At the turn of the century, Scott Joplin produced a piece called "Sunflower Slow Drag" with Scott Hayden, which allowed him to spend a lot of time with Belle Hayden, Scott Hayden's sister. Even though Belle didn't share Scott's love for music, they were married in the late 1800's and moved to St. Louis (Preston, 54). In 1902, Belle announced that she was having a baby. The child, a girl, was born sickly and lived for only a couple of months. In 1903, Belle and Scott decided to separate (Preston, 69).
In 1907, Scott met 33-year-old Lottie Stokes who, unlike Belle, loved music (Preston, 79). Scott and Lottie were happily married for ten years. On April 1, 1917, Joplin died in a mental hospital. Lottie would later say, "You might say he died of disappointment, his health broken mentally and physically" (Preston, 99). She was referring to the failure of his last opera, Treemonisha.
It is also said that Joplin died in the mental hospital from complications brought on by the advancement of syphilis (www.ddc.com). He was known to have contracted syphilis almost twenty years earlier.