Whistled Like a Bird, page 17
One vacation day, Dorothy and Junie piled their usual stash of towels, books, and beach food in the rear seat of Bub’s car and headed toward Rye. Junie had been invited to the ocean with a family called the Greens, and Dorothy planned to retrace her two-mile swim out to the lighthouse and back. “Drove Junie to Rye to Greens. First time I’ve been down there and curiously enough felt no heartache, no longing for old times or the lovely gardens and home. G.P. sounds sick and blue on the phone. He is lonely, I know.” I am certain that my grandmother gained no pleasure in his continued suffering.
But Dorothy was homesick for Fort Pierce and missed Eff terribly. She writes of her frustration, waiting for his letters, which were rare. He was not the sort of man who communicated with words, and even his phone calls were few.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1930 Eff phoned me last night and I loved hearing his blessed old voice. I believe he’s actually, really in love with me. Yet for the life of me I can’t understand it. Of course, I do know perfectly that he wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t had money—couldn’t have.
Once back in Fort Pierce, however, she shared a passionate reunion with Eff and all her doubts dissolved. Both of them resumed their work, wielding machetes and slashing through the undergrowth, taking enormous pleasure in the physical nature of the job. Dorothy was unfazed by the discomforts, the snakes, insects, and poison ivy during those blistering summer months. The palms, pines, and vibrant blue and orange vines were marked to be saved. The giant oaks were also tagged with bright yellow ribbons; Dorothy rescued fifty small oaks and carried them to the perimeter of the eighty-acre site. The young saplings were replanted along the east and south boundary lines where she interspersed each one with a clump of bamboo, planting them side by side as windbreak for her future citrus grove. “Farm—picnic—home for swim. Moving lilies, putting giant bamboo at North and West entrances. And every 100 ft. too on south line. 1 bamboo, 2 water oaks. On East End (Lateral), 1 bamboo, 2 Australian pines.”
She had chosen pecky cypress, the old southern swampland timber, to be used throughout her rambling house. One of the new house’s most distinctive features was the roof of imported Italian tiles. Balconies and loggias were fashioned at different levels and angles circling the house. There were six fireplaces and four chimneys, with arched openings to keep out the fierce Florida rains. From a short distance, the creamy stucco reflected a soft pearly light in the midst of the tropical umbrella. Dorothy had created a fascinating treehouse, set snugly in a natural garden the size of a public park. For her birds, she designed several water fountains built into the exterior walls, and beside each one stood screen-enclosed feeding stations. Finally, a decorative balconet with the carved inscription “Immokolee” was added onto the outside of the vaulted-ceiling living room beneath a miniature window.
The locals marveled as the Uptons’ custom-made materials arrived on freight trains from Palm Beach and New York. They gaped to see such exotic furnishings, including cypress doors and one-of-a-kind polished brass screens. China and crystal in heavy barrels rolled off the train. Walnut plates and bowls and hand-hammered sterling silverware were among the items loaded onto a truck and delivered to Immokolee.
After a hard rain, Dorothy discovered a natural swale of groundwater beneath a circle of small cypress trees. Delighted, she roped off her future lily pond and designed the home’s entrance around this low-lying feature.
Covered with mosquito bites, the Uptons returned to New York for two weeks. At summer’s end, Alice and Edwin Binney organized a neighborhood reception to welcome Dorothy’s new husband. “Mother’s big party—reception and music, etc. All the Binney Lane and Sylvan Lane neighbors in to meet us. And supper. Met the unhumorous and self-made Col. Schick of razor blade fame, also others. Worked on Journey’s End most of the day.”
Frank returned to Fort Pierce while Dorothy remained behind to go over the Florida house plans with Robert Duncan, a local architect. She was also busy putting the final touches on Journey’s End, which was exploding with summer colors from the garden beside the new swimming pool. The transplanted iris bulbs—so reminiscent of G.W.—had been the first to bloom.
AUGUST 18, 1930 I’m happy to he returning to Eff for I’ve missed him tremendously of late. And I’m keen too, to see the Farm and what’s been done. Eff has been living on black coffee during my absence! Not so good!
AUGUST 20, 1930 Eff met me at midnight all fresh and strong and tan. He’s so utterly gorgeous looking always. He’s the way God meant men to be I’m sure. Vigorous and healthy and well muscled, Home and to bed in a leisurely adorable way and we lay talking and chatting in each other’s arms for hours. Coffee at dawn! And another day.
Her life was spent in the “hammock” of snarled oaks with tall, slender palms crisscrossing and snaking their way upward into the sun. Dorothy relished the job of measuring and marking trees while noting various species of birds. She discovered nests and rare orchid sprays and had begun to recognize Florida’s colorful snakes. Wearing high-top boots, she wasn’t afraid of the rattlesnakes, corals, or water moccasins. Just as she had done with George while building Rocknoll, Dorothy designed her Florida home to sit snugly among the native trees without destroying the bearded old giants that had originally claimed the land several hundred years before she arrived.
SEPTEMBER 8, 1930 Mon. Farm and picnic lunch. Trees, new part of road. Planted 10 papayas, tuberoses and fragrant ginger lily. And on Saturday Mr. Hale brought a dozen more vines to put in the trees. White jasmine, blue thumbergia and brilliant yellow begonia. Dinner.
Dorothy insisted upon finding the perfect name for the home and grove. She first considered naming it Huimanu (which means “Rendezvous of the Birds”), as a reference to the new couple’s tropical nest. In the end, she chose Immokolee, the Seminole Indian word for “My Home Place.” In her diary for September 28, 1930, she noted: “Up early again. Out to ‘40’ to set north line for a row of bamboo. It poured hard and we were all entirely soaked! Home, dry clothes, dinner and over to beach for swim (after a nap). ‘IMMO-KO-LEE’ Seminole (My Home Place). Our grove name.”
Between the birthing of her new home and nurturing her eight-year-old son, Dorothy felt richly rewarded. Her years of pain and confusion had vanished; she had found a place of her own.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1930 Town early to start June at school. He goes to 4A which is quite normal (and pleases me as I taught him at home last year) Farm for lunch. Very busy. I Plowing!! Set out 26 clumps of bamboo along north road. Killed small rattler.
The three Uptons were becoming comfortable with frontier Florida. Dorothy had already discovered the outdoor wonders of her newly adopted state: excursions to the crystal pools at Silver Springs, exotic drives through marshlands teeming with bird life, trips to the Everglades, and boat rides through the Thousand Islands. By the time George Weymouth and his new bride, Deo, first came to Fort Pierce in October 1930, Dorothy was intimately familiar with the Florida landscape and took pleasure in serving as official guide for her guests. “George Weymouth and his bride of a month, arrived at 11 p.m.! Great reunion.” It was during her visit to Old Greenwich the summer before that the threesome had planned their trip to Silver Springs. She and G.W. had both found contentment in their marriages, but Dorothy still delighted in his company and thrilled to his laughter once again. “Farm—to ocean, then a grand roughhouse swim back at pool with the rubber animals and a BAND! Late dinner and off at 5 pm for Silver Springs. Highballs at Hotel Marion, Ocala. G.T.W., Deo, Eff, D.B.U. Moon, long roads, chatter, songs.”
Although Eff denied feeling jealous of G.W.’s wild sense of humor and handsome physique (and his rather acrobatic habit of walking on his hands), he could not hide his possessiveness. “Breakfast in our room. Then all down to the Springs. The glass-bottom boat, a swim. Drive in moonlight. Eff hurt and obviously jealous which pleases me.”
But soon, Dorothy became aware that Eff’s mood swings were not as innocent as she first thought, and his jealousy was no longer flattering:
OCTOBER 7, 1930 I shouldn’t he pleased at his jealousy, but such fury and anger does mean he cares, and wishes to monopolize, despite all his protestations. And sometimes his silences and inarticulateness are a little disappointing. Moonlight drive and a romp on ocean beach. Bed, silently and apart. And still the resentment.
OCTOBER 8, 1930 Farm, picnic lunch and a sweet “make-up” but no admission of Jealousy or hurt. Maybe he doesn’t yet recognize the fact.
That month, my grandmother—at the age of forty-two—thought she was pregnant. At first she was terrified, then as the possibility became real, saddened by the fact that Eff was not pleased. Indeed, he became even more sullen and distant.
She was anxious about her husband’s reaction and could only wish for a change of heart. Once again, her insecurities were surfacing. “I hope he cares.”
15
AMELIA AND GEORGE PUTNAM
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.”
