6
LOIS WAS BOTH HAPPY AND PROUD THAT PARTICULAR MONDAY morning, although strangely nervous as she straightened her husband’s tie, patted down the lapels on his handsome dark gray suit, then sent him off to embark on his career as a Wall Street denizen. This was to be Bill’s first official day in the offices of J.K. Rice & Company.
Soon these onetime eager “pioneers” would really be in the chips, making enough to greatly enlarge and handsomely redecorate their apartment in the heart of the most elite section of Brooklyn Heights.
Soon Lois would be out shopping with Elise Shaw and those other wealthy Wall Street wives, ogling the kind of furnishings only an interior decorator with a contempt for budgets can talk you into.
Lois felt suddenly overwhelmed. Before she could let all this happen, she thought to herself, she needed some time to slow down, if only for a few hours, preferably at least a few days. If it were possible, for a few weeks.
Yes, they had been on the road for almost a year—an excursion into the nation’s heartland whose routes she would love to travel over and over again—but still, this success seemed to be coming much too fast. Heck, what did she really know about this Wall Street stuff anyway, people making so much money so easily and so quickly simply by buying and trading pieces of paper with impressive-looking pictures and stamps on them—like those stock certificates in the bottom of Bill’s dresser drawer.
Lois was smart and sophisticated in many ways and about many things. She could draw, she could paint, she could design, and she could play the piano. She was well read, cultured, and knew a great deal about religion, medicine, and the history of this land and many other lands as well. And she was good at budgeting and conceptual planning, as she showed in her preparations for their research venture. But when it came to the stock market, she admittedly knew little about how it actually worked. She wanted to know more. She needed to know more, if only to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject with Bill’s new associates.
Yes, she certainly knew a great deal about Bill’s investigative work. She was right there with him when he explored America’s industrial might. But what did investors actually do with the information? How did the mechanics of the financial marketplace really work? She went into the hall closet where Bill had stashed his Moody’s manuals, dusted one off, and began to read. After digesting several pages, she decided to call the company to ask some simple questions. Identifying herself as Mr. Wilson’s “research assistant,” Lois found a gentleman who loved talking about the business he was in, particularly to such a charming voice on the other end of the line. Lois not only managed to get the thumbnail sketch she wanted but a historical overview as well.1
She learned from the Moody’s man, for instance, that people in this country had been involved in trading government obligations and company interests ever since America was first colonized by Great Britain, which already had commercial involvements in practically every corner of the world. The buying and swapping was usually limited and informal and without charge, unless, of course, a barrister was necessary for the transaction.
The eighteenth century brought great expansion to world trade and to burgeoning business centers such as New York, creating even more interest in financial instruments. By the late 1700s, a number of merchants and brokers in the city began charging a commission to act as agents for other interested parties and for giving preference to each other in the purchase and sale of securities.
About two dozen of these merchants operated outdoors under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street, except during inclement weather when they gathered in a nearby coffeehouse. It was in May of 1792 that the group decided to informally organize to protect their mutual interests. This was the birth of the New York Stock Exchange.
From 1792 on, public interest in stocks and bonds rose largely as a result of the increase in government obligations and the growth of banks and insurance companies. As the number of actual brokers grew significantly, they got together and drew up a simple agreement, or constitution, and called themselves the New York Stock and Exchange Board. They rented a room at 40 Wall Street for $200 a year and began charging each member broker $25 for a “seat” in the room. That fledgling organization would grow into the booming financial trading arena called the New York Stock Exchange, now with its own large beehive of a building at the center of Wall Street’s financial district.
After learning more about how the large investment firms had to own these now very expensive “seats” in order to trade on the exchange, and how such trading was conducted, Lois thanked the Moody’s man and hung up. Her head was now filled with all sorts of minutiae she needed to know about the stock market, since she would soon be socializing with all those Wall Street wives.
If Lois thought things had been moving too quickly up until then, she had to fasten her seat belt for the roller-coaster ride that lay ahead. For right now, the stock market was booming, and she would soon find out how wrong she had been to believe that a year away from the New York bar scene would end her husband’s drinking.
Caught up in the euphoria of the market, the wining and dining of big investors, an unlimited expense account, and a $20,000 line of credit from Rice & Company to buy stocks on margin for his own account, Bill Wilson was in seventh heaven. Still, for some inexplicable reason even most alcoholics themselves can’t figure out, he always wanted to feel even better. So, before long, he was again drinking rather heavily while continuing to tell his wife it was “only for business.”
As the months went by, things didn’t go directly downhill, nor was every day bleak or unhappy. On the contrary. As Lois often shared in her later years, they had a great deal of fun and excitement being back in the city. They often met Frank and Elise and some wealthy clients and their wives, usually at one of the most insanely expensive restaurants in town—generally a Mob-controlled speakeasy with chorus girls out front and gambling in the back room. These were the fruits of Prohibition.
The evening would begin with the finest wines or aperitifs, usually accompanied by boastful stories of how well everyone did that day trading thousands of shares of this stock or that. Then would come the juiciest steaks, the tenderest veal, the most succulent lamb chops. Many of those nights Lois proudly watched Bill charm everyone with his wit and Yankee humor. To her he was the most articulate, the most charming, the most handsome man in the place, and on such nights the dreams he often shared with her of achieving true greatness seemed possible, almost within reach.
But then, as Lois was learning, there were those other nights, which soon became more and more frequent. Those were the nights when after six or seven drinks or more—it was impossible to tell just when it would happen—Bill would become less interested in what others had to say, focusing only on what he was saying. And, if he was interrupted, he’d cast a nasty look and continue, or worse yet, make a snide remark that often offended everyone at the table. Many times people would excuse themselves and leave. As Lois recalled, “In the morning I would still be angry about being so embarrassed the night before and Bill would be filled with self-reproach. The problem was, his self-reproach would be gone long before my anger.”2
He would always sheepishly apologize to Lois but then try to justify his actions, saying how he hated the patronizing and snobbish attitudes of people who wouldn’t know a Vermont maple from a Christmas tree. Here he was making so much money for them, and they took it all for granted.
The truth was, Bill’s investigative genius was constantly pulling rabbits out of the hat and keeping Rice & Company clients quite pleased. At the same time, while they maintained their business relationships with the young broker, a number of customers began to lessen their social contact with him.
Almost every stock he recommended had a dramatic move up. In addition to investing for himself, he was building his own clientele, mainly from the recommendations among the customers in the speakeasies where he had become well known and respected. He also had Rogers and Dr. Leonard Strong investing with him now, as well as some of the wealthy summer people in Manchester he met during the sojourns he and Lois took together to Emerald Lake.
By August of 1927, he discovered that sitting in his office or in a gin mill wasn’t producing enough new “targets of opportunity.” And besides, with his drinking now increasing at home, Lois was talking more and more about getting him out into the country again. So he decided another research venture on the open road would help both situations.
Bill took out his Moody’s manuals from the hall closet while Lois reviewed her old list of traveling supplies. Only now, their trusty old Harley-Davidson was in mothballs and a Dodge sedan was parked at their curbside instead.
Still, Lois hoped that somehow they could find a way of recapturing, at least in part, those warm and lovely moments of their trip the year before when they found as much time to make love as they did to investigate companies. Even though their world was different now, she could at least hope. And she would have her husband back out in the country where, perhaps, he would have one more chance to find sobriety.
After visiting companies in upstate New York and Connecticut, they headed for Holyoke, Massachusetts, and a firm by the name of the American Writing Paper Company. It was presently in receivership, but as Bill had explained to Frank and the other partners, with new management and an influx of cash, there was a good chance the company could be turned around and thus produce a substantial return on their investment. After a week of meetings, Bill telephoned Frank to say he was convinced this could be done.
One of American Writing Paper’s board members—trying to polish the apple, no doubt—heard how much Lois and Bill loved to be surrounded by nature, so he loaned them his log cabin for the week. It was located in the nearby hills, only a few miles from the plant. Lois recalled the cozy place not only had heat and running water but also everything from clean sheets and towels to a radio and a telephone. But the thing she remembered the most was the lovely view of Mount Tom through the front picture window.3
Those few days together in Holyoke recaptured at least some of the feelings, some of the closeness, and some of the intimacy they had while touring the South. First of all, Bill did not have a single drink after leaving Brooklyn. Maybe it was that old “fresh air and exercise” potion working again, Lois thought. Second, their rugged surroundings and the crisp fall air reinvigorated them both. As Lois later wrote, “This morning, as there was not a soul around, we swam in the river ‘au naturel.’ Later, on a long walk, we picked a lot of hazelnuts which I haven’t found for a long time. And for supper I stewed up the blueberries and elderberries which we had gathered earlier.
“That night when Bill and I went to town to the movies, clouds of white moths swarmed all around the street lights, whitening the ground with snow-like piles at the foot of every lamp post. Never having seen anything like it before, we inquired and learned they were gypsy moths and a great menace to the trees. Thank goodness I had never seen them in Vermont.
“Tomorrow we leave for Canada.”4
That last comment said it all, for that’s where Bill resumed his drinking despite still being “out in the country.” They had been in Montreal for several weeks. Bill had been trying hard to get the goods on a major Canadian aluminum enterprise but without any luck. He was spurned by management as well as the workers, whom he said “didn’t speak the same language even though it was English.”5 He hadn’t received this much resistance since that very first call he made on General Electric, and this time there were no Goldfoots to soften up with a few beers. And, as for beer, Bill still hadn’t had a drop, even though there was no Prohibition law in Canada. Finally, he gave up and headed for home. Lois could tell he was very down, almost depressed. Nothing she said cheered him up.
Just as they were about to cross the border back into the United States, Bill casually mentioned he had run out of cigarettes and needed to stop to pick up a few packs.
“I realized this was nonsense since cigarettes were a lot more expensive in Canada,” Lois said. “But liquor was cheaper and more easily available than in the U.S. in those Prohibition days.”6
Bill had parked the Dodge in the plaza near the International Bridge that marked the United States–Canadian border. He had gone off with both the car keys and all their money. Lois sat there and waited for several hours, trying to decide exactly what to do next. It was almost dark by the time she set out to look for him, passing by all the shops, restaurants, and tourist traps and surveying only the bars.
“In the very last saloon in the area, there he was hardly able to navigate,” she recalled. “And he had spent practically all of our money except for a few dollars.”7
Lois was exasperated, not so much by the fact that she now had to drive most of the way back to New York herself, but mainly because those ever-present butterflies in her stomach told her this was merely a precursor of things to come.
As the cold winds of late November blew in, so did another one of Bill’s unusual investment ideas: Cuban sugar. With the economy booming and everyone he knew having a sweet tooth, he saw sugar as a growth industry and Cuba as the lowest-cost producer. So he talked Frank Shaw into an all-expense-paid trip: he and Lois would “investigate” the island just off the coast of Florida.
It was probably only a coincidence, of course, that Bill had received a letter at about that time from his father, Gilman, who had remarried. They hadn’t seen each other in years. Gilly was working outside Miami, cutting rock to build the Overseas Highway that would connect the mainland with the Florida Keys. How convenient it would be to pay his father a visit on their way home.
In Cuba, Lois and Bill were given a warm reception and treated as important American investors in the island’s economy. A car, a chauffeur, and even a motorboat were placed at their disposal. In Havana they stayed at the elaborate Hotel Sevila. Bill lived it up, especially when he took a fancy to two other island specialties: Cuban cigars and Cuban rum. It was the rum that turned the whole trip into a near disaster and almost a total waste of the firm’s money. As Lois remembered quite vividly, “It was a frustrating time for me, though, because of Bill’s drinking. One day, to keep him from going down to the bar, I threw one of his shoes out the window, but this did no good. It landed on a nearby roof, and Bill simply called the porter to retrieve it. In no time, he was down at the bar wearing both shoes.”8
Frank Shaw soon heard of Bill’s escapades through one of his Cuban financial connections. He immediately called the hotel and read Bill the riot act. This so upset Bill that before leaving the island, he wrote Frank a letter of apology. It read, in part, “I have never said anything to you about the liquor question, but now that you mention it and also for the good reason that you are investing your perfectly good money in me, I am at last very happy to say that I have had a final showdown (with myself) on the matter . . . I am finally . . . rid of it . . . That is that so let us now forget it.”9
With Bill making so much money for the firm, Shaw was happy to forget it—for a while anyway. On their way home, Lois and Bill did stop to see Gilly and his second wife, Christine. They also met Gilly and Christine’s daughter, Helen, Bill’s half sister who was only ten years old. The visit was pleasant enough, but Lois made sure to keep it short for fear her husband and father-in-law would start drinking together.
A few nights after they returned to Brooklyn, Bill came home drunker than usual. Lois helped him into the bedroom and undressed him. As she tried putting on his pajamas, he fell onto the bed and pulled her down on top of him. He wanted to make love. She could smell the whiskey coming out of every pore in his body as he rolled over on her. His hands were sweaty, his breath repulsive. She tried to move away but he wanted her. He kissed her and fondled her. She tried not to feel her feelings. This was her husband, but there must be times—there had to be times—when a wife had every right to say no to her husband.
His breath came hard and heavy as he struggled to perform. She gave him little help. Then she realized that the booze had made him impotent again. They had had problems before, but this night it was hopeless. After a few moments Bill, as drunk as he was, finally realized it himself. He crawled away from her and buried his head in a pillow. As he moaned like a poor, hurt little animal, Lois began to weep. Her feelings of disgust suddenly turned into deep empathy. “I love you, Bill,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. “How can I help you to stop all of this? Dear God, please show me how I can help my husband.”
The next morning, Bill had no recollection of the night before. He was now beginning to have “blackouts,” a state where the brain becomes so dulled by alcohol that a person can continue to function but not remember what he did or when and where he did it. Bill only knew he had come home very drunk again, and judging by the look on his wife’s face, he had probably hurt and embarrassed her one more time. So he apologized one more time and went off to work with a terrible hangover—almost certain to stop somewhere for “a hair of the dog.”10
Despite lunching and attending the theater and such with Elise and the wives of other Wall Street executives and investors, Lois still had too much time just to sit around the house and think. Despite her disagreement with YWCA during the war years, she still had many friends there, and she returned now for some volunteer work. She not only enjoyed it, but it took her mind off the problems at hand.
A few weeks before Christmas, Lois planned to have her entire family and some guests over for a holiday dinner. She wanted everything to go well. She made Bill promise not to drink too much, at least not while everyone was there. He sarcastically tossed his glass of gin and tonic into the sink and promised to be “a good boy.” By now, she was used to his sarcasm after he had had a few and wanted to continue drinking.
Lois decorated the Christmas tree and the entire apartment in the spirit of the season. Everything was beautiful. It made her feel better doing it. She even hung mistletoe over the front door. When the special evening arrived and the clock struck six, she put on a happy face and greeted everyone as though there wasn’t one single problem in the entire Wilson household. Even Bill’s sister, Dorothy, who had been expressing concern over his drinking to her doctor-husband, Leonard Strong, was fooled by Lois’s performance. But two people there certainly were not—Elise Shaw and Clark Burnham.
During dinner, while Rogers and Leonard were complimenting their host for “buttering their bread” with such high-flying stocks, Bill turned to his father-in-law and graciously invited him to be his guest at the New York Stock Exchange one day soon “to see how your son-in-law works his magic,” he winked. Then he toasted him with his glass of Chablis.
“Not on your life,” Lois remembered her father replying rather abruptly. “I hear it’s like watching a herd of wild buffalo stampede. Nothing but a parade of heart attacks all trying to get to the waterhole at the same time. No thanks.”11 Bill’s face showed not only shock and disappointment but also deep hurt. Ever since he married Lois, he had been trying to earn Dr. Burnham’s respect—not those measly, patronizing “Keep up the good work, son” platitudes, but his respect. Now here he was moving among the giants of Wall Street and showering the doctor’s daughter with all the things the good life can bring, and getting no credit for it. “Well, he can go to hell,” Bill said under his breath as he excused himself from the table and went into the parlor for a stiff belt.
There was a momentary pause in the conversation since everyone couldn’t help but notice the incident. Lois quickly drew their attention by rising herself and inviting everyone to join her and Bill in the parlor for an after-dinner cordial and some dessert.
As the guests were leaving, Barbara, who had always liked and admired her brother-in-law, pulled Lois aside and naively told her she shouldn’t get so upset just because her husband has a few social drinks once in a while, or even gets tight now and then. After all, wasn’t it part of his doing business—entertaining people, being sociable, being a good host? And look at her lovely apartment. A phone in every room. Partying with the elite.
Lois wanted to grab her younger sister, look into her eyes, and tell her the man she admired so much insulted people in restaurants after “a few social drinks,” that he bought so many rounds in a speakeasy he could have owned the place, that he often couldn’t remember what had done last night or the night before, that he often came home so drunk she had to undress him and then, reeking of his stinking booze, he would try to make love to her—and couldn’t.
Lois didn’t say any of those things, nor did she admit she was now making up excuses for her husband with Frank Shaw and others when Bill was so hungover he couldn’t keep his appointments. She didn’t confess the “white lies” she would tell the family when they were invited for Sunday dinner and didn’t show up. No, because she didn’t want anyone to know she was slowly becoming the kind of person she herself couldn’t stand—a person of low moral character. She had no idea then that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue.
Lois simply kissed Barbara goodnight and wished her a very merry Christmas.12
By the spring of 1928, Frank Shaw was growing much more concerned about Bill’s drinking and how it was affecting the firm’s important clients. He had been hearing some wild stories, but he also knew his highly successful research expert wasn’t the only man on Wall Street nor the only one at Rice & Company for that matter to “tie one on” now and then. Still, he simply couldn’t ignore the particularly embarrassing episodes his other partners were bringing to his attention.
Frank and Bill had another talk, this time eyeball to eyeball. Shaw said it had to stop—now. Bill agreed, admitting his drinking had gotten out of control at times and could lead to some serious problems if he didn’t stop. He humbly assured his mentor that his heavy drinking days were over for good. From now on it would be just a few beers once in a while. Deep down in his gut, Bill really meant it.
Shaw was a man with a keen eye for the “long-haul situations” that his researcher was continuing to unearth. Their arrangement had already proven so profitable for both of them he really didn’t want it to change. So once again he accepted Bill at his word. Back then, no one knew anything about the addiction of alcoholism and its downhill progression. Not only did he take Bill’s word, but a few months later when Frank was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and accepted the top spot at Tobey & Kirk, a major stockbrokerage firm on Broad Street, he talked Bill into coming along with him.
So on this particular day when they finished their tête-à-tête, Frank shook Bill’s hand and invited him and Lois to a major fund-raiser that weekend at the palatial Long Island estate of Joseph Hirshhorn, the firm’s biggest and most influential client. Bill swore he’d be on his best behavior.
Elise Shaw knew better. For months she had been listening to Frank complain about the pressure he was feeling from his partners to rein in the husband of his wife’s closest friend. Now he told her the problem was solved. She merely smiled and shook her head.
A few days later, Elise met Lois in Manhattan on the pretense of viewing the latest exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lois was happy to be alone with her best friend for a change. Over a late lunch, Elise casually raised the subject of Frank’s concern about Bill’s drinking and that it seemed to be getting worse. These two women rarely kept secrets from one another or denied the obvious when it had import on their lives. But alcoholism is a disease of denial, and that denial also infects the spouses and families of alcoholics. Lois certainly knew none of this at the time. She only wanted to protect her husband’s reputation and self-respect and, perhaps unconsciously or consciously, her own image and self-respect at the same time.
Lois admitted that Bill had gone off on a few sprees and done some very stupid things, generally when he was in bad company at those speakeasies—with men who had nothing else to do but drink. She had always suggested he stay away from that kind of crowd. However, after the fiasco in Cuba and his recent talk with Frank, all that was behind him now. Bill had finally turned over a new leaf.
When Elise tried to explain how it was with her growing up, how men with serious drinking problems were always promising to swear off but never could, she sensed Lois was turning a deaf ear. Bill wasn’t like those men, her friend insisted. He had a strong will, and with her help and support she just knew he could stop drinking. Elise soon realized she was talking to the wall, and if she cherished their close friendship, she would back off. So she did.13
That Saturday evening Lois and Bill drove into the sprawling estate of Joe Hirshhorn and his wife on Great Neck, Long Island, for the gala garden party they were hosting to raise money for their synagogue. Lois, wearing a long red taffeta dress, was eager to see the well-known art collector’s famous paintings and tapestries said to fill the lavish halls and rooms of their manor.
Joe was one of Bill Wilson’s idols. He had been a poor boy from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who began his extraordinary financial career as a runner on Wall Street. He used every nickel he earned to trade stocks and he gradually amassed a large fortune. As the story goes, he found a calendar lying in the street one day with a picture on it so beautiful that he framed it for his mother. That’s what sparked his interest in art. The financier went on to build one of the world’s largest and finest art collections, which he later donated to the U.S. government. Today that collection is housed in the Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Bill was already acquainted with Hirshhorn, having investigated several companies and a number of substantial real estate holdings at his request. Joe was so pleased with the results that he highly recommended the researcher to other big investors in the city. Bill felt very proud that night to introduce his wife, a painter herself, to one of the country’s important art collectors, who then had an assistant give Lois a private tour of his many fine works. She was thrilled.
Bill was on his very best behavior—for about two-and-a-half hours. After Lois’s tour of the house, they enjoyed the marvelous outdoor buffet with Elise and Frank and other business associates. Then they had several dances together. Spotting a few possible sales prospects in the elite crowd, Bill told Lois he’d be back shortly and began to circulate. That’s when he bumped into Clint Harris, a fellow drinking buddy from Rice & Company, chatting with one of Great Neck’s “gay divorcées” who knew the Hirshhorns quite well. They were both a bit tipsy.
Now, it’s a matter of record that very few drunks consider having a small glass of champagne “drinking.” So when the waiter passed by with a tray filled with champagne glasses and his fellow broker and his friend each took one, so did Bill. And then he took another, and another.
There are several versions of what happened next.14 Bill remembered he and Clint following the charming divorcée down into Joe Hirshhorn’s wine cellar to have their own private party. There were crates and crates of the finest French wine and champagne everywhere. His fellow broker—who wound up joining Bill in Alcoholics Anonymous seventeen years later—remembered unsealing the first crate and popping a cork.
“We sipped a little of the free bubbly in a dignified way,” Clint recalled, “then sipped a little more, and then [got into it] for real.”15
He said that the drunker they got, the more difficult it became to pop the corks. So they simply smashed the bottle necks against some piping and choked the stuff down like crazy. There was broken glass and sparkles all over the place and all over them. He didn’t remember what happened after that.
Back out at the party, Lois became very uncomfortable and ill at ease waiting for Bill to return. More than an hour had passed and she had run out of small talk. She kept staring at the richly dressed couples on the dance floor, trying to avoid Elise’s “I told you so” glances. Finally, she offered the “I have to powder my nose” excuse and set off to find her thoughtless husband. A guest who knew Bill said he had seen him and two companions headed for Joe Hirshhorn’s wine cellar.
On this special night and in this elegant setting, this caring and sensitive lady couldn’t believe the terrible drunken orgy she walked into. There were shards of glass all over the floor, puddles of champagne everywhere and the cellar smelled like soured wine. Bill was so drunk he could hardly stand. Clint had passed out on a bench. No one would say what had happened to the gay divorcée.
Certainly Lois had been angry before at her husband’s shameful antics, but this was more humiliating and shocking than she could possibly stand. As she later shared, “I must admit I became a bit hysterical for a moment. I remember running at Bill and pummeling him on the arms and slapping him in the face. I kept crying ‘Why? Why?’ but it didn’t make any difference. He was so intoxicated he simply staggered backwards and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I wanted to run and hide but there was nowhere I could go. I had never felt so low, so upset, so angry, so terribly humiliated in all my life. We had to sneak off from that lovely affair like thieves in the night.”
Lois lingered until her husband was at least able to walk and until Elise and Frank Shaw had departed. A stranger at the party helped get Bill into the car. Lois didn’t even remember driving home. She often said later how useless it was to yell at her husband when he was drunk. But she admitted she rarely raised her voice even the next morning because he looked so pitiful and hopeless. “He was always turning over a new leaf and I always wanted to believe him until finally he even gave up on himself.”16 What Lois never said about that night at the Hirshhorns—in fact, what she was never willing to talk about then or later—was how she felt about that gay divorcée. How many other women were there like the gay divorcée in those speakeasies her husband frequented? How alluring were their charms once he had had a few highballs? What could he possibly find in them when he had a wife at home who adored him, who was willing to give him all her love, all her understanding, all her support? Why wouldn’t Lois ask herself these questions? Why would she be any different than the spouses of other alcoholics who asked the same questions and always feared the answers?17
Perhaps that’s why when Bill woke from his drunken stupor the next morning, there was a note on his dresser. It merely said:
I am going away for awhile. I will let you know where I am. I will not return until you are sober. Lois.
Lois had packed up and left for Washington, D.C., where she checked into a small hotel. Lois later admitted to a close friend that leaving Bill at that time was simply a ploy to get him to stop drinking. She wanted him to believe she wouldn’t return until he did stop. She even had her mother drop by to check on Bill and reinforce her daughter’s ultimatum. But the real truth was that Lois would rather be unhappy with Bill than unhappy without him and no matter what happened, she knew she would return to him.18
Even though Bill and Dr. Burnham were often at odds, mostly over his carousing, Matilda steadfastly defended her son-in-law, saying it was the devil’s curse that had him in his grips and that prayer and patience were the only answers. She continued to love and pray for Bill and make excuses for him until the day she died.
Perhaps because he was never really close to his own mother or simply because of Matilda’s obvious concern and affection for him, Bill truly loved his mother-in-law. He would try to do almost anything she asked—including not drinking. But at this point, that was impossible except in short, struggling spurts. Now, with Bill under great pressure both at home and on the Street, it was time for another of those spurts.
In Washington, Lois toured the Smithsonian, which always fascinated her, and then the monuments and some government buildings. She stopped by Walter Reed Army Hospital to visit with some old friends she had worked with during the war and lunched a few times with her college alumnae. She talked only about the good times, leaving out the bad—that she was on a brief holiday while her husband’s business kept him tied to Wall Street. Just a few more white lies.
The days dragged on. Matilda reported Bill was staying sober, three days, four days, five days now.
It was while Lois was strolling through a small playground near her hotel that the thought struck her. The idea had always been somewhere deep in her heart but now suddenly it sprang out so clearly she smiled with delight. As she watched some mothers pushing their young children on the park swings and a father waiting at the foot of a slide to catch his excited toddler before she hit the ground, Lois found the answer to their problems. They would adopt a baby.
She called Bill immediately. He was at the office, sober. He seemed elated at the prospect.
The next train heading east from Washington, D.C., carried a lady whose face was now filled with a bright smile instead of sad tears. The guilt she had borne for so long for not being able to give her husband a family he always wanted would soon be assuaged, at least in part, by having a baby’s cries, giggles, and laughter fill their apartment. Lois could hardly wait to get back to New York to begin the adoption process.
She went directly to the Spence-Chapin foundling hospital in Brooklyn. There, a very serious, matronly lady took down all the information and then showed Lois around. She even allowed the excited “mother-to-be” to hold several of the infants that had already been adopted and were simply waiting for the process to be completed so they could go home with their new mothers and fathers.19
Bill was still struggling to stay sober when he sat down with his wife each night to discuss all the intricate details they needed to supply the agency—information about his job, his salary, their family backgrounds, and the necessary recommendations from some close friends concerning their suitability as prospective parents. They also had to decide whether they preferred a boy or a girl, an infant, a toddler, or a young child. They both wanted an infant. It would be like having their very own baby right from the start.
The first person Lois went to see, of course, was Elise. From the moment Lois entered Elise’s lovely home, she couldn’t understand why her closest, dearest friend wasn’t as excited about the adoption as she was.
Elise Valentine Shaw always knew Lois Burnham Wilson would make the greatest mother in the world. She was deeply saddened after her unfortunate surgery ruined all chances of that. But Lois’s friend still carried the scars of her own childhood, growing up in an alcoholic home, being deprived of a father’s love and attention, with a mother living in constant fear and anxiety, and all the shame and embarrassment this kind of life carried with it. That’s why Elise firmly believed no innocent child should have to grow up in such torment.
Lois wondered at the time why her friend’s eyes moistened when she handed her the papers from Spence-Chapin for her to fill out, recommending the Wilsons as suitable parents. She left that day feeling strangely tense and confused over what had just transpired between two women who had always been open and honest with each other. She didn’t know then that the disease of alcoholism can affect even the closest relationships.20
Sadly recalling the adoption process, Lois said, “As weeks went by and we heard nothing, I inquired several times. The agency always replied that the suitable child had not yet been found.”21 She finally went back to Spence-Chapin. She sat down in the matronly woman’s office and asked how much longer it would be before they could adopt their baby. There was a long, ominous pause. Bad news, particularly for a warm, caring, needy woman such as the one seated before her, was always difficult for the matronly lady to convey. It had been decided, she finally responded as tenderly as she could, that under the present circumstances the agency would not be able to approve any adoption by the Wilsons. That was all she had to say.
Lois was devastated. She could not believe what she was hearing. She stumbled past the cribs of smiling infants, out of the hospital, and into the street, not knowing where to go or what to do. It was one of the lowest points in her life. When she talked about it years later, one could still hear the pain in her voice: “Bill was always sure the real reason we were turned down was because of his drinking. It wasn’t until later I learned this was so. I only had some doubts because Bill had been sober at the time.”22
It would be almost two years—the fall of 1929—before Lois would learn that it was Elise who dissuaded the agency from allowing her and Bill to adopt a child. The shock and hurt would wash away all understanding between them, sever what had been a bond almost as strong as that of sisters, and keep them apart for a number of years after that—years when Lois could have used the kind of friendship they once had.23 Bill stayed sober for two months. It was his longest dry period since their motorcycle trip through the South. When he started drinking again, it was worse than before. Lois didn’t know if it was his disappointment again over not having a family, the continued pressure on him to find more and more investment opportunities for his clients, or—and this was always Lois’s deepest fear—that she wasn’t a good enough wife or a good enough lover. Whatever Bill offered as an excuse, Lois could always find some way to feel guilty about it. That’s what makes the spouses of alcoholics such warm and wonderful “enablers.”
Each night, while waiting for her husband to arrive home either for a late, cold dinner or a drunken midnight snack, Lois knelt in her bedroom and, remembering what her mother constantly told her, she would pray, “God help me to help him, my husband, my boy, who is more than life to me. God give me wisdom and strength and patience, for I love him, I love him, I love him.”24
After her mother died only a few years later, these prayers became like ashes in her mouth and fodder for her anger at the Almighty.