

May Yohe (1869-1938) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and became a world renown actress in the late 1800s. She married Lord Francis Hope of England, owner of the Hope Diamond, and she wore that famous stone on two occasions. 

After her marriage to Lord Hope, however, Yohe led a life of near-constant rise and fall - both in love and fortune: marrying and divorcing, venturing into this business or that business, acquiring and losing large sums of money, and even farming for a while.

In her older years, serious financial and health problems arose for Yohe and her husband, Captain John A. Smuts. So, she took a job as a WPA clerk in April 1938, transcribing Boston's vital records (for example, births and marriages) from "ancient ledgers to card catalogs," for $16.50 a week. But Yohe took things in stride, shut down the notion that she was the latest victim of the Hope Diamond curse, and said: "I've had this job three weeks and I'm proud of it. I'm happier than ever before" ("May Yohe, Once Star, Found As WPA Clerk," Oakland Tribune, May 4, 1938) 

But even though Yohe had a bluntness and spirit that would have made WPA chief Harry Hopkins proud too, she wasn't entirely immune from wistful remembrance: "Sometimes I dream of the lights and the music and the applause and I wish I could go back to the stage for a while" ("May Yohe, Once Stage Darling of Two Continents, Owner of Hope Diamond, Dies In Poverty After Working For WPA," Pensacola News Journal (Pensacola, Florida), August 29, 1938).

Perhaps if Yohe had lived just a little bit longer, she could have found a role in the WPA's Federal Theatre Project... for one last show, one last season under the lights, and one more round of applause.

"I wore it twice and didn't care if I never wore it again. It looked like a bum sapphire. Why I gave the old stone more publicity than it ever had before or since."

--May Yohe, discussing the Hope Diamond (see Pensacola News Journal article cited above.)