Whistled Like a Bird, page 7
Dorothy had just returned to Rocknoll from a quilting lesson when Junie raced out to greet her with the news. Although Dorothy had followed Lindbergh’s flight plans, she could not understand her little boy’s excitement about a man in an airplane who had almost fallen into the ocean. Dropping her basket, and spilling dozens of cotton flowered squares across the grass, she rushed inside to learn the true story.
George had called earlier and left word that a bulletin of Charles Lindbergh’s flight had just come across the wire service from Paris. With all of the excitement, he didn’t expect to be home until late, but hoped that she would take the train into town and join the spontaneous celebrations. All of New York, it seemed, was caught up in a jubilant display of patriotism. She hastily packed a light bag for the evening and reached the station in time for the early evening train.
George had not exaggerated; the city was wild. Strangers were hugging each other, horns were honking continuously, and in office buildings thousands of workers waved flags from the crowded windows. By the time Dorothy arrived at G. P. Putnam’s Sons on Forty-fifth Street, the city was caught up in a frenzy of excitement over Lindbergh’s amazing and daring feat. “The whole world quite agog over this unknown youth’s superb nerve and courage—An Envoy from U.S.A. to all of Europe. An International hero, truly, and the world’s first of his kind and an American thro’ and thro’. Tall and blond.”
George called his friend Fred Birchall at The New York Times, anxious to reach Lindbergh in Paris to make a substantial offer to publish his story:
I went to Fred Birchall, then managing editor of The New York Times and a good friend of mine.
“We’d like to get the Lindbergh book,” I said. The stocky, bearded little Englishman’s nearsighted eyes crinkled in a grin as he peered at me over his glasses. “Indeed,” he chuckled, “you—and who else?” As to that, I suppose every publisher in America wanted the book. Anyway, Birchall did what he properly could to help. What I needed most was a lift in getting word promptly into the hands of the harassed flyer, and the Paris office of the Times could help with that.
Lindbergh had already asked an American newspaperman, Carlisle MacDonald, who was traveling with his party, to ghost-write the story for him. Lindbergh accepted Putnam’s staggering offer. Snagging the rights was considered to be one of my grandfather’s greatest publishing coups. He wrote an advance check for $100,000, certain the book would become an instant bestseller.
Within days, the project was under way. In George’s own words: “MacDonald moved into my house at Rye. I reinforced him with secretaries and he went to ghosting in a big way, equipped with the flyer’s own newspaper stories of the flight and the notes gleaned from Lindbergh on the return voyage from France.”
Dorothy took on an active role as Rocknoll filled with writers and staff members. The normally bustling household became frenetic, but Dorothy was swept up by the challenge and excitement of another publishing event. Highly organized, it was her task to provide a comfortable and stimulating household, and she was uniquely qualified for the job, for she exuded intelligence, wit, and literary knowledge. As G. P. Putnam’s charming spokesperson and hostess, Dorothy delighted in taking guests sightseeing or to the Manursing Island Club for a swim and picnic. Up at dawn, she prepared breakfast for those whose sleeping habits matched hers. The garden tours and gathering flowers for the house were her special way of introducing visitors to Rocknoll.
An emotionally riveted public eagerly awaited Lindy’s personal account of the historic flight. Over a hundred thousand advance orders from booksellers poured in, thanks to George’s personal visits to stores across the country, where he delighted in drumming up interest. The world-renowned geologist Laurence Gould would recall: “He was a stormy petrel who incited all kinds of reactions from people.” A gifted promoter, my grandfather was universally recognized for his unfailing commercial instincts while giving his writers creative freedom.
His support of writers was legendary. “I believe that it might never have even occurred to me to think of myself as a writer except for George’s insistence that I was,” observed the artist and author Rockwell Kent. “Despite the habit of all publishers to assume the right to direct and edit their writers’ work, George never even suggested the alteration of a comma in anything that I did.”
By the time MacDonald finished the Lindbergh manuscript, however, the famous pilot had a change of heart. “Fitz [G.P.’s assistant] is dog tired and very worried over the Lindbergh book. There is difficulty and Lindbergh doesn’t want to accept it, now that it’s written for him.” Lindbergh refused to sign the release form for publication and had decided after all to write the book himself.
My grandfather was beside himself. He imagined irate customers and empty bookshelves. Lindbergh assured him that he would be finished in several months.
Lindbergh retired to Harry Guggenheim’s (sponsor and promoter of aeronautics) house on Long Island, agreeing to write 40,000 words. He wrote in longhand, and delivered the manuscript in time for a July publication. We would be published to great acclaim, and G. P. Putnam was once again the envy of his peers. His name was forever linked to the famous aviator, who earned an unprecedented (for the time) $200,000 in royalties. The two men would remain friends for years to come.
Amid the Lindbergh saga, the Baffin Land expedition was gathering steam in the Putnam household. Dorothy was keenly aware that it would mean the absence not only of her fourteen-year-old son and her husband but also of her new lover. Moreover, she recognized the loss of personal opportunities as she felt the familiar pull of being seduced into another publishing event for Putnam’s. As the sailing date neared in June, Dorothy and G.W. attempted to steal a few moments alone, but ultimately they conceded to the demands of the trip. “Delicious lunch and we ate it atop Laddin’s Rock, on the cliff in the hemlocks, with a thrush singing in the oaks above us, and white violets in bloom!”
Most of G.W.’s days were spent filling orders for the crew as he traveled between Washington, D.C., and the Morrissey, now being loaded with supplies at the boatyard on West Seventy-ninth Street in New York. He also acquired permits for taking specimens for the Museum of Natural History, and in general made himself useful as a third engineer. “G.W. left for Washington to see the Coastal Geodetic Survey people. He is the most beguiling person. So sweet and considerate in the little things. Active, tireless and unfailingly thoughtful of me. I shall miss him tremendously.”
The week before they were to sail was filled with giddy abandon, as Dorothy allowed herself to delight in the pleasure of her love affair. “George in town on the Morrissey. To woods with G.W. for azalea and greens and lay on a sunny rock singing.”
JUNE 5, 1927 Late this morning, G.W. and I paddled my yellow canoe from the yacht club to the Manursing. A soft grey day with not a ripple, a calm and exquisite morning and we talked and paddled leisurely “round to the beach.” We lolled and laughed. We found Gill [Dorothy’s college friend Agnes Gilson] and the two children waiting on the beach. Just as we came ashore, G.W. tell overboard! So Funny, and soaked, although only in two feet of water.
JUNE 6, 1927 G.W. came back from Washington and I know Annie Laurie is anxious to see him. She can’t believe he’s not in love with her still. It was antagonistic infatuation and he has conquered it.
JUNE 10, 1927 All day back and forth—errands—trunks—phones—Phil Weymouth from Harvard and two younger brothers from Pennsylvania to see G.W. off. A huge dinner party and a wild kiddish evening with boys all over the house. A warm summer night.
Two days later, at 3:00 A.M., the Morrissey set sail. The day and night before had been consumed by last-minute errands. Dorothy had attempted to transport her own duffel bag to the ship without being seen by the bevy of newspaper reporters, but she was spotted and written up in one story. She had agreed to go on board as far as Brigus, Newfoundland, but she had tried to keep her presence a secret and described her role as “insignificant.” “All day we are going back and forth to the ship at the Yacht Club. Lunch at the Club for some sixty people; Will Beebe, Coe, Green, etc. Meanwhile, ship moved from Yacht Club to Casino. Engine trouble and G.W. sent to city for new parts. Sneaked aboard after midnight, on lifeboat. Sailed at 3:00 a.m.!”
My grandmother’s personal descriptions flow from page to page, rhythmic and lilting. But in her heart, she resented the fact that within a week she would leave the ship while her husband and the others pursued the exotic life she so envied. Only the year before, George had been jealous of her adventure on board the Arcturus. It seemed the Putnams preferred separate challenges, as they both needed to be in control.
On the Morrissey for one week, she relished being the only woman with her “mob” of “dirty boys.”
JUNE 12, SUNDAY So pleased to find I don’t object to the smells or the engine, the lack or privacy, the strange meals—nor the roll or the ocean! Soft, clear sunny first swells. Long Island Sound. Feel marvelous and like the whole gang.
JUNE 15 WED. Oh, heavenly day! Shark fins in night and many new birds and way off the horizon several whales disported themselves. Time goes swiftly and suddenly it’s time for supper. Most of the boys, except G.W. and Bob Peary have felt a touch or seasickness.
JUNE 16, THURS. A gray day cold with a huge following ground swell and some log. The boys shoot clay pigeons. Watched gorgeous full moon rise with G.W. out of bank of black clouds.
JUNE 17, FRI. Gray swells, fog; drifted to fish for cod, 50 fathoms, caught 100 lbs. or more and G.W., Monroe and I went swimming off the deck. Water 48 degrees, air 50 degrees. Saw three schooners. Heard a big steamer whistle, sang late with J.P. and G.W.
JUNE 18 SAT. In cabin all a.m. Cold and wanted to finish reading “The Immortal Marriage.” G.P. insists upon David doing a bit of work on his book each day and he’s reading up much good history.
JUNE 19, SUN. Our meals are such fun. A mob of huge, hungry, dirty boys! I laugh to look down the table! Played brains alter supper and finally got them all interested and arguing. G.W., David and I sat in “nest” on top or the cabin and read or sang or talked.
JUNE 20, MON. Early last night at 2:00 a.m. I went on deck—full moon and fine breeze and full sail. Brigus, Newfoundland at 8:00 a.m. Grand welcome and all the Bartletts so nice. To Bob’s house and tub and shampoo. Alter dinner a heavenly climb with G.W., John Pope and Ed Manley way over the hills and cliffs.
JUNE 21, TUES. George, David, Deric and J.P. off fishing all day. I climbed hill with G.W. and visited the house the Kents lived in 1915. Delightful and quaint and a heavenly setting. Everyone at junction to see me off.
Dorothy was certainly qualified to be a member of the expedition, yet her role aboard the Morrissey was considered unusual, for Captain Bob Bartlett was adamant that women on his ship were bad luck. In his book Sails Over Ice, the captain later evaluated her presence and noted that Dorothy had been the exception:
She fitted in perfectly with the ship’s life aboard, and the best thing about her was that she minded her own business. She was no gossip—and a real gossip can make more trouble at sea than any ten jinxes you can think of—and whatever she saw and heard remained her own property. Not that much got by her. It didn’t. She was like the wise old owl in the tree, who became more and more silent as he heard more and more that would make good telling. And for the logbook, let me add that we had the best of luck while she was onboard.
Her father, Edwin, and son Junie were waiting at Grand Central Station in New York to greet Dorothy upon her return. When Bub spotted her casual wave through the window of the slowing train, he and Junie walked quickly toward the door where she would appear. To a small son, she was only a mother returning home. But to a father who respected her need to push boundaries, he saw the spirit of an independent daughter he was proud to have nurtured. He handed her a bouquet of flowers. Somewhere beneath her adventuring eyes lay the mystery of a more mature woman. The flowers momentarily reduced her to a young girl, as she affectionately cradled her father’s sweet gift.
Dorothy had returned with presents for her parents and Junie. They were not exactly the kind of mementos that one might consider souvenirs. From high above the snug little harbor overlooking Brigus, she had collected rock specimens to share with her family. Attached to each one was Dorothy’s handwritten story describing the point of land and her adventure there.
At home, the dusk shadowed the dimly lit studio as Dorothy returned to her Steinway and sang “Blue Skies.” Irving Berlin must have had her in mind that year when he wrote these lyrics:
I was blue just as blue as I could be.
Ev’ry day was a cloudy day for me.
Then good luck came a-knocking at my door.
Skies were gray, but they’re not gray any more.
Blue Skies smiling at me.
Nothing but blue skies do I see.
Blue birds singing a song—
Nothing but blue birds all day long.
Never saw the sun shining so bright.
Never saw things going so right.
Noticing the days hurrying by;
When you’re in love my how they fly.
Blue days, all of them gone.
Nothing but blue skies from now on.
My grandmother’s original sheet music with her name and address across the top still rests on our piano at Immokolee. The faded yellow and blue cover with two birds facing one another is a gentle reminder of the woman who played its romantic melody.
Between June 21 and October 1, when G.W. would return, Dorothy’s summer was marked by long hours of despair. The same diary that had reflected such unadulterated happiness the month before now was filled with loneliness. “To sleep on the loggia… I find myself full of thoughts of moonlight and Arctic and a ship load of young men very dear to me.” Her imagination swirled from alarming images to soft moonrises and psychic contact with “her boys.”
JULY 25, 1927 A depressing day with physical inertia and low feeling all day and around house.
Filling the rooms with bunches of daisies, Dorothy tried to transform her moodiness with warm memories. She slept on the outside loggia, sharing the moon and stars with thoughts of G.W., feeling closer to him. She imagined his sunburned face, and the touch of his callused hands. “Feel sad and worried and will be so relieved when I hear the boys are back again on the Morrissey!”
She read over and over again the one batch of letters that was mailed back in June. But her diary reveals what was deep in her heart. Phrases like “heavenly moon,” “homesick,” and “so little word,” jump out from the pages. And weeks later, “Sat in swing in garden to watch moonrise. Special radio from G, Whaleboat back at Morrissey! Thank God!”
Three months would pass without the talk of books and exotic trips, without David and his husky teenage pals or G.W.’s unpredictable antics. Somewhere, headed for Baffin Island’s rocky coast, were her three men, living together in tight quarters, all of them missing her in their unique ways.
In his absence, George had provided Dorothy with a fortuitous bit of damaging evidence. Going through his clothes, she discovered that he too had found solace outside the marriage, and she welcomed it, believing for the first time that they both shared blame for the slow death of their love.
JUNE 30, 1927 Today when putting away George’s summer clothes, I found a letter from a woman, to him. A compromising affair and his penciled acceptance. A woman whose name he has never even mentioned to me, so undoubtedly a clandestine affair and about cocktails, etc. It’s odd, but it just makes the separation between him and me more complete. And lightens my sense of fidelity.
JULY 1, 1927 I have bought a new Dodge roadster. Very snappy sports model. Ridiculously expensive and really unnecessary. But it’s a funny reaction. And inexplicably, an antagonism against George.
Filling her summer days with carefree projects was Dorothy’s way of hurrying the season along; and on one July day, a heavy rain suggested its own kind of activity: “Made 50 glasses of apple jelly. Rain and thunder in late afternoon again!” For Dorothy, it was a day for writing letters or reading slowly from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It was also a day to reminisce, and she found herself opening the dresser where her secret mementos lay hidden.
G.W.’s first hand-picked daisies had died like the four-leaf clovers within her diary’s pages. She had wound the stems together with a piece of yellow ribbon and hid them under her nighties in the bottom drawer. Now, she recalled his first visit, when he gave her the daisies that lay in the palm of her hand.
There were also more tangible connections to her new loved one. In his absence, G.W. encouraged his family to visit Rocknoll. Two of his brothers, Clarence and Tyler, and Mr. and Mrs. Weymouth arrived. Dorothy was thrilled: “A strange Sunday, despite all the crowd here. I stroke Larry’s [G.W.’s brother Clarence] head for an hour, thinking of G.W. And at six o’clock his mother, father, and ‘Ty,’ came quite unexpectedly.”
On July 20, Dorothy was alone and facing her thirty-ninth birthday. Reflecting on a life without sufficient achievement, she wrote emotionally of her failures:
JULY 20, 1927 My birthday. Seems too ridiculous and I hate to check the passing years. I drift along—busy, active, procrastinating, energetic, ambitious, slovenly, lazy and indifferent! And Oh, so slack! It’s cheating life somehow and I hate myself for letting down, yet haven’t character to spruce up more in my real efforts.
A family celebration for her birthday was marred in part because Dorothy and the whole Binney family were worried about her brother, June, who had been stricken with the spinal disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (later named Lou Gehrig’s disease). His illness had preoccupied everyone, and Dorothy was deeply concerned for her younger brother. “Poor June is shockingly ill and I’m horrified at his appearance. He had been sick for over a year, first with threatened blindness and other illnesses and now, lame! But despite even that we did manage a gay evening with music and ridiculous jazz and then some brainy games.”
