Hello,
I recently purchased a 1887 edition of Ben Hur a tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace.
The inscription inside the cover reads “ J. W. Strevell from “Lizzie” 1887 to G. M. Miles, Miles City Mont.

I am wondering if it is referring to coming from the Judge Strevell and his wife Elizabeth the author of poetry and their son in law and daughter Hellen? I believe that G.M. Miles is the nephew of General Nelson A. Miles of whom the town is named after but I am not sure. Any information anybody has on these two families would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance

You are right about everything. George's second wife was Helen Strevell. What sort of information were you looking for?

Hello Amorette,
Thanks for your reply. One of the questions that I have is if Mr. J. W. Strevell’s wife went by “Lizzie”. I have looked at a few websites looking for information on her but I haven’t found much about her except that she wrote a book called Poems of Love that she wrote for her daughter Helen after she died in 1887. Since the book is given to George Miles I think maybe it was to comfort him after Helen’s passing.
All this searching for information started after I saw a episode of Tales of Wells Fargo that was about General Lew Wallace and Billy the Kid where the general mentioned that he was writing a book that he was calling Ben Hur the tale of the Christ. I decided to get a copy to read so I was looking on eBay and found this book and bought it. I wanted to get a copy that was published about the time that it was first released. But to my surprise was the inscription that had some historical names like Mr. Strevell who once had President Lincoln stay in his house in Illinois before he moved to Montana.