By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
On the occasion of your landmark 65th birthday it’s a little hard to fathom that you may not be the most interesting person who bears your name. And yet, the results of my recent online searches on this very question cannot be denied.
Google confirms that some of these other Michael O’Briens are contemporaries. One website said there are 71 of us living in Utah today.
One is a banking and financial services lawyer from Park City. I know this because every once in a while I get his calls. There’s a well-known local fly fisherman and a retired radio personality who use my name too.
My search of Newspapers.com also uncovered several stories about men from many decades ago with the same name. One was a miner who drowned at a nearby hot spring, two others died in very different ways and now rest at the historic Fort Douglas cemetery, and my Grandfather wrote about another one before I was born.
The oddest of these Utah Mike O’Brien stories, however, is a precursor of the wildly popular mystery surrounding the fate of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov of St. Petersburg.
Anastasia—a devout Russian Orthodox young woman—was the daughter of Czar Nicholas II, deposed in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. Bolsheviks murdered Nicholas and his family in July 1918.
Persistent rumors, however, claimed that Anastasia had only pretended to be dead and later escaped the scene with the help of a family friend. During the rest of the century, a couple dozen women claimed to be Anastasia.
The legend grew larger in books, and in a major 1997 animated film featuring the voices of stars like Meg Ryan, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, and Angela Lansbury. (My two daughters watched that movie over and over again as children.)
Later in the twentieth century, the discovery of all the royal Romanov bodies and the advent of DNA testing debunked the rumors. Using blood samples from British Queen Elizabeth’s husband Prince Philip (who was related to the Romanov family), scientists were able to show that the women claiming to be Anastasia were imposters.
So how does a Utah Mike O’Brien fit into this famous international legend?
Fifteen years before the Romanovs died, there was trouble in the nearby Kingdom of Servia (formerly known as Yugoslavia and now known as Serbia). Assassins from a rival family killed the reigning King Alexander and Queen Draga in Belgrade in 1903 and replaced them with new rulers.
Six years later, stories popped up in several Utah newspapers indicating that New York City detectives were on the hunt for someone named Mikhail Obrenovich. The October 1909 news accounts said Mikhail was the young son of King Alexander and Queen Draga and the true heir to the Servian throne.
Obrenovich allegedly was working in the United States as a hotel bell hop and protected by family friends. While incognito, the royal prince was using the name of Michael O’Brien.
The local Deseret News and Ogden Standard-Examiner reported the Associated Press wire story in a rather straightforward manner.
They said O’Brien was brought here to escape the turmoil surrounding his parents and the dueling dynasties in Belgrade. Another Servian royal family reportedly wanted to find and kill him to eliminate a rival for the throne.
When the young O’Brien’s pension ended with the demise of his royal family, he was forced to start working as a bellhop at various hotels in large Eastern cities. By 1909 he was said to be looking for similar positions of employment out west and, by one account, was “believed to be in Salt Lake or headed this way.”
Unlike its competitors, The Salt Lake Tribune took a rather light-hearted approach to the unusual story. It used the headline: “SCION OF ROYAL HOUSE OF SERVIA MAY BE WORKING HERE AS A BELL HOP.”
The Tribune said the European conflict involved names that are “wholly out of the question when it comes to pronouncing” but the majority of which end in “itch.” The Trib added, “If anyone sees a Servian with an Irish name, he is likely to have the bluest of blue blood coursing through his veins…and the hotel that gets him can point to him with pride, saying. ‘Your majesty, wouldst deign to show the lady to 346?’”
It’s a good story. Like the similar account of the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia, however, it’s probably not true.
The historical accounts I’ve read about the Obrenovich family all say Queen Draga never produced a child with King Alexander. Even if they did, they were not married until 1900, meaning the bellhop wandering around the American West would have been only about nine years old.
I searched diligently in the online newspaper archives for any follow-up stories about Servian Prince Michael O’Brien. What happened to him? Was he ever found?
Sadly, I found nothing. I do know from the history books that he never ascended to the Servian throne.
That may mean he was just a myth. Or perhaps he succeeded in his search for American anonymity and avoided the unpleasant fate of his royal parents.
Despite being murdered at age 17, Anastasia’s story had some silver linings. Her name means “resurrection” and she’s enjoyed a bit of that 125 years after she was born in 1901.
She is one of the best known members of a famous family that includes Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized her and her family as holy martyrs and “passion bearers” and reburied them in a place of honor in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in old St. Petersburg.
That got me thinking.
The Serbian Orthodox Church headquartered in Belgrade also has a rich tradition of venerating worthy men and women of the faith. I may ask them to consider adding Prince Michael O’Brien the Salt Lake City Bell Hop to the list.
It may be the closest that any of us Utah Mikes will ever get to sainthood.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for Christmas 2026.
