15
NOVEMBER 14, 1930 All local and N.Y. papers lately have been overflowing with news and conjecture about G.P. and Amelia. They evidently got a marriage license in Noank last Saturday, November 8th and it leaked out. Horrid pictures and insinuations. Too bad they just don’t up and marry and have it over with. They’ll right like cats and dogs in a year. She’s stubborn and cold bloodedly cruel and she’ll soon tire of his indigestion and rotten, vile temper.
ON A COOL AFTERNOON, DOROTHY SAT at the edge of the unfinished lily pond, poking a bamboo pole into the still water. She heard the muffled sound of a car on the sandy drive and looked up to find a delivery man bearing a telegram. She tossed the pole aside, and opened the sheer yellow envelope.
Dorothy caught her breath. She was stunned by the abruptness of the telegram, but relieved that George had shared the news personally. How alone she must have felt. Although she had asked for her freedom, his marriage to Amelia rekindled her insecurity. Her ex-husband was now married to her former friend and the most famous woman in the world. And despite my grandmother’s doubts, she had to concede: The two were ideally suited for one another. At the same time, she must have been troubled by the vague sense that her own hasty marriage might have been a mistake. Amelia and George’s celebrated union seemed in sharp contrast to her own. While she and Eff enjoyed a physical, almost earthy bond, George and Amelia shared a more cerebral relationship, one that was regarded by many as a business arrangement.
Only minutes before Amelia and George’s marriage ceremony in his mother’s home in Noank, Connecticut, Amelia had penned a prenuptial agreement, possibly the first in America’s legal history. Written neatly on her future mother-in-law’s white engraved stationery, Amelia set forth her requirements for the marriage:
Dear Gyp,
There are some things which should he writ before we are married—things we have talked over before most of them.
You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could ever do. I know there may be compensations but have no heart to look ahead.
On our life together, I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself so bound to you. If we can be honest about affections for others which may come to either of us the difficulties of such situations may be avoided.
Please let us not interfere with the other’s work or play. Nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place apart—where I may retreat from even an attractive cage, to be myself.
I must exact a cruel promise and that is you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together. (And this for me too.)
I will try to do my best in every way and give you fully of that part of me you know and seem to want.
A
February 7, 1931
This is an exact copy of the original agreement. My grandfather first published a second version in his biography of Amelia, Soaring Wings. This original draft is published for the first time, and having compared the two, I find it curious that two phrases were omitted from the second: “(and this is for me too)” and “affections for others.” In the first draft, it appeared as though Amelia was as concerned for her husband’s well-being as her own. The fact that she wanted to keep a place apart, however, still suggests her need to be alone from time to time. The agreement reveals how resolute and focused the young flyer was. No personal affection would hinder her career, nor intrude on her deep sense of privacy.
George has been portrayed as Amelia’s Svengali, but the unpublished document shows her to be very much in control. And despite her initial skittishness over marrying her promoter, Amelia doted on his two sons. “Amelia was deeply concerned with G.P.’s two young sons,” her sister Muriel Morrissey recalled. “When they came to visit at the home in Rye, Amelia canceled all her outside engagements and persuaded G.P. to do the same, so they could devote their time to the boys—horseback riding, sailing on the Sound, swimming and picnicking. Amelia’s sincere interest in them was repaid by their real affection for their famous, fun-loving stepmother.”
George and Amelia were the image of modern marital bliss. They became media darlings, and were the subject of gushing articles and often catty cartoons. Flying an airplane had become secondary. It was Amelia’s image as a feminist that captured the nation’s imagination, and George willingly supported it, becoming a role model for men as well. In one article, he was quoted as saying, “Idleness is the greatest damnation of married women!”
“Amelia was, of course, an early feminist,” recalled Anne Morrow Lindbergh. “With no hostility that I ever observed towards men.”
Reporters were coy about Amelia keeping her maiden name. She was almost jokingly referred to as “Mrs. Putnam, or rather Miss Earhart.” In an interview for Huntington Park Signal’s Five Star Weekly entitled “Why Their Marriage Clicks,” Amelia told the reporter, “I have done quite a bit of observing, other than aerial observing. I think 111 know a matrimonial air pocket when I come to one. But we tried to avoid any such possibility in advance by having definite understandings. Our interests are similar and parallel. I’ve always been active and I’ve believed in a wife going right along with the activities in which she might have been interested. In fact, we figured on a very brief honeymoon—for work has a way of piling up on your desk.”
I came upon pages from an old scrapbook quite by accident. They belonged to my grandmother and were found at Immokolee buried beneath stacks of black and white photographs. Dofry had obviously cut them out, but decided to keep them anyway. They had remained in dark storage bins of the “Captain’s Room” for over sixty years, and were musty and torn. Staring me in the face were large pictures of my grandfather with his new bride, Amelia Earhart. The articles cover several years, and include the Putnams’ Christmas card for 1932. Santa Claus is holding up a toy—half airplane, half helicopter—with the pair gazing out from the sky. The greeting reads: “Happy Landings, G.P.P. and A.E.”
Other stories detail my grandfather’s career at G. P. Putnam’s Sons, and his decision to leave the company. Across the bottom of this article, in my grandmother’s writing, is the date August 1930. The neatly overlapping collection is a fascinating piece of history.
I know from Dofry’s diaries that her parents sent the clippings to her. How she must have flinched, seeing the smiling faces of her former husband and Amelia. I find it strange that she kept these pages, that despite her anger over their involvement, she still admired her former friend. By now, Amelia and George had become a much-sought-after couple for social events. But I doubt my grandmother missed the glittering life she had once enjoyed. In fact, she was deeply involved in the construction of Immokolee, and reveled in her privacy thousands of miles away, in her own remote retreat.
While Amelia was making personal appearances around the country promoting the safety of air travel, Dorothy had not abandoned her love of aviation. She organized several aviation clubs in Florida and became the governor of the East Coast Florida Women’s Aeronautical Association. She also founded a local chapter of the Women’s National Aeronautic Association (WNAA), and later started the first Junior WNAA in Florida to encourage young people to fly. As a member, Mrs. Olive Dame Peterson recalls traveling with Dorothy and the group to Vero Beach to see an air show. Olive described her first flight in a small open airplane as “a breathless adventure.” Following the excursion the girls were entertained with a luncheon at Immokolee.
Like Amelia, Dorothy also pursued the theme of women’s rights, speaking to various groups around the state. She was an expert on this controversial issue. In a newspaper article entitled “Hear Mrs. Upton Tell of Women Who Made Good,” she was quoted as saying: “Women without beauty may have charm today and be popular through the power of their intellect. Not that beauty is not an asset, for it is. In olden days, however, physical beauty was the only point about women that counted. Women through the ages must have had some thrilling experiences in fighting for the right of intellectual recognition.” In this same speech before the Stuart Women’s Club, she cited Amelia as an example of outstanding womanhood. “I think Amelia has a ‘worn’ face, a used face. One that has been used for living, and laughing, loving and thinking, also feeling and suffering. But it’s a face of quality and character. And unlike the beautiful, but bone-headed stupid Movie Star type.”
Ever since Amelia had first crossed the Atlantic as a passenger in the Friendship, she had vowed to make the flight again, only this time piloting the plane herself. When Dorothy learned of the impending solo flight in May 1932, she reflected on her frenetic life with George four years earlier. “News, Amelia is to fly Atlantic. Lordy, remember four years ago in Boston.”
Amelia carried on board her Lockheed Vega plane a red and white booklet for jotting down notes. Before safely reaching the coast of Ireland on May 21, 1932, she scribbled the following account, which has not been published in its entirety before. “Left 7:15… Altimeter out 3:30 over fog 7:40… rain… iceup 9:05 fish star.”
And on the next tiny three- by two-inch page she wrote:
8:00 am. 13 hours on the way. If anyone finds the wreck know that the non success was caused by my getting lost in a storm for an hour and then the exhaust manifold, resoldered at St. John blew out and I have crawled near the water for hours dreading fire.
Once Amelia’s safe arrival made the news, Dorothy was swept up in the excitement, and joyously recorded:
MAY 20, 1932 She’s done it! She flew across to Ireland. Solo. World Attention!
JUNE 14, 1932 A.E. decorated by Albert of Belgium. How she and G.P. must eat up all this!
JUNE 15, 1932 G.P. and Amelia en route to U.S.
Sixty years later I found The New York Times front-page story of Amelia’s solo flight folded up inside my father’s childhood scrapbook. My grandmother had saved it for him. The headline, “Mrs. Putnam Flies Alone for Paris on ‘Lindbergh Day,’” must have sent chills across Dofry’s body when she first saw it.
After safely crossing the Atlantic, Amelia realized she had left home without a passport, and before sailing back to the United States she obtained a new one in London. The maroon leather passport is dated May 27, 1932, and describes Amelia as five feet eight inches tall with light brown hair and blue eyes. On the line under place of birth (Atchison, Kansas) is the date of birth, July 24, 1898. It is believed that Amelia’s actual birthdate was July 24, 1897. For some unknown reason, perhaps in 1919, she began to use 1898 as the year she was born. And written casually above the signature, Amelia Earhart Putnam, was her occupation: Flyer.
It is possible that Amelia presented her pilot’s license to the consul general in London, and he simply copied the information from one document to the other.
Dorothy was relieved when she realized she was not carrying Eff’s child after all, for she now knew he could never assume the responsibility of fatherhood. Frank Upton, decorated soldier and celebrated war hero, was an alcoholic. He must have succeeded in hiding this from his new fiancée and her family during their courtship. But now, having moved into Immokolee, it became obvious that his bouts of solitude and erratic behavior were a result of his drinking.
In 1930, Frank had designed his own private Captain’s Room, an exact replica of the aft quarters of a Spanish galleon. Crafted with panels of polished mahogany and teak-wood, it even included a porthole, and a single ship’s bunk, as well as a fold-out desk and three brass antique ship’s lamps that hung from the ceiling and walls. Inlaid in the center of the floor was a color-tiled compass the size of a sundial, and a fireplace was tucked in one corner. Dorothy’s contribution to this sanctuary was two small bookcases on either side of the miniature picture window.
As a child, I recall being forbidden to enter the room. I always wanted to know what was behind that heavy cypress door, but my grandmother kept it locked. The prospect of some family secret only served to arouse my curiosity and my imagination knew no limits. It wasn’t until years later that I finally learned her reason for keeping this room locked, and the bitterness she felt for providing her husband with such a haven.
Soon after moving into Immokolee, my grandmother’s diaries begin to describe the slow deterioration of their relationship. “Half the time Eff is overtired. He falls sound asleep on the floor in the evenings. He yawns from 7 p.m. on.” Dorothy had begun to record his drinking, rather cryptically at first. “Dinner alone with Jr. Eff at Elks Club for 8 hrs.! He’ll go stale above the ears as well as below if he keeps it up.” The private diaries were her most intimate confidences, and she could no longer deny the truth. “Eff late for dinner. Odor—first time familiar.”
Dorothy’s initial response was to ignore Eff’s habit of coming home late, often drunk. She was acutely aware of his problem, but chose to hide it from her family and the outside world. Drinking was socially acceptable, and for some time she simply tolerated it, perhaps because their physical passion was still a source of intense pleasure. “Calming down, controlling tempers, not risking loss of happiness.” In a way, the sense of danger and living on the brink may have fueled their insatiable desire for one another. “Swam at noon with Eff. Cheers, Whoops, Cheerio! And the bed goes through the window! What a terrifying temper, yet—?”
My grandmother spent part of each summer visiting her parents in Connecticut, and these vacations—a result of the divorce agreement—reunited George with his youngest son, June. In 1931, June stayed with George and Amelia at Rocknoll, and my grandmother was with her parents at Rocklyn, as she had been forced to rent Journey’s End because of her financial losses.
Her diaries are now filled with anxiety over her stock portfolio and diminished income. “Stocks still go lower! My income reduced a third and we’re awfully in debt. It worries one. Banks are closing everywhere.” Though it pained her terribly to let her home to strangers, she had no choice but to make sacrifices wherever she could. “C.C. [Columbian Carbon] has been dropping, dropping. Way down to 83. That’s ghastly, and it sinks me; especially as Eff was entirely opposed to my dabbling in the stock market at all.”
Like the summers of 1927 and 1928, Rocknoll had come alive again with children’s voices. David and Junie loved spending these halcyon days with their father and Amelia, who now reigned as mistress of the Rye estate. Both boys clearly adored her, and she became a strong maternal influence.
But Dorothy did not feel neglected and arranged to meet George Weymouth in Manhattan for dinner and the theater. Whether or not she had confided in him about Frank Upton’s drinking is not recorded in her diary. But I suspect that she did, for he made plans to travel to Florida with his wife, Deo, the following month. “Sound Beach. In town for dinner and theatre with G.T.W. He looks thin and pale. Grand newsy visit with him. Dinner ‘Divan Paris’ to see ‘Third Little Show.’” The relationship with G.W. had mellowed into an affectionate friendship.
After a few weeks in Sound Beach, my grandmother once again yearned to be with her husband.
JUNE 20, 1931 On train with Mother. My ship sailed at noon. Dog and much baggage. Comfortable cabin, uninteresting crowd. Read “Juan in America” which G.T.W. gave. Delightful. Eager for Frank again.
JUNE 23, 1931 Eff met me at 6 a.m. on dock! Such a thrill. Home, looks marvelous. New bird house is fine and lawns, groves, trees, etc. all growing splendidly. Baby quail
The warm reception was short-lived. With the arrival of the Hutchinsons and the Weymouths for a long weekend, Eff behaved abominably.
“Off at 8 a.m. for a weekend trip to Silver Springs. Weymouths, Hutchinsons and Uptons. All afternoon, great swim and boat trip. Hub swam under the glass boat in several big pools. Such fun. Bok Tower at noon. Dude Ranch for dinner. Movies in p.m.” Immokolee echoed with sung duets and piano music, which had always been a great source of pleasure for Dorothy, but Eff refused to join in. She had even avoided playing her favorite word-guessing games to spare him from competing against her more sophisticated young friends. Despite her ploy, Eff’s jealousy erupted again. “Eff in rude mood about guests and company and house full! He’s not social or even house broken! Guess I must change. He can’t.”
By now, Frank had attained a certain status in Fort Pierce, and Dorothy was loath to ruin her husband’s position within the tight-knit community. He had earned a reputation as a civic leader and had recently been given the prestigious title of vice president of the St. Lucie County Bank. But at home, he had become a different person, almost a stranger. His drinking made him increasingly dangerous. “Home—anger and threats. Scenes!—Rage—Drunk.” She makes passing reference to her husband’s impaired driving ability. “Eff slept on couch last p.m. Eff to Palm Beach. (Auto smash).”
Upton was still in touch with many of his friends among the aviation set, including Amelia’s dashing former pilot Captain Bill Lancaster. In the early summer of 1932, Lancaster made headlines in a lurid shooting that took place in Miami. The British war hero was accused of shooting a twenty-six-year-old writer, Charles Clarke, who had been hired to ghost-write the memoirs of Australian divorcée and Lancaster paramour Jessie (“Chubbie”) Keith-Miller. It was a classic love triangle, police said. Upton persuaded my grandmother to donate money for Lancaster’s defense, and she did so without question. In August, the Uptons drove to Miami to attend the notorious trial, which made torrid headlines. Frank’s loyalty was unswerving, and he was called as a character witness to testify on his friend’s behalf. The courtroom was packed, and my grandmother recalled the media circus of the event, which called into question the morals of this hard-drinking, fast-living clique.
No doubt Upton’s nights in Miami did nothing to dispel his image.
When Lancaster was acquitted, he and Chubbie immediately drove to Fort Pierce to escape reporters. They spent the weekend with Dorothy and Frank at Immokolee before departing. (Soon after the trial, the government started deportation proceedings and the couple fled to England. Eight months later, while trying to set the flight record from London to Cape Town, Lancaster disappeared. His preserved body and Avro Avian 5, Southern Cross Minor, were discovered in 1962 in the Sahara Desert.)
By now, there were rumors swirling in aviation circles about Eff and Dorothy, possibly passed on by Lancaster, who must have been aware of his friend’s drinking problem. In late summer, these rumors reached the New York Daily News, which printed a gossip item about an upcoming Upton divorce. Eff was furious and telephoned the paper, which printed a retraction. The apology appeared in the form of a telegram, dated November 7, 1932:
To Captain Frank M. Upton, Fort Pierce, Florida… in an article published… October 30, 1932, referring to Mrs. Dorothy Upton, wife of Frank M. Upton… it was erroneously stated that she planned to obtain a divorce from Captain Upton on the grounds of incompatibility.…
It was signed, “D. A. Doran, New York Daily News.”
This was obviously embarrassing for Frank. Nonetheless, it was clear the Uptons were going their separate ways.
Dorothy decided to concentrate on community work, and with the help of her new acquaintances, she began to enjoy the simple life she had always craved. Her routine was the same, but the people she associated with were towns-people, not celebrities. They were Garden Club members, local politicians, and environmentally minded folks committed to beautifying and protecting the burgeoning waterfront town. Dorothy was content in Fort Pierce. Her garden flourished year-round as she reigned over her small, private paradise. “Off to Indian River Narrows in Bub’s boat… on the river in the sun and wind… an outdoor Oyster Roast at Hole’s. It’s a good way to have a feast and an orgy of seafood. Big fire, outdoors, a grill and much food. Saw movie, Morocco, afterwards.”
She and Junie were brought together more and more as Eff’s absences became routine. Her younger son had taken to his new home as if it were a summer camp. His yard was a zoolike playground that gave him enormous freedom. A dog, guinea hens, chickens, caged snakes, and a mule were permanent residents at Immokolee, all under Junie’s care. His schoolwork revealed an intelligent, lively mind that delighted his mother. “Jr. got twelve A’s this last time!” He and Dorothy fished together, either from the jetties lining the inlet leading into the Indian River from the ocean, or from her sixteen-foot fishing boat, Mud Turtle, which was noted for its uncanny nose in locating snook or grouper. “Choppy sea, increasing wind. Rough, Only 3 groupers. Jr. grand at rod and reel.”
My grandmother volunteered as a speaker and writer on a variety of subjects, including aviation, gardening, birds, trees, and even snakes, which had fascinated her since discovering so many on her land. “Wrote Rattlesnake article for paper. Fourth snake story. Bluebirds are here. Prepared vegetable garden for second crop.” A story in the Fort Pierce News Tribune headlined “Exhibits Snakes in Bank Foyer” described Mrs. Frank Upton as a scientist who was interested in teaching the locals to identify the differences between poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes. Dorothy arranged for eight specimens preserved in alcohol to be exhibited in the bank’s lobby, much to the amusement of its customers. She even draped her pet python over her shoulders and brought it to the local high school. (Motivated by my grandmother’s curiosity about snakes, I recall driving down U.S. 1 in Fort Pierce as a teenager with a six-foot boa constrictor wrapped around my neck, to the horror of drivers in the next lane.)
As Eff’s behavior worsened, Dorothy’s devotion to Immokolee increased. “Am enjoying our new radio, at least I can hear concerts and I can dance by myself!” The nights in Fort Pierce had grown violent, and Dorothy would bear this terrible secret and endure the terror for the next two years. While the country celebrated George and Amelia, Dorothy was terrified that the scandal within her marriage would be exposed, despite the Daily News’ retraction.
Eff and Amelia are sandwiched together in her diaries only pages apart. From the depths of her disgust with her husband to her mixed admiration for the flyer, she felt torn apart.
“I wish I were going far away,” she wrote.
I can’t help but feel my grandmother was somehow testing her own strength. First she had made her decision to leave Rye, and now she was left with no alternative but to survive.