"Two Pull Better Than One”: The Love Story of Grace and Agnes
[Editor's note: This blog originally appeared on the American Heritage Center Blog, Always Archiving.]
In the early days of Wyoming statehood, when Laramie was still finding its footing as a frontier town, two extraordinary women found each other. Grace Raymond Hebard and Agnes Wergeland would go on to become pivotal figures in the University of Wyoming’s development, but their story goes far beyond their academic achievements. This Valentine’s Day, I’d like to highlight how, through letters, poems, and daily life shared at their home, they forged a bond that defied the constraints of their era.
Though their lives stretched from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, a time when same-sex relationships were not openly discussed, research by scholars—including Virginia Scharff, E. Cram, and Kylie McCormick—suggests Hebard and Wergeland shared an intimate bond that went beyond friendship.
Hebard and Wergeland were partners in life and work, supporting each other’s academic endeavors and personal interests. They shared a common vision of advancing knowledge, culture, and social justice in Wyoming and beyond. They were also part of a network of women scholars, writers, and activists who challenged the male-dominated norms of their time.
Their relationship was not widely publicized or acknowledged, but it was evident in their letters, photographs, and writings.
Grace Raymond Hebard was born in Clinton, Iowa, on July 2, 1861. Armed with a civil engineering degree from the University of Iowa in 1882, she joined her family in Cheyenne where she began her career as a draftsperson and engineer for the U.S. Surveyor General’s office. When the University of Wyoming began construction in 1886, Hebard’s connections to prominent Wyoming families and her brother’s position in the territorial assembly helped secure her appointment to the University’s Board of Trustees in 1891. At age 29, she left Cheyenne for Laramie, beginning what would become a 45-year dedication to the University.
Agnes Wergeland was born in Norway in 1857 and became the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in that country. She was a poet, historian, and professor who taught history and Spanish at the University of Wyoming from 1890 until her death in 1914 at age 56.
She was also a feminist and a suffragist who supported women’s rights and education. She wrote several books and poems in Norwegian and English, some of which were published posthumously by Hebard.
Before coming to Wyoming, Dr. Wergeland’s life is described as lonely and melancholic. This childhood experience helped to shaped her into a reserved and private person. But Wyoming would become her refuge and Dr. Hebard her companion and cure for loneliness.
With optimism, Dr. Wergeland moved to Wyoming in 1902 where she made a fast home of the university library. “I spent this morning in the library. I like to be there. I like the books and the view.” There is where she may have first met and grew close with UW’s first librarian, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard.
In late 1905, Wergeland realized her dreams of owning a home when she and Hebard bought a lot to build their shared home called “The Doctor’s Inn.” They broke ground early the next year, eagerly checking the progress each day on the two-story home. The house still stands at 318 S. 10th in Laramie.
Each created a personal sanctuary on the second floor. Hebard’s rooms overlooked the Snowy Range with large windows and plenty of light for her extensive library. Wergeland’s front rooms claimed the balcony, which she filled with flowers. She created a private place to play her piano, still preferring to play alone but leaving her door ajar for Hebard to hear as she hurried about her own work in the other room.
In their new home, Wergeland was able to explore the artist she always wanted to be. While still pursuing her other scholarly work, she began penning poetry in Norwegian. An excerpt from a translated poem describes the satisfaction she found in her life with Hebard:
When I come through the door
One greets me welcome, we help each other
To bear the household burdens and make life easy for each other.
We both know what it is to be out among strangers
And take the crumbs of benevolence and consideration which the world gives;
And as long as we live we shall not forget
That Life’s hills are long, and two pull better than one,
Together we discuss the problems of the day, while the evening meal
Is devoured—and here you must not think
We live in any great splendour;
Professors, you know, never get rich…
As professors, they may have not been rich, but the salary must have been adequate because in 1908 Wergeland paid cash for 40 acres in the Snowy Range by Libby Creek. For the lot, she purchased a log cabin built in the style of her European homeland. She called her acreage “Little Norway” and carved a sign for her cabin dubbing it “Enebo” or “The Hermitage.” Here she and Hebard spent their summers in seclusion.
At Enebo, Wergeland found a tranquil refuge that further inspired her poetic creativity. Some of her work was intimate, such as these two works. Written for Hebard, both describe a concert they attended. As Hebard became enraptured with the music, Wergeland lost focus of all else but Hebard’s hand. With extended thoughts about hands as the tools of action, turning our interior selves out for the world to see, Wergeland wrote of Hebard’s strength of character and determination.
Excerpt from “Thy Hand”:
The music ceased. — I knew not —
Thy hand was all my thought,
So small and fine and delicate it was,
The gentle throne for thy mild spirit,
Thy strong and lovely profile’s complement,
Thy very self, thy soul, thy roguish smile.
For all its whiteness ‘tis a working hand:
Its clever fingers are the surest bond
Between work and that wise clear will of yours
Which is work’s spirit…
And I would gladly kiss those flower-stems,
So jealously half-hid by lace and silk;
And in my own how gladly I would hold
Thy warm hand, index of thy noble mind.
Excerpt from “May I sing then, dear, the song of thy hand?”:
May I sing thee, dear, the song of thy hand?
No lovelier possession shall heaven me send!
I see thee now, as I saw thee, and
to the music rapt attention, forward bent-
while the music rattled and muttered in storm
my heart sang a song of a different form;
my eye swept thee up in a motion so fleet
and kissed thy sweet self from head to feet,
ah, never was love more tenderly near
and whispered its secret to soul and ear…
Wergeland’s health declined in 1913, but she still celebrated her favorite holiday, Christmas, with her companion. She cleaned the house and decorated it using Norwegian traditions, such as a small fir tree and grain for the birds. She and Hebard also spread their generosity to others, bringing gifts to their friends and to the hospital. Hebard later recalled their last Christmas together: “Was not this all strangely prophetic, that her last Christmas should be her best, happiest, and brightest? Did she know it was to be her last? I sometimes think she did.”
Wergeland was interred in her doctorate regalia and with the silk American flag she received with her American citizenship. Today, the two women are buried side by side, sharing a headstone at Laramie’s Greenhill Cemetery. Hebard would live another twenty-two years without her most cherished partner.
Hebard went to great lengths to preserve Wergeland’s memory. For example, University of Iowa Professor E. Cram writes of a briefcase found in Hebard’s papers at the AHC:
"Hebard’s name appears worn by time and contact with the fold-over top. Wergeland’s initials appear new. The difference in the clarity and strength of the embossing suggests two different times. Although the story of this briefcase is perhaps the most difficult to understand, my queer intuition ponders if Grace etched Agnes’ name on her briefcase to carry Agnes with her after her death. Perhaps cliché, but Hebard was a sentimental pioneer, and this was especially clear when the woman who was a part of her world moved through the process of dying and encountered the world of the dead.1"
The legacy of Grace and Agnes extends beyond their scholarly contributions or their role in Wyoming’s development. Their story reminds us that even in the most restrictive times, people found ways to build meaningful lives together. Whether in their Laramie home or their beloved summer cabin in the Snowy Range, they created spaces to be fully themselves – as scholars, activists, and companions who held each other through life’s joys and sorrows, even in a time when such love dared not speak its name.
Post contributed by AHC Simpson Archivist Leslie Waggener. "A huge thanks to Wyoming historian and WyoHistory.org editor Kylie McCormick for bringing my awareness to this beautiful story of Grace and Agnes."
1. E. Cram (2016). Archival ambience and sensory memory: Generating queer intimacies in the settler colonial archive, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 13:2.