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Oscar Collet and Julia Dean never met, but he was devoted to her. Oscar,
in spite of the French sound of his name, was the son of English immigrants who
meandered his way through a succession of jobs before embarking on a 20-year
career with the fledgling Missouri Historical Society. Julia was a beloved
American actress who honed her craft in the theaters of the frontier, suffered an
abusive first marriage, and later died tragically young in childbirth. The
only connection between Oscar and Julia seems to have been the possibility that he
saw her on stage in St. Louis.
But Oscar could not forget Julia. He ultimately became her biographer, although
his work does not seem to have been published, and he labored long and hard to secure a
suitable picture of her for the Society's celebrity portrait gallery. When Oscar
wrote a novel about lovers in old St. Louis, he indulged in a wishful bit of gender
reversal by christening his hero Julian.
Oscar Collet was a man of wide interest and many talents. A student at Saint
Louis University between the ages of 12 and 18, he appears not to have taken a degree.
After traveling in Europe he returned to St. Louis to settle down, marrying Irish immigrant
Agnes Dunlap in 1850. Archbishop Kenrick officiated at the ceremony in the
Cathedral. After working in the stationery, spice, and wholesale liquor trades and
keeping the books for the St. Louis County Court, Collet joined the Missouri Historical
Society in 1875, where he remained until a disagreement over the sale of Society property
led to his resignation in 1893. During his tenure at the newly established
organization, Collet served as treasurer, acting secretary, and recording secretary
and filled places on many committees. All this time he was also immersed in his
own research and literary activities.
Along with his biography of the fair Julia and his novel Julian and Louise, Collet
produced other novels, poetry, articles and papers on the history of St. Louis and the
Louisiana Territory, and indexes to the contents of various archives. He also
indexed the marriage records of Cahokia, Illinois, thus earning the eternal gratitude
of generations of genealogists, who continue to consult these records today.
After Collet's death in 1904 at the age of 83, his widow Agnes donated his papers
to Saint Louis University. They now repose--correspondence, research notes,
literary effusions--in the Archives in Pius Memorial Library. They invite
students of the past to appreciate the deep enthusiasms and painstaking inquiry
of a now obscure scholar who in his day was a pillar of the St. Louis cultural
community. In what they reveal of Collet's fascination with the life and
career of Julia Dean, they also serve as a memorial to a nearly forgotten actress
of the early American stage.
Christine Froechtenigt Harper
May 2000
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