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JANUARY 8, 1910 Chapel. Letters from George and Mother. Senior play trials and with my accustomed nerve I tried leading man! Wrote George I would be engaged to him! Symphony. Mischa Elman played violin.
JUNE 21, 1910 Commencement Day! And I’m a “B.A.” at last! Class supper at Somerset Hotel. Serenade. Dead tired, bed!
DOROTHY ANNOUNCED HER UPCOMING marriage to her family and friends, and shared one last Christmas holiday with George in North Carolina as Miss Binney: “George off alone, quiet day in house. Glorious moon. Wrote many letters announcing my engagement. Ahem!” The following day, she had another bout of uncertainty: “Feeling bumsky! Discouraged and scared, so stayed at camp.…” Dorothy still could not believe, given her mother’s cruel edict and the power it held over her, that she was worthy of becoming anyone’s bride, let alone the wife of a famous publishing heir.
On December 21, the young couple made the announcement of their engagement to George’s parents. “Stamford in a.m. to hairdressers. Ahem! After lunch Mr. and Mrs. Putnam called to see their new daughter-in-law elect. Quiet evening. They are extremely cordial.”
For Christmas Eve, the Binneys, their financial and social position much enhanced thanks to the success of Crayola crayons, held a dinner dance in their daughter’s honor at Rocklyn: “Hairdressers. Town with George, to lunch with his nice Dad and brother, Bob at National Arts Club. Theatre, saw ‘Concert,’ then home and big dance to announce engagement!” On December 29, 1910, a feature story appeared on the front page of the Stamford newspaper tracing the history of the intrepid romantics:
Cupid Shot Arrows at Mountain Climbers. Result is Engagement of Miss Binney of Sound Beach to Mr. Putnam of Oregon.—Linking as it will two substantial families of social prominence, the announcement is of wide interest. A pretty bit of romance gives an added interest. The engagement is the culmination of a romance that began in 1908 in distant California on the slopes of Mount Whitney, perhaps the loftiest mountain in the United States. Miss Binney and Mr. Putnam first met as members of a mountain climbing party there. While they toiled up the lofty mountain, Cupid was busy.
During the ten-month engagement period, George was living in Bend, Oregon, where he had purchased the weekly newspaper, the Bend Bulletin. He was its editor, publisher, and regular columnist on environmental and political issues. Aside from his work, his thoughts were occupied by his bride-to-be. Local residents remember that the “boy” editor kept a life-size photograph of his Mount Whitney girlfriend thumbtacked to the back of his closet door.
His father and his uncle (known as “the Major” of the Putnam clan) had urged him to return to New York and join the family publishing business. But George, somewhat of a rebel, was determined to succeed on his own, and no amount of family pressure could pull him back.
Though Dorothy and her fiancé were miles apart, they managed to design their first house and buy furniture to be shipped out west later by train. The task, however thrilling, left Dorothy rather overwhelmed: “Shopped, Oh, how I want George to see some of the beautiful rugs and furniture. Wrote long letter to George about our house plans, etc. Plumb scared!”
While waiting for George to return to New York, Dorothy was becoming better acquainted with his parents: “I went thro’ Knickerbocker Press with Mr. Putnam. Very interesting despite rain, etc.” A lengthy honeymoon was planned—to Central America—and she prepared eagerly for both the trip and her wedding: “Cut rag carpet strips, etc. Saw Mother, Mary and Helen. Bought material for my wedding dress! Hand embroidered crepe de chine, Japanese. Wrote George, am crazy about him!”
As the date for the wedding neared and Dorothy’s dreams of an independent life came closer to reality, she was clearly now enjoying the prospect of becoming Mrs. George Putnam.
OCTOBER 9, 1911 George and Helen to city with Mary in auto. Mother to Equal Suffrage Meeting in Rye. Hairdresser. After quiet dinner, Mother, Bub, George and I planned wedding, caterers. Money, etc.
The ceremony was held on October 26, 1911, at Dorothy’s family home in Sound Beach. The elaborate affair was catered by the legendary Delmonico’s, with four hundred and fifty guests seated beneath a white canvas tent anchored to the sloping lawn beside Long Island Sound. Dorothy had chosen her youngest sister as maid of honor. “7:19 p.m. wedding with red-red roses. Mary as Maid of Honor. A clean ‘get away.’”
After the wedding, crates of silver, Dorothy’s delicate trousseau, winter clothes, odd pieces of furniture, and the essential grand piano were all packed and loaded onto a train for the cross-country journey to their remote destination in Oregon, a world removed from the elite enclaves of Sound Beach, Connecticut, and Rye, New York.
On November 18, Mr. and Mrs. George Palmer Putnam sailed out of New York Harbor for Panama. The honeymoon to remote villages of Central America would reflect their unconventional lifestyle, and would also launch George’s career as an author and newspaper correspondent. Their mutual sense of curiosity was a powerful bond.
My grandmother was as much in her element, embarking on an unfamiliar journey, as her adventurous husband. How ecstatic she must have felt, for at last she was on her own. “Sailed for Panama. Eight of us to lunch at Flemish Room. Then the ship with many there to say goodbye. Our deck cabin full of fruit and candy and my red roses. Cold and clear.”
The extended honeymoon was an opportunity for George to visit Panama, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, and it provided the material for his first book, The Southland of North America. His new wife was an enthusiastic collaborator. She insisted upon reading and typing her husband’s daily pages while he studied the Panama Canal project, taking notes and photos. He and Dorothy were shown Panama’s dense interior by its president, Don Pablo Arosemena. They met other political leaders on the trip, thanks to George’s family connections, for the Putnam name was a passport around the world.
NOVEMBER 18, 1911 Sat in Cathedral Plaza all a.m. while George had interviews with Arosemena and the leader of the “Outs.” Read a book and studied Spanish. Dinner at Club—Bailey, Close and Arosemena. Walk in Plaza.
DECEMBER 2, 1911 On tug at 9 a.m. for 22 mile rough voyage to Porto Bello where we rambled thro’ old Spanish ruins of forts, cloister, etc.—cemetery. Saw Black Christ in church. At 4 went out in President’s coach with Bailey and Arosemena. In p.m. a picnic—lovely ride in moonlight to Tobago. Read copy for George.
The unconventional couple celebrated their marriage again in Guatemala by toasting each other from the misty summit of Mount Acatenango. Though the climb represented a physical accomplishment for both, it was also a sentimental reminder of their first days on Mount Whitney. “Awfully stiff and aching in every joint from that terrific climb down 6,000 feet yesterday. By 12:30 p.m. were again in our saddles on 18 mile ride down to Antigua. A glorious day, with sunlight on orchids and flowers. George rubbed my stiff body, supper, bath, bed.”
In studying my grandmother’s diaries, I find there is little mention of intimacies in contrast to the detailed accounts of endless meetings with various dignitaries. In many ways the honeymoon appears to have been more of an extended business trip than a passionate interlude.
On February 25, 1912, the Putnams steamed into San Francisco, boarded a train for Portland, and finally arrived at the western settlement of Bend, Oregon. “Took 11 a.m. train for home. Delayed two hours landslide. All day sky rather cloudy but glorious country. Bend 10 p.m. ‘Pinelyn’! Oh, Oh, our home!” The newly built brown-shingled bungalow, Pinelyn, was filled with George’s friends and neighbors, who had provided an extravagant feast for the exhausted couple’s first night in town. The next day came very quickly. “Up early and plowed right into mountains of crates and furniture. Morris Lara helped all afternoon—with Steinway grand piano! Finally got bed, bath and kitchen rooms habitable then had tea, To dinner at Lara’s. Home by 10. Chill.”
Dorothy was never far from her piano, despite the tedious task of unpacking. “Busy with ‘pots and pans’ for most of day. Wrote Grandma Faulkner. Played my beautiful grand piano for half an hour.” She quickly established Pinelyn as a social center. Her dinner parties were soon the talk of the small town, where she orchestrated her soirées with musical acts and dancing. In typical Binney fashion, the Putnam parties required costumes and often prepared skits were attached to the invitations. Away from her parents, Dorothy had come into her own. For the time being she was completely fulfilled.
The Bend Bulletin was thriving mainly because George Putnam, too, had found his calling. As publisher and editor, he thrust himself into the center of every issue, such as town expansion, county division, irrigation, and the coming of the railroad. Almost overnight he transformed the newspaper into an independent forum for the progressive voices of central Oregon. Even as a young man, he was recognized for his outspoken opinions, and by the end of the couple’s first year in Bend he was appointed mayor of the frontier town. (The mayor-elect had fallen from a second-story window to his death, and George was chosen as his replacement by the town’s councilmen.)
In Wide Margins, George’s autobiography, he characteristically downplayed the obstacles he faced in order to bring Bend (a town of six hundred residents) into a post-frontier life of civility:
The little community, for the moment, was in my lap. I tried to do right by it. A reasonably thorough housecleaning was had. We presented a shining face to the outer world, though perhaps the back of the civic neck hasn’t been scrubbed too thoroughly. Mostly, the dubious ladies went, what gambling remained became orderly and unobtrusive. The saloons found wisdom in keeping strict hours and discouraging drunkenness. Rough stuff was frowned upon. Toughs who wanted to fight were beaten up and sent on their way.
Dorothy was deliriously happy. Her husband was a far more tender and affectionate man than she had imagined on the honeymoon. This was clearly one of the happiest cycles of my grandmother’s life. Her diary is alive with passion and excitement. And she described her contentment openly in one letter to her mother:
Dear Mother… my mighty big thin husband seems to love me more all the time. As a matter of fact he’s much sillier over me now than when we were first married. And does any number of dear thoughtful things for me.… Yes, next summer, I hope we can both go unencumbered! Then too, I want you to know him married. Oh, Mother, I’m glad he was decent and good always! And each day I am prouder of my own insistence on that matter. To think that I mean all to him, that he does to me. It’s truly wonderful, and makes me so happy. He’s good to me in every way, too. And indeed it is he “who has controlled the situation” thus far, even more than I. Of that, though I’ve told you before. No, I want a little more play and then my babies. If one comes however, I shan’t brood and worry! D.
Dorothy’s reputation as a socially prominent young heiress had preceded her to Bend. She was quickly anointed the town’s civic and cultural leader, and began raising funds for cancer—an unusual activity for 1912, when the disease was barely known. “Benefit, Moving Picture show for a ranch woman with cancer.” In a scrapbook photograph she is pictured among a group of volunteers dressed in white uniforms, sewing bandages for Red Cross hospitals.
By now, Oregon was debating whether to give women the vote. Dorothy took it upon herself to champion the fight, recruiting a prominent spokeswoman from the East to make the arduous journey to Bend to speak to the local women. “Went to train to meet Mrs. Ehrgott, prominent woman suffrage speaker who is to lecture here.” And a day later: “Another meeting in a.m., the question is a moral one from religious point of view. 18 guests for ‘tea’ in afternoon to meet Mrs. Ehrgott. Won ’em all over!”
The two most important men in Dorothy’s life, her father and her husband, were both outspoken supporters of women’s rights. George’s mother in fact was a leading suffragette. The Rye Chronicle recalled Frances Putnam’s fight for suffrage in 1911: “A branch of the Equal Franchise League embracing the whole town of Rye was formed here with Mrs. John B. Putnam as president.” The editor commented somewhat smugly, “Frankly, this paper has not taken the movement seriously yet…” He little knew what was to come.
On December 3, 1912, Dorothy claimed the honor of being the second woman to cast her vote in Oregon’s historic election. (The wife of the governor had voted first.) A newspaper clipping reported that Dorothy rushed across the continent from Connecticut, where she was visiting her family, to vote in the election. She was equally thrilled by the news that George had been reelected mayor of Bend by such a large margin: “Election Day! And Oregon Women voted! 360+ votes altogether, at Bend, and 112 were women. George re-elected by big majority!!”
On the national level, Woodrow Wilson defeated William Howard Taft for the presidency. George was unimpressed. The mayor and publisher of Bend wrote: “National politics is a diversion, a duty, and a nuisance. In its acute form and triple character it is now behind us for another four years.…”
The couple’s first child was born at their house on May 20, 1913: David Binney Putnam arrived at 1:15 A.M., a strapping nine pounds eight ounces. Attending was Dr. U. C. Coe, the local physician. There was also present a close friend of Dorothy’s, who was a concert pianist. Going into labor, Dorothy asked her to play music from Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” at full volume to drown out her cries. The proud father later noted: “The lad himself was spanked by Doc’s huge hand and washed up on the dining table and then, nestled in blankets, set to toast before the open fire.”
David would eventually become a constant source of love and support for his mother, who adored him. He was doted on by both parents and never out of their sight. A curly headed, infectiously cheerful infant, he was carried into the mountains on horseback, and it was not unusual to see the Putnams camping and canoeing with their small son tucked beside them.
After their son’s birth, a young artist and poet named Donald Blanding arrived at the house bearing a garden shovel filled with freshly uprooted wood violets. He carried them directly to Dorothy’s bedside. This talented and eccentric friend, who was working at the local bank, would in later years play an even greater role in her life. “George had long council meeting so I went to Picture Show with Donald then we talked late in front of open fire till George returned. Read aloud.”
In 1914, George decided not to seek reelection as mayor and instead was tapped by the state governor to be his secretary. “George in Portland, appointed Secretary to Governor Withycombe!!” With the latest career change, the three Putnams packed up and moved north to Salem, the state capital.
Reluctant to lose control of the Bulletin, George traveled between Bend and Salem, performing both full-time jobs at once. Although he did not particularly covet a spot in state politics, he accepted the appointment enthusiastically, primarily because it had come from a man he considered a political maverick.
For recreation, the Putnams spent their weekends in the backcountry, on horseback camping trips to the upper glades of the Cascade Mountains. As always, Dorothy thrilled at the abundance of bird life: “Red winged blackbirds, robins, bluebirds and juncos are here for good now.” She continued to swim as she had back home, and impressed even the athletic westerners. News stories summarizing her achievements were pasted in her album full of other Oregon memorabilia:
Mrs. George Palmer Putnam is receiving the congratulations of her friends today over the victory in the 50 yard swimming race at the Women’s National Championships meet Saturday night at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland. Mrs. Putnam is an unusually fine swimmer and won the race easily using the Australian crawl, which is one of the most difficult strokes known.
My grandmother was a champion swimmer. Over her lifetime she taught hundreds of children to swim and always rewarded them with prizes. Today, I treasure the small copper trophy for first prize in watersports she won in 1911.
In 1916, a restless and patriotic George Putnam found another opportunity to go where the action was. In his thesis, Jim Crowell described Governor Withycombe as “a man who preached military preparedness, and when the time came during World War I for the state to do its duty, Oregon led the nation with a volunteer enlistment of 92% of its manpower quota.”
Sharing the governor’s enthusiasm for his country’s need for enlistees, George left for Mexico’s border that June, as a member of Oregon’s National Guard. And in September, just before the troops returned home, an article by G. P. Putnam appeared in the Bend Bulletin: “It’s a long way from Bend to the Mexican border and a big change from newspapering to packing a rifle in the federalized national guard.… We were hurried down here on the jump, our battalion, the Third, going directly across a little valley into Mexico and hear the bugles playing in the quartrell of the Mex garrison.”
By the end of the year, George had turned his small weekly newspaper into a daily publication. For this new expansion, he signed a contract with a young man to provide a five hundred-word telegraph pony service. His name was Hugh Baillie, and his agreement with George was the first contract for the United Press. Baillie would eventually become president of U.P.
With a taste of military service under his belt and the threat of war casting uncertainty over the nation, George enlisted in the army. The three Putnams moved to Washington, D.C. He was appointed to the Department of Justice for a year and a half, after which he received his field artillery officer’s training at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky. Dorothy was also engaged in wartime employment, as she wrote in a letter to a college friend:
I found myself president of a group of college women taking the special war course at Mt. Holyoke College. Instead of going to one of the big munition plants (for which I was preparing) I was called to Washington as head of our group there and became Head of the Inspection Division Department of Civilian Workers branch of Ordnance—that title by the way almost made me a divorced woman! But suddenly there was bedlam among my nine hundred girls in Ordnance all crowding to the streets to cheer for Armistice Day.
George had found the time to write his second book, In the Oregon Country, filled with glowing descriptions of the state’s wild and uncharted interior. This parting gift spoke eloquently for a land with no voice, making his initial decision to go west all the more understandable—“On the river’s western flank, between it and the Cascade Range, is a playland of beautiful pine timber, crystal lakes, and mountained meadows, bounded on one hand by snow-capped peaks and on the other by the broad plains that sweep eastward to Idaho.”
If his father, John Bishop Putnam, and his brother, Robert, had not recently died, George would have taken his family and returned to Oregon after the war. But at the insistence of his uncle, George Haven Putnam, then president of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, George and his family returned to New York in 1919, where he joined the illustrious publishing house, whose authors included Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Cullen Bryant.
George’s first assignment was to travel to Warsaw, Poland, to convince the premier, Ignace Jan Paderewski, that G. P. Putnam’s Sons should be chosen to publish his memoirs. Aside from his political career, Paderewski had been widely acclaimed as the world’s foremost pianist. This noteworthy talent was particularly appealing to my grandmother. With the Putnams on the go again, her diaries contain cryptic notations reminiscent of their honeymoon. There was the usual assortment of fascinating characters on board the steamer France, and once in Paris she took the opportunity to visit the Binney & Smith office.
SEPTEMBER 26, 1919 Paris. A good long sleep and I woke to “first impressions”—the low buildings of four and five stories and the knee nigh skirts of women on the streets and oh, the hundreds and hundreds or women in deep mourning! Every man has a service ribbon in his coat lapel and many are decorated with several medals.
The couple left Paris by train, traveling through Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and then into Poland. They finally reached Warsaw. “Off for Poland thro’ Germany. Risky but thrilling. Took a couple of ‘snaps.’ Thro’ a maze of streets to Poliski Consulat. We must first have a letter of recommendation from the police!” Enduring the often frightening train ride, George wrote of the war atrocities, the teeming hordes of starving families, and of the scorched farmlands. Dorothy was hurriedly typing, trying to keep up with him. At the same time she recorded her own impressions of the battle-scarred countryside.
On October 26, 1919, the Putnams marked their eighth wedding anniversary. Dorothy wrote in her diary that they “were almost too busy to speak of it!” Departing for home, the weary couple cleared customs again, and then collapsed in the dark safety of the ship’s inner cabin. Often seasick, she was determined to be a part of the assignment. Dorothy’s contribution to George’s work continued until his stories about Paderewski were published on the front page of the New York Tribune.
DECEMBER 5, 1919 Oh, we’ll never get there at this rate! And I’m so impatient. Furious with myself, too, because my tummy is too unreliable to do any typewriting and I do want to help George get his stories ready. Our sixth day and we’re still in mid-ocean. Finally—Good luck at typewriting—I finished one of George’s four stories.
Settling down in New York after Poland, Washington, Central America, and eight years in Oregon were two young travelers enriched by worldwide experiences. They had spent their years away from home making their reputations in a high-powered, sophisticated world. They were moving in circles usually reserved for older, more accomplished adults.
I have found little documentation to describe my grandparents’ marriage prior to their return to New York. However, based on the collection of letters, my conversations with Dofry, and the memories and impressions my father passed on to me, I suspect that she valued her work as George’s assistant far more than she did her dutiful role as his wife.
The couple purchased a comfortable four-bedroom house in the center of town in Rye, New York. The Studio House was a working sanctuary rather than a residence and was only a short distance from the Rye Country Day School, which David attended. In this same home on Orchard Avenue, on May 9, 1921, the Putnams welcomed a second son to the family. George Palmer Putnam, Jr. (“Junie”), became his mother’s newest traveling companion. Dorothy’s addiction to adventure had been ingrained since childhood, and she had every intention of passing it on to her two sons, even if it meant taking them out of school for extended periods of time.
By 1922, at the age of thirty-five, George had become a visible spokesman for G. P. Putnam’s Sons. His regular stories in the New York newspapers about Poland and its famous premier had thrust him into the limelight of the printed world. He had also become involved with several other concerned publishers on the issue of censorship of the press. In an article in The New York Times opposing censorship on August 5, 1922, George was quoted as saying:
“It is my opinion that a supreme authority of censorship for publishers is unworkable, unnecessary and unwise. The publishers are, or at least should be, capable of judging the decency of their own output. The proposition of submitting manuscripts in advance of publication to any committee whose advance OK must be secured is to me preposterous.… I’m afraid I agree with Heywood Broun who says that a censor is a man who has read about Joshua and forgotten about Canuete.”
With her husband’s rise to success, Dorothy realized that he no longer needed her to assist him any more. He had emerged as a noted journalist, his byline appearing regularly in newspapers. Dorothy was relegated to the home, and she was not particularly suited to this new suburban domesticity. She adored Junie and David, her garden, and friends; but it was not enough. Travel would soon become her escape. “Oh to be transported here and there in the world on the ‘magic carpet’ of the printed page. The people who travel only thro’ books! No, I want to go myself, always.”
With George spending so much time in New York, and on frequent trips to London, Dorothy grew restless and decided to accompany her parents and two sons to Fort Pierce, Florida.
While cruising on the family yacht Dohema in 1911, Edwin Binney had been struck by the unpretentious beauty of this sun-washed ocean and river town, and in 1913 he built a clapboard farmhouse, which he called Florindia. Before long, the small fishing and citrus village with a population of four thousand also captivated Dorothy. “Quite lovely little creeks and bays all thro’ the mangrove islets with marine gardens at every turn, corals, sponges, angelfish and other colorful varieties. Lovely trip.”
As a child, chasing my own dreams along the same creeks and mangroves, I never pictured my grandmother as a young woman doing the same thing. In retrospect, I can’t imagine a nook or cranny along the Indian River that she did not explore.
By 1924, the Putnams’ Studio House was too small for the expanding family. Dorothy and George had begun to reminisce about their days in Bend, when, sitting on the banks of the Deschutes River, they had fantasized about their dream castle. After several months exploring Westchester County’s outer woods in search of a site, they discovered and purchased a piece of land just off the Old Boston Post Road in Rye. The rolling fifteen acres were dense with enormous hemlocks and elms and wild dogwoods cascading down the hillside. Taking care not to destroy the deciduous landscape with its massive boulders, Dorothy roped off an oddly shaped piece of ground that lay on the top of the knoll. She then drew an outline of the house to fit into the irregular clearing. Without an architect, she and George finished the plans and selected a building contractor. They didn’t expect to begin construction on Rocknoll, as it would be called, until the end of the year, so Dorothy was free to continue traveling.
Her parents had planned a three-month cruise around the world on the steamship Resolute, and they invited their daughter to come along. She and George had discussed the idea of her bringing back tiles and silk fabrics from China for their new home, and he hoped that the project would be a stimulating diversion for his wife. As Dorothy herself observed: “Women grow old prematurely because our badly organized civilization gives them so little to do except talk and dress.” Having lost her role as George’s typist and editor, Dorothy was finding fewer ways to share his demanding but exciting career.
The day before sailing, Dorothy met George at his New York office on Forty-fifth Street, where he was directing a myriad of publishing projects. His small desk was covered with papers and books, pens and telephones. Bookcases lined the walls, except for one that held pictures of friends, airplanes, and dogs that George had clipped from various magazines. It was their standard meeting place before dinner and the theater, but George had planned this evening as a special sendoff for his wife. As it happened, the more he talked of business, the more Dorothy withdrew, and what was planned as an evening of celebration became one of hostility. “Two kinds of people I loathe. Men who see only their business, women who really care terrifically what’s being ‘done’ this year, and who must be invited to so and so’s party!” Years later, as her circle of friends broadened, she would write: “I find myself differentiating people. The ones I like: The highly decorative male and female. And people with keen tongues and brains, and not ashamed to really use them, with minds and tastes (and bodies!), highly sophisticated.”
Her trip was to provide plenty of touches for their home. The discovery of green Chinese tiles for her entrance hall, ornate Oriental rugs, and silk wall hangings embroidered with multicolored majestic birds, added distinction to the new house in Rye. In Tahiti, the final stop on the way back, Dorothy borrowed an old dugout canoe from a native islander and left the ship alone for ten carefree hours. She preferred to discover local beads or stones rather than cultured pearls for herself, and returned laden down with unusual local wares.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons had recently published a book by a noted explorer and naturalist, William (“Will”) C. Beebe, entitled Jungle Days. George and Will had become friends and were equally supportive of each other’s professions. Will valued George’s interests in scientific exploration and was aware of his financial assistance to other scientists over the years. Dr. Beebe was preparing a six-month oceanographic expedition for the New York Zoological Society in the spring of 1925. As director of the Department of Tropical Research, he had selected eighteen other scientists to join him on a trip to the Sargasso Sea, and the Cocos and Galapagos Islands in the Pacific.
Just back from her voyage around the world, Dorothy learned of Dr. Beebe’s project and asked George if he would speak to his friend about the possibility that she and David could join Beebe’s expedition for two months as unpaid assistants aboard the Arcturus. They both went. In typical Putnam fashion, twelve-year-old David Binney Putnam wrote his first book, David Goes Voyaging, to describe the trip:
Mr. Beebe lets me call him Uncle Will, even if he is the head of this big expedition. He was awfully nice to let me go on part of it. I had my twelfth birthday on the “Arcturus” down on the equator, and I know how lucky I was to be taken along. It was great fun and I think I learned a lot, though perhaps it will hurt my school work, being away and everything. Anyway, Mother and I joined the Arcturus—Uncle Will’s ship—at Panama. I spent nearly three months in the Pacific Ocean, studying sea life and visiting seven uninhabited desert islands. And I promised Dad to write a little story about it all.
Not since her trip to Poland had Dorothy been so enthralled by a challenging adventure. When the first phase of the scientific project ended, she volunteered to remain for an additional six weeks, despite the fact that she had a husband and four-year-old son at home. Her cable to George, advising him of her decision, elicited a somewhat forlorn and envious response:
Thursday, May 7, 1925
Dearest:
… This morning at the office came your cable from Panama. To-night you are there. Probably having a grand time. Lord, how I wish I were there, too! (Hell, it’s disheartening to realize this won’t reach you for six weeks or so, anyway, you’ll be glad to find accumulated mail when you get back to Panama. And how glad I’ll be to have you starting north and home to me! You’ll get the most comprehensive loving of your career.)
I never before was quite so lonely. Likely because you are doing things just as I want to do, and love doing. You and I certainly will go next Winter, on a trip together. A grand trip. Then the following summer I want to have that cherished outing out West with Carl Dunrud and David, and I hope you will relent and go, too.…
What a house! Hon, it is enormous. I am plumb terror stricken at it. Not costs, they are all right—but size. We should have cut down all around twenty percent. I realize, more and more, that for the rest of my life I will look back at the comparative quiet, and guestlessness of this old house, with occasional yearning. Inevitably, we will have a hotel all the time. That’s alright. Only, dear girl, once in a while just pretend you like me better than anyone else, and that you prefer being with me all alone, to being with a giddy crowd.… You bet, yes, I urged you to go and you were sportingly willing to exchange places with me. I miss you more than ever.
… A little while ago I phoned your mother about your cable announcing you’d stay another six weeks. She was pretty surprised and critical. “Can’t see how she can do it. Leave you that long. Leave her new house. Leave the baby. It’s not fair.” Ho, hum! Lordy, I miss you.
Good night, Your lover, George
Twelve-year-old David faithfully jotted down his scribbled anecdotes in the leather notebook supplied by his dad. Every evening after supper and kitchen duty, he found a quiet place out of the tropical breezes and recorded his observations, as well as wild tales of pirates and the South Seas. By the end of the voyage, the nearly shredded, weather-stained log would be transformed into a neat manuscript for young readers, and his first published book.
In Panama, a stack of mail awaited the weary seafarers. There were cables and letters from George, who realized his wife was not eager to return home any time soon.
Dearest,
This is Sun. evening, about ten o’clock—just back from supper. Spent evening with the folks at Sound Beach—out on the sound in the boat as the full moon rose—fine—but I was pretty low… I want you to come back to love me ridiculously. There’s an immense amount of work that you must do, but that’s the small part of it all. The big job is to fuss over me, get that! I’m just played outplaying solitaire.
Now I’m all in and going to bed, and I need you so much. Look, Hon, I didn’t mean to make this note a wail.
George
Kiss Dave—his letters to friends of his are treasured. I’m proud of my boy—and coming up on the steamer, get out all his “book” material. He must tutor during the summer!
On July 30, 1925, after ten weeks of travel, Dorothy and David returned home.
There was a grand celebration in New York Harbor, as every ship from garbage scows to ocean liners sounded their salutes. Dorothy was tanned and thin, appearing weathered by the sun and salt. Wearing her trademark full slacks and scarf fitted like a cap across her forehead, she was greeted by her husband, David’s friends, and Junie, who could be seen peering shyly from behind Edwin Binney’s trousered leg. Beebe and his group of scientists were jostled by the crowd, and they smiled wearily as photographers’ flash bulbs popped.
Before dawn, Dorothy and George lay silent, each waiting for the other to speak. Familiar shadows fell across the room and the curtains pulled to the side made way for a breeze that never came that night. The reunion was hardly what George had envisioned. He felt his wife’s cool detachment, and it seemed that the distance between them was greater than ever before.
The return to a home routine was not an easy one. On the voyage, far removed from the reality of familial ties, my grandmother had begun to question her “perfect” marriage. For the rest of her life she spoke proudly of her role as a scientist aboard the Arcturus. The expedition had jarred her out of the complacency of her domestic duties. Her new self-confidence had blossomed without George’s support. She felt independent, self-sufficient not only physically, but emotionally.
In discovering her own self-worth, Dorothy would no longer be satisfied as Mrs. George Putnam—hostess, wife, and mother—and she could no longer disguise her growing detachment. She was cautious not to move too far emotionally at one time, and therefore, Dorothy used her house and garden as a stabilizing influence. There was a side to her that wanted to take flight, and there was another side of her that wanted to stay grounded in the earth of her house. “I seem to have reached the exact spot in the general ‘spottiness’ of life, when I am undecided which road to take!” At this point, my grandmother was feeling unraveled. This was the beginning of an ambivalence that would take four years to resolve.