13
“All day in a daze trying to gather myself together and do the necessary chores. I’m morbid and actually seeking this flight because 2000 miles by air seems dangerous and hazardous. Ah, well, who knows? They say when you invite disaster nothing ever happens to snuff one out. Drove to City—Penn Station at 5 and two hours or christening and talk, etc.”
ON JULY 1, AMELIA WAS APPOINTED assistant to the general traffic manager of the Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), which would offer to take passengers cross-country by air and rail. The TAT was banking on Amelia’s image to convince more women to travel by air. Flying was still considered a risk, and she was committed to educating women in particular about air travel.
Since childhood, Dorothy had been passionate about aviation. For this reason she was Amelia’s choice to become the first female passenger to fly coast-to-coast round trip in a commercial airplane. Amelia would join her for the flight to Los Angeles.
Ironically, my grandmother had written just the week before that she wanted to “do something dangerous and rash.” Now Amelia would give her the chance.
There was a time when the two women were inseparable, but now their friendship was strained. Still, Dorothy was grateful for the chance to accompany her friend on the flight, and she writes a detailed account of the record-making crossing.
JULY 8, 1929 Overhead Trail—New York to Los Angeles. City or Columbus plane No. 1, seat 6. I am a passenger on first passenger T.A.T. plane from Atlantic to Pacific. 10 hours from Columbus, Ohio to Waynoka, Oklahoma. Over rich farms and fertile valleys, across Mississippi River. Stopped: Indianapolis 9:13 a.m., St Louis: 12:03, Kansas City 2:47, Wichita 4:56 and Waynoka 6:24. Lunch in air—delicious too, out weather very bumpy. Showers, sun, rain, lightning all day. But lovely effects. Read “Little Caesar,” dozed and looked. Terrible dinner at Waynoka with Amelia and Mayor’s wife. Bed, tired. A.E. looks like hell.
JULY 9, 1929 En Route—Clovis, New Mexico to Los Angeles. Overhead Trail. Our Pullman train late. Breakfast in depot. Drive to field. Stopped Albuquerque 10:17, Winslow 1:17 Kingman 2:31, Los Angeles 5:32. Lindbergh Piloted. Superb grandeur. Nothing ever like it before to thrill and excite and enchant me. 10 hours of sheer beauty. Painted desert, sun parched desert, winds carved mountains, great rocks and ranger. 8,000 to 11,000 ft. elevation. Head wind, too, some of the way. Lunch served in sky. Everyone thrilled and tremendous crowd at arrival Los Angeles, photos, etc.
JULY 10, 1929 Los Angeles. Tired but couldn’t sleep late. Breakfast in room. To Laskys [Hollywood producer] all afternoon and p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Weigall (English author and archeologist, wife, sister or Beatrice Lilly and musician.) Movie talkie in house, “Fashions in Love” Menjou (“Concert”)
JULY 11, 1929 Late breakfast, tub, letters, etc. To “Examiner office for newspaper photo or self with renowned “Lindy.” To Tycko to have photo taken (trial) 2 p.m. off to Lasky studios. Jean Le Meure (French Director), etc. Went all thro’, etc. the “lot,” the wardrobes, etc. and the new talkie works behind the scenes. Amelia here for a minute. Movie in hotel, theatre, bed.
My grandfather was intimately familiar with Hollywood, having convinced Paramount Studios to film the war story Wings, for which he had the literary rights. The silent film—starring Clara Bow, and featuring spectacular stunt flying—won the first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1928. Early newsreels of attempted flights (and crashes) were a continued source of cinematic excitement.
Jesse Lasky, a famous producer, had befriended my grandfather, so Dorothy was treated royally on this visit. Lasky had tried to convince George that Amelia had star quality now that aviation in the twenties was such a popular and commercial theme. But George knew she was not interested in a career in show business.
JULY 12, 1929 Los Angeles. A.E. here at 2 to take me for a flight in the Goodyear Blimp, one of the 4 in this country. Really very amusing and one feels like a “slow movie” alter the roar and racing of the ordinary plane. Went over to the field where the Endurance fliers 246 (Mendell and Reinhart) hrs. had just come down. To Lasky’s late to tea. Back late. Movie alone, dinner, bed. Sent off four telegrams and packed. I’m excited about tomorrow.
JULY 13, 1929 Los Angeles to Clovis, New Mexico. Left hotel at 8 with three men who fly all way across, Found Amelia and Mr. Clement in airport, “City or San Francisco” an doff at 8:45, all 6 or us. It’s very inspiring and something never to be forgotten. Within the hour we’ve had a terrifying thrill. Our radio burned out and the fire, smoke and smell at 10,000 ft. altitude, over mountains and canyons gave one to think! Lunch, afternoon tea, read Willa Cather and soon it is sunset a great rimrock mesa, purple against burnt orange sky. It is so utterly beautiful it saddens me. At Clovis I went to my compartment and hated the desert moon!
JULY 14, 1929 Waynoka, Oklahoma to Ohio. Off again, but as 4 times out of 6, our train is late. We’re eager to be on the plane again. It is so much more beautiful, no heat, no dust. Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. All day, we fly lower than over the mountains and desert or yesterday. Farms, grazing, ranches, etc. A.E. and Clement leave, much crowds to meet us. (Usually I am rushed and photoed and snapshotted instead or Amelia by mistake). Fine day thro’ lightning storm. Late at Port Columbus. Rushed for train.
JULY 15, 1929 New York again. 8 nights across Continent and back. Four or them in Los Angeles. How different from the day when it took five nights to get to my Oregon home in 1912–16. Such a nice happy homecoming. Back to Rye. God forgive me for my shilly shallying, or strike me dead soon! How can I go ahead! I alone, know my problem and it is difficult! (No sleep, got up to write.)
Four days after crossing the continent and back again in America’s first commercial air carrier, my grandmother celebrated her forty-first birthday. On July 20, she wrote: “Money doesn’t help at all—it’s simply pleasant to be able to help others.” Her health, she noted, was “a thing to thrill over. But I’d be happier, poor—in a smaller, simpler menage—even a new baby. And work to do. This disgusting cloud of always bickering is corroding.… Lovely presents, yellow roses. Ghastly aftermath.” The end of her marriage was becoming closer to reality.
After the flight, George arranged a public relations event in which Amelia would attempt a deep-sea dive off Block Island. Once again, Dorothy was invited to join in. She had already completed similar dives near the Galapagos Islands with David four years earlier and was familiar with the risks. En route to Block Island, Dorothy and Amelia flew with Grover Loening in his revolutionary amphibian airplane, the Air Yacht.
JULY 21, 1929 Senator Walcott and Bill Lancaster for dinner. Flew from Manursing to Block Island one and a half hours, in Amphibian with Grover loaning, the designer. Also Amelia and two pilots.
JULY 22, 1929 Up at 5:30 very soon off sound fishing. Amelia, G.P., Fred Walcott and I. Good fun and I had record catch, size and number. After lunch out to Falcon, the Mother ship for the submarines (which figured in salvaging the historic S. 51). A.E. put on diver’s outfit, but didn’t submerge. I swam alone, Lobster dinner and bed early. Was utterly disgusted with all the fuss over the “diving” performance.
JULY 23, 1929 Block Island. By 9 am on way out to Falcon and submarine, the Defender. But a leaky valve means no submerging. Meanwhile a snooty newspaper article about A.E. necessitates disproving a slur on her lack of nerve. So she dived all over “again” and went down 10 minutes in 25 ft. water, (Same helmet, etc. we used in Galapagos. David and I did this four years ago.) Had great diving out and up from the submerged sub air chamber. A.E., Loening, Ralph Chapman (inventor or underwater torch), and I. Quite a thrill. Only women in world. Flew back to Rye. I sat in cockpit.
JULY 24, 1929… Amusing stories in all the papers about our having dived up to the surface out of the submarine.… Wrote (started) article “Air Minded and Sub Conscious.” I hope I can live up to the title. My other remark about a future visit to a “submarine subrose” G.P. attributed to Amelia!!
Dorothy had begun to abhor the public relations machine that drove George and Amelia. She was a deeply private person and never wanted the kind of fame that her husband sought. She appreciated a challenge, but she wanted a different life. Fame did not seduce her earthbound soul, and following the highly publicized weekend, she returned to Rocknoll more determined than ever to give George his freedom. “He doesn’t need me anymore,” she told one friend.
JULY 26, 1929 Rye. Things are reaching a conclusion slowly, but surely. The end, now, is inevitable, It’d be far wiser to terminate everything now, to be poorer, but infinitely happier. To cease the jarring each other before it’s too late.…
In spite of Dorothy’s continued indecision, she tried to stay close to her children and to deal with the personal and often awkward issues involved in raising sons.
JULY 28, 1929 Today I’ve had a curious shock. When making beds and tidying up bedrooms, etc. I found some very illuminating evidence in David’s suitcase! How sorry I am, how very very very sad that at 16 he knows all about sex and in a very sophisticated and unbeautiful way! Contraceptives inevitably detract from the beauty and completeness and spirituality of love. I never knew till marriage, nor G.P. at 23½.
Two weeks after the inaugural cross-country TAT flight, David and his dad took the same trip to the West Coast for the start of the first Women’s Los Angeles to Cleveland Air Race. (It was renamed the Powder Puff Derby by Will Rogers.)
Dorothy suspected that George wanted to be with Amelia when she took off for Cleveland. “Of course, G.P. is going solely to see his Amelia start the Female Air Derby and will surely end with her at Cleveland.”
Frank Upton had badly injured his hand in a propeller, and he and his friend Bill Lancaster were still on the East Coast. “Bill says it’s the only case he’s ever known that didn’t take off a hand.” Upton, bandaged and sore, came to Rye to visit Dorothy. The following day, Bill and Frank left for the Cleveland Air Race. Later that day they wired her that they were forced to land in a pasture outside Syracuse waiting for the fog to lift. “Frank from Cleveland, flew alone 600 miles in 7 hours—great stuff!” A few days afterward came the cryptic conclusion:
AUGUST 28, 1929 G.P. and David home from T.A.T. trip. And Amelia did not win the Women’s Air Derby.
By summer’s end, G.W. had returned from Wyoming and came to see Dorothy at Mugo Court. The sun was still rising when she walked outside carrying the same iris bulbs that she and G.W. had first planted at Rocknoll and that she had dug up and carried to her new home. As a dark shadow fell across the upturned soil, she expected to hear either Mary or Helen. Suddenly she felt the tender grip of G.W.’s familiar hands on her shoulder blades. Without turning, she lowered her chin to her chest. Dorothy knew he would come. He fell to his knees and held her; she wept as they said goodbye. “Mother’s ‘bus’ took two loads to ‘Mugo’ and I went up, too. It’s really happening and inside me is frozen and quiet and scared. George Weymouth here after a fine summer in Wyoming.”
Suspecting that my grandfather had begun to read her diary for evidence against her in a divorce suit, she stopped writing about G.W. Her future references to him would be cryptic, as would mentions of Frank Upton, who had made a calculated decision to stay away from her during this time. “Frank has bought a plane and is flying alone now all the time.”
The idea of marrying a wealthy heiress was tantalizing to Upton, a man of little means and fewer social graces. He was pushing her to make a decision about the future and finally gave her an ultimatum. Flattered by his demands, she recorded his urgent promises: “‘I want to devote the rest of my life to repaying your great generosity, and trying to be worthy of your love.’ I wonder! Bless him anyway for thinking it. I wonder, could he be loyal and faithful for long years?”
Dorothy had secretly purchased an Avro Avian, similar to Amelia’s, for Upton, who had learned to fly at her urging. How could he avoid becoming a pilot? She was a vivacious member of the aviation clique and he, a war hero, would be the perfect mate. “Before I departed for Rye, Frank had flown over from airport on Long Island and did some fine ‘stunting’ for the Kitchels and Binneys. Loops and barrel rolls and upside down. Surprisingly good! Astonishing after 19 days of flying. Very lonely, a little afraid.”
It wasn’t long before Frank secured a job with the Cirrus Aviation Company in New Jersey, which kept him away from Rye and Sound Beach. His absence was welcome, since it helped preserve Dorothy’s image of the wounded wife. Most of the Putnams’ friends sympathized with my grandmother for her public humiliation over George and Amelia, and she was not about to surrender that position.
Using those rumors as an excuse to act, Dorothy decided to obtain a Reno divorce, and leased a house in the small, remote western town. “Eff met me and off to order railroad tickets to Tahoe” The dissolution of marriage—especially one as famous as the Putnams’—would be an embarrassing process. Divorce was still considered quite scandalous; but by taking up residency in Reno, a prominent figure like Dorothy Binney Putnam could simply walk into a courthouse after a few months, pay a modest fee, and be a free woman.
It would be the most expedient end to the marriage. Early in September, she and Junie packed for the trip.
SEPTEMBER 6, 1929 Errands and train. Met George when he came on 5:00—short swim and dinner. A long talk while I sewed name tabs on David’s school things, etc. Cried— both of us. Walked in the garden. It can—t be true, yet it is. We’re actually going through with a divorce alter years.
SEPTEMBER 7, 1929 George’s 42nd birthday and I gave him a monogrammed leather frame. He packed, etc. and stayed home till 2:19 and cried when Hub took him to the train. It is like death; it is utterly sad and wretched. And it we were quarreling heartily it might be easier. But this solemnness is too sad. We’re both sunk. And yet I’ve not the slightest feeling of response to him and haven’t had for years. I can’t be his wire! God help me.
Dorothy had arranged for George to take David on a camping trip to avoid an emotional parting. I can’t help noticing how sad and hurt my grandfather appears in snapshots taken that day. The weight of their decision makes him appear suddenly older, and his gaze is vacant. Corey Ford, George’s close friend, accompanied them. He was aware of George’s depression over the divorce, and asked to be included. “George and David and Corey Ford left last night on a fishing trip in Canada. Goodbye, Goodbye!” On September 12, 1929, Dorothy and eight-year-old June left Sound Beach. Following the interim residency in Reno, she planned to move to Florida for good. “Went to bank, etc. Baggage sent off. Busy. Frank met me. Mother, Mary, Bub, and Frank to see us off.”
Holding Junie’s hand, Dorothy kissed her parents goodbye. As she turned to walk away, she was carrying G.W.’s yellow roses; she would arrive in Reno days later still holding the flowers.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1929 Arrived Chicago 8:15. Rec’d 3 messages and if it weren’t for them don’t know now I’d go ahead with what’s before me. I loathe it and wish I could be struck dead at any moment God bless some one, anyone. And my adorable David—The idea or him, hurts most of all.
SEPTEMBER 14, 1929 Utah-Nevada-Cal. Train very hot and dusty and the same seems endless to Junie although’ he’s being very patient and good. Sent wires and letters and rec’d two adorable messages. June is thrilled at the distant mountains and never tires of watching. I can’t believe that what I’m doing is actually true or happening. Perhaps I’m mad—it’s a nightmare of unreality.
SEPTEMBER 19, 1929 Reno. Oh, God—Moved into our own tiny house on 665 St Laurence Street at 10 am. Paid rent, signed for phone, ordered groceries, and cooked lunch and supper. June, alas, considers it all a great lark. He adores our having no servants, etc. and thinks it fun to help with dishes, packing, etc. Brought my yellow roses along, and they help, somehow for I feel another presence here, too and not so utterly lonely and isolated, Bed early and read, out couldn’t sleep. Nervous. Worried.
To make sure that Junie would not fall behind in his schoolwork, Dorothy taught him at home. In a letter to her mother she discussed plans for her son’s education in Florida: “Junie continues to thrive. I’ve ordered the third grade Calvert School Course for him. (To be sent to Florida in January.) And meanwhile, I’m teaching him to read his stories to me every night. Works like a charm, he’s improving greatly. Oodles of love, and to Grandma P.”
At the same time, she continued to receive urgent letters from G.P. He was relentless in his effort to dissuade Dorothy from her actions, as her diary reveals:
SEPTEMBER 22, 1929 George’s letter has upset me, he speaks or “having certain things in my possession for which I could prevent a divorce in any court.” How strange! The very thing for which he would want to be separated and the reason why, for I ’spose he means those two, sweet, affectionate wires to L.A., which he, the dirty sneak, snooped thro my personal underclothes to find! He’d do that and yet would try to keep me when he knows I don’t love him!…
SEPTEMBER 26, 1929 Reno. One week today and already I’m breathing more deeply and walking more elastically! Saw the sunrise over the mountains. Up early, breakfast, cleaned up, swept house, had a bath and walked to mail and back before cooking lunch.(Alas, I fear newspaper reporters are on my trail.) Daily letters from George worry me. Evening Gazette carries paragraph “D.B.P.—wife etc. here, presumably to establish a residence.” Headed “Prominent Woman Here,” etc. Alas!
Edwin Binney had devoted himself to making Fort Pierce the major seaport between Jacksonville and Miami. In 1919, he had helped organize the Fort Pierce Finance and Construction Company. Now Frank began working for Binney in Fort Pierce on his harbor project. Both Dorothy’s parents were encouraging her to accept Frank’s marriage proposal. They considered the young naval hero perfectly suited for their daughter.
OCTOBER 2, 1929 A letter from Mother in which she says such awfully dear things about Eff. She trusts his instincts and love completely. “He has not George’s brilliant mind, nor savoir faire, but oh, he has much more that is better and deeper and I believe he will be devotion itself to a woman he loves and who loves him.” And Bub, in a letter, says “he’d be the last man in the world to marry for money.
While Dorothy continued to receive letters from George begging her to reconsider, Bub was busy putting his daughter’s financial matters in order in Fort Pierce. “Blue, lonely, begging letters from G.P., in London. Bub has sold $6,986.00 rights for me! Whoops!”
George was aware that Dorothy was considering marriage to Frank Upton once their divorce was final, and the prospect made him anxious about her financial vulnerability. He feared that Upton or some other man might take advantage of her philanthropic spirit, and he refused to agree to a divorce until she established unbreakable trust funds for their two sons. She followed his advice. “Bank C.C. [Columbian Carbon] certificates. Endorsed and mailed east at 4 pm. 2,000 shares. To be put ‘in trust’ for my 2 sons, my husband’s effort to prevent my leaving a fortune to any succeeding husband! Gorgeous chrysanthemums and sweet note from Eff!”
Dorothy could not have foreseen the stock market crash of October 1929, which immediately cost her thousands of dollars.
OCTOBER 25, 1929 N.Y. Stock Market undergoing worst panic since 1907. C.C. has dropped 100 pts! And “rights” sale will automatically dwindle to nothing. Everybody feeling the “pinch” and it certainly affects me, too, for it’ll probably lose $20,000 cash sale for me.
NOVEMBER 5, 1929 C.C. has gone down to 119 and is now slowly going up again. Bub wires me he expects it to go to 200 soon. This recent (and continuing) stock panic is hitting many or my friends. G.P. has tangled himself up, too, and is worried. Mail and a little blue “broke” one from Eff. He’s maybe flying to Florida soon, but he lacks funds and is impatient I know.
There is no record of the extent of my grandmother’s losses, but from her diaries it appears both she and my grandfather lost a great deal of money on paper. Fortunately, they were both in a position to hold on to their real estate and other assets until the crisis ended.
Eff secured passage on a freighter from Florida to Balboa, Panama, where he would meet up with Dorothy: “Eff wired, ‘S.S. Penn. Good if sure can make. Engage 4th Cuba, Key West absolute certain. Hearts love.’ Music—A walk to see new Spanish house for sale. Absorbed several ideas for my own house in Florida!”
Although determined to seek a better life, even now she still entertained the faint possibility of reconciliation—a result, no doubt, of feeling alone in a strange town. “Wire from G. a long letter and a phone at night. It was grand to hear David’s darling voice, he seems so far away from me and as if I were losing him for ever! What can I do? Go back, begin all over, stay there forever and relinquish all ideas of my pleasure in sex relations? God, I wish I knew.”
Unknown to Amelia, George continued to write a steady stream of emotionally charged letters to my grandmother. Letting go had not been easy for either of them, but I know of the two, the separation was harder on him. “Mail, from George, a positively devastating long letter. He’s sad and blue and miserable, and feels utterly ‘lost’ at not having me to come back to, etc. I’m sorry, sick at heart, but unchanged. Blue and depressed. Bed early and a book.” They had already agreed on joint custody of their two sons. Dorothy would receive $5,000 in cash, and George agreed to pay all of David’s yearly expenses, and half of Junie’s.
She was still moved by his unwillingness to let go, and continued to agonize over her decision to divorce.
OCTOBER 16, 1929 George writes me daily letters, always now very sweet and affectionate. He’s suddenly realizing what it means to be without an “anchor,” a somebody in the background who is responsible for making a “home” and its atmosphere. He is alternately furious at my “damn foolishness” and pleading with me to change my mind and come back. It makes it hard, awfully. It would be easier to fight and row! And yet why? Can’t two intelligent people remain polite and considerate after they’ve gone thro’ the years as we have? Oh, it’s hard!
Frank Upton was already in Fort Pierce waiting for her, and she wired him from Reno: “Dearest Heart, if I were in some enchantingly beautiful place I would be longing for you, too, to be there with me, to share it. And I am, and I do!” Despite her tender words, Dorothy had not yet decided to marry him. She wrote to her mother in Fort Pierce and reserved two apartments; one for herself and a separate one for him.
By the way if there are still two apartments free, I’d better speak now for them and will begin paying rent on January 15th. I’d like one furnished one and the last unfurnished one to which you sent your odds and ends of furniture. Frank could sleep in that one, till later, and then we’d only need the one kitchen and ice box, etc. And I’d still have an extra bedroom for guests.
They spoke regularly by telephone, but the two-month separation was difficult, and Dorothy was simply not convinced that she and Upton would be happy. In his absence, their differences had somehow become magnified. For one thing, he was eight years younger. In the beginning this was appealing, but it now seemed to reflect his immaturity and financial insecurity.
NOVEMBER 7, 1929 Oh, Eff was comforting and dear last night His love for me I never question, out he’s so totally unlike me mentally and socially, I fear sometimes. But he’s younger too. And poor, God, can we make a go or it??? Is it possible with everything against it except physical passion and peaceful friendship? I don’t know. In 3 years I shall be dead—suicide or death—or divorced again. Death, I hope. But what about Junie? He still needs me! Oh, dear! How sad and what a mess to thus dissolve a family.
Dorothy’s uncertainty about her future was never greater; she was bowing to inevitability. In the midst of a divorce, this period must have been terrifying for her, still questioning her future. “There’s much of me never leaks out or comes near the surface these days. I’m stifling and squashing a whole side of me forever. Life from now on will be very different, poorer, more suburban and certainly not so intellectually or socially exciting. Please God, may the Other compensate!”
Her own insecurity, bred by her mother, played a role. Dorothy questioned Eff’s love for her, and worried if she was worthy: “How can Eff possibly love me and want to marry me? He’s so young, so free, so entirely undomestic and unattached? What can he see in me—older—life all messed, not beautiful—and only an income! I don’t know really if Eff can remain faithful to just me after knowing so many women. And I never for a minute doubt my faith to him till all eternity.”
On the eve of her divorce, my grandmother was haunted by happy memories. She recalled with nostalgia Mount Whitney, Bend, Rocknoll, and the first herb garden George had planted. She had imagined that her final hours as Mrs. Putnam would be filled with relief. But eighteen years had solidified into something unforgettable. She could just remember the good times.
Still deeply uncertain about the divorce, Dorothy’s final entry reads simply: “Misery!”
The only thing she was certain of was her need to be herself, and to know that in her heart, she was truly alive.
DECEMBER 19, 1929 Couldn’t sleep; couldn’t eat! Mailed one letter early. Then to Court House or Washoe County in Judge George A. Bartlett’s Chambers. All very simple and quiet It’s done.. I’m unmarried from G.P.P. forever. How scared and empty I feel!