Chapter 1

Chicago was a powerful magnet that attracted many wealthy Europeans who excitedly sought to increase their lucre by investing in the railroad, lumber, mining and steel industries.  Some scheming men of means brought trailblazers and frontiersmen from the Wild West and heroized and glorified them for the frail easterners who had more bags of money to their names than good deeds.  Gun-slinging cowboys attended formal balls and rubbed elbows with fancy-dressed men who were then expected to invest in the railroad and assorted ventures. The cowboys and Indian fighters were paid to recount their exploits before the timid men and tender-nerved ladies. The western drama enacted at many a private party put women into a faint, and fright into the men, yet no man dared to admit he was a coward and was consequently made to demonstrate his courage by his investments.

One easterner who particularly loved to toy with the feelings of others in this manner was a very powerful man by the name of Michael Alexander Smith – a textile merchant whose elaborate mansion lay on a thousand sprawling acres adjacent to Lake Michigan. As in so many other mansions across the city, Michael’s mansion was the scene of many a rodeo-type get-together that enthralled the hearts of the elite.  Michael was married to a remarkably beautiful woman, by the name of Margaret, who struck everyone who saw her as stunning as the luster of a diamond.  As happy as she appeared to be, however, she suffered from a sense of discomfort in her marriage. If it were not for her son Peter, she would have left her husband and returned to Boston to live with her parents long ago.  Michael’s pride was the basis of everything he did, especially when it came to his son.  Because of this, a conflict of values arose between him and Margaret and was the cause of her grief and despair.  He wanted certain things for his son that clashed with her vision of what Peter should have.  Luckily for her and for her son, Michael was possessed by a strong, ever recurring desire to travel.  This would inevitably keep him away from home for long periods of time – sometimes for a year or more.

As the years passed in this way, mostly without his presence, Margaret nurtured her son with governesses who had that same special spark of values she herself embodied. Thus, her husband’s absences allowed her the freedom to raise Peter with those particular qualities she felt to be so important to life; qualities that he so frighteningly seemed to flagrantly disregard at times.  As a consequence of Margaret’s love and concern for her son’s well-being, he began to develop into a well-rounded boy of values, unhindered by his father’s interference. But when Peter turned ten, his father suddenly took a special interest in his future.