The advantages of a sudden death have grown on me in these years when I have had much time for meditation. Some people can stand life with a ball and chain on their leg, just as some birds can survive a broken wing and some animals can endure life in a circus cage. But it is not the life I would wished. . . . When I knew how badly Peggy had been damaged, I was glad she went fast.
The Atlanta opera season began the first week in May in 1952. On Thursday, the opening night, John escorted Sue Myrick to the performance of La Traviata. On Saturday, May 3, he attended the performance of Aida with Mrs. Calvin Prescott, an old friend of his and Peggy’s. After the opera, he and Mrs. Prescott went to the opera party dinner at the Piedmont Driving Club. The next afternoon, Augusta and Lee Edwards invited him to their home on Woodward Way to see their garden, where the deep purple and bronze iris named “Margaret Mitchell” was in full bloom. He told them, “If people are going to name things for Peggy, I’m glad they name such beautiful things.” He stayed with them about an hour. Then his chauffeur, Henry Ed Hyrams, drove him downtown, where he had supper alone in a restaurant on Luckie Street. Then he went home and to bed.
When Bessie and Charlie returned from Sunday evening church service, Bessie went to see if John needed anything. She said he was sitting up in bed reading. He told her he was feeling all right and sent her to bed. Later, she explained, “My room is right under his, and I could always hear when he was stirring around. I heard him get quiet, like he was asleep. Then he woke up for his midnight snack. I heard him walking around. Then I heard him go to bed. So I went to bed myself.”
Around 1:00 A.M., Bessie woke up startled by the sound of the buzzer that John kept by his bedside. She ran straight to his room where she found him lying in bed in terrible pain, gasping, unable to breathe. She called the doctor and then got a glass of water for him to take a pill. “I don’t think he ever got the pill in his mouth. I held the glass for him to drink. He lay back, and I saw his breath coming shorter and shorter. I knew he was leaving. In two or three minutes he went away to join Miss Peggy in heaven. Mr. Marsh loved and cherished Miss Peggy. He saw to it that she had the best of care. He left nothing undone that was in human power.”103 After his death, the autopsy showed evidence of many heart attacks.104
18
In writing John’s obituary for the Atlanta Journal on May 5, 1952, John and Peggy’s long-time friend Frank Daniel stated: “Few but Mr. Marsh’s most intimate friends realized the extent of the support and detailed attention he provided for the writing of Gone With the Wind. Mr. Marsh always emphasized that the inspiration and talent for the novel was his wife’s alone, and insisted that his part was chiefly mechanical. The sympathy and encouragement, the advice and literary taste that he contributed were no doubt invaluable—as the dedication acknowledges.”
Nearly three years earlier, on August 17, 1949, Daniel had written a poignant article for the Journal about Peggy’s death, titled “Simplicity, Loyalty, and Love Produced Gone With the Wind.” Daniel wrote:
Only one person in the whole world could ever have written Gone With the Wind. And it might never have come into being but for the encouragement provided by the man to whom the novel is dedicated. “To J. R. M.” This shortest and simplest of dedications prefaces the book. If it had been as flowery as the inscription which precedes the Sonnets of Shakespeare it could no more clearly have conveyed the completeness of the bond between Margaret Mun-nerlyn Mitchell and John Robert Marsh. . . . This is not to imply that Gone With the Wind is not wholly Margaret Mitchell’s novel. But Margaret Mitchell was Mrs. John R. Marsh. . . . He was there, with calm judgment, quiet admiration, whole souled devotion.
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
—Ernest Dowson
NOTES
Preface
1. Finis Farr’s Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta (Morrow, 1965) was authorized by Mitchell’s only sibling, Stephens Mitchell, an Atlanta attorney. Anxious to protect his sister’s privacy after her and John’s death, Stephens saw to it that Farr was assisted by Margaret Baugh, the Marshes’ longtime, loyal secretary whom Stephens hired after the Marshes’ deaths to oversee the management of Gone With the Wind. Consequently, Farr’s book contains valuable but highly selected material, is admiring in tone, and presents an accurate but narrow account of the some of the major events in Mitchell’s life. Farr makes no attempt to flesh out Marsh or Mitchell. He hints at but does not explain the vital role that Marsh played in her life and work. He does not imbue her with the charm and vitality those who knew her remember. Nor does he explore any of her intriguing frailties; he shrouds her in a glorious mist that obscures the woman behind the legend. The other biography is Anne Edwards’s Road to Tara (Ticknor & Fields, 1983).
2. Anne Edwards’s Road to Tara is a popularized biography that makes for good reading but contains some errors that, taken together, portray Margaret Mitchell and John Marsh in a manner in which neither of them existed. Darden Pyron’s Southern Daughter (Oxford University Press, 1991) perpetuates some of Edwards’s errors.
3. Photocopies of two of John’s letters to his mother were in the Frances Marsh Zane collection. Darden Pyron had access to this collection and in his biography, Southern Daughter, he quotes passages from these two letters.
4. Other biographers have had access to the Zanes’ letters, but because of the insight the letters provide into the Marsh-Mitchell relationship, I have quoted more extensively from them.
Chapter 1
A Man of Character
Note: The epigraph is taken from a letter John wrote to his mother, spring 1945, a few months after he had suffered a major heart attack on Christmas Day 1944. William E. Mitchell was the president of the Georgia Power Company from 15 May 1945 to 18 Feb. 1947. John’s college sweetheart was Kitty Mitchell from Bowling Green, Kentucky.
1. Interview with MS.
2. UGa. MB’s Notes, 4. After Peggy started working at the Journal and while she was still married to but separated from Red Upshaw, she and John dated steadily. At John’s encouragement, she started writing a novel about youths in the 1920s. This was the manuscript they worked on together before they married. The heroine was Pansy Hamilton, a spirited teenager, from whom Scarlett O’Hara later emerged. This manuscript, along with all of Peggy’s childhood stories, was of great sentimental value to John. Baugh wrote, “This fragment was still in the house, along with the childhood stories after John’s death. As a matter of fact, I think he had already destroyed this novel of the 20’s, along with the manuscript of GWTW (and maybe Ropa Carmagin). But his fragment of thirty pages still remained, as it was Steve who had me destroy it.” About the completed novel “’Ropa Carmagin,” Baugh wrote to Finis Farr: “No one ever again read it is correct, but as you say on pages 173 & 174, Mr. Latham and Lois had already read it. Margaret or John one had already destroyed Ropa. I didn’t do it. I don’t remember when it was removed from the file cabinet. At any rate, I never saw it again, and no one else did either.”
3. MFP, “The Mystery of Margaret Mitchell,” Atlanta Journal Magazine. The date is missing, but this article had to have been published fairly soon after John’s death in 1952, after the codicil to his will was made known.
4. Interview with FM, whose information came from the three people: John’s housekeeper, his janitor, and Margaret Baugh, his secretary, who telephoned Henry Marsh describing this event and her concern about John’s health. After Baugh’s call, Henry Marsh left for Atlanta to be with John.
5. Andrew Sparks, “Why Were Margaret Mitchell’s Letters Burned?” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 5 Oct. 1952, 8.
6. UGa. MB’s Notes. Also, MFP,“The Mystery of Margaret Mitchell,” Atlanta Journal Magazine, 1955. Also, interview with FM.
7. UGa. MB’s Notes, 5.
8. MMD. MM’s letter to HM, n.d., Tuesday a.m. [May or June 1926].
9. UGa. MM to Dr. Thomas H. English, 11 July 1936.
10. UGa. MM to Katharine Brown, 10 Dec. 1937.
11. Finis Farr, Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta (New York: Morrow, 1965), 225-26.
12. Fulton County Courthouse, Atlanta, GA. In 1948, Peggy had about three hundred thousand dollars in cash and securities. After making some modest bequests in her will to Bessie and Deon, and to her nieces, nephews, and friends, she left three-quarters of her estate to John and one quarter to Stephens Mitchell. She left all domestic and foreign rights to Gone With the Wind to John.
13. Andrew Sparks, “Why Margaret Mitchell’s Papers Are Now ‘Gone With the Wind,’” Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 5 Oct. 1952, 7. Also, UGa. SM’s Memoir. Box Number 114. Folder 14.9. The Mitchell’s Peachtree mansion was also torn down in late August 1952 because Stephens said he and his sister wanted it torn down: “We didn’t want anyone else to live in it and we didn’t want it to deteriorate to a third-rate boarding house. I insisted that it be torn down and that was in the contract when I sold it.” Quoted from “It’s What She Wanted—Wrecking Crew Takes Over Margaret Mitchell’s Home,” Atlanta Constitution, 26 Aug. 1952.
14. Ralph McGill, “Little Woman, Big Book: The Mysterious Margaret Mitchell,” in “Gone With the Wind” as Book and Film. Ed. Richard Harwell (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1983), 76.
15. Fulton County Courthouse, Atlanta, GA.
16. John’s codicil states: “So I am saving these original Gone With the Wind papers for use in proving, if the need arises, that Peggy and no one else was the author of her novel.” Fulton County Courthouse, Atlanta, GA.
17. Codicil to JRM’s will.
18. From one of FM’s newsclippings titled “Part of Priceless GWTW Manuscript in Vault: Remains of Literary Treasure May Never Be Taken from Cache,” by Davenport Steward. No date or name of newspaper but probably from the Atlanta Journal in early summer 1952. Picture above article of the Mitchell’s home on Peachtree with caption that reads, “Margaret Mitchell Home to Be Torn Down This Summer, Author Wanted House, Close Personal Effects Destroyed.” The house was torn down in late August 1952. This article states: “Miss Margaret Baugh, secretary to both Miss Mitchell and Mr. Marsh, confirmed Mr. Mitchell’s belief that a few pages of the manuscript are in the vault of the Citizens and Southern National Bank. . . . Mr. Mitchell said he had not examined the contents of the safety deposit box where Mr. Marsh placed samples of Miss Mitchell’s writing in a sealed enveloped. He added that he had no intention of ever breaking the seal on the envelope unless requested to do so by tax authorities. . . . Miss Mitchell had a passion for leaving nothing in the way of close personal possessions behind her, her brother implied. Even the family home 1401 Peachtree St., N.E., now occupied by Mr. Mitchell will never pass to the hands of strangers. ‘I’m going to tear it down and sell the lot this summer.’”
19. Sparks, “Why Were Margaret Mitchell’s Letters Burned?” 9.
20. Codicil to JRM’s will.
21. UGa. SM’s Memoir. Box Number 114. Stephens’s papers consist of his letters, memoirs, notes, genealogies, notes to Margaret Baugh, the Marshes’ secretary, and notes to Finis Farr, whom he authorized to write the first biography of his sister. Stephens’s memoir is beautifully written and informative, but it is not a complete narrative. At least, what is in the Hargrett Library is not complete. It appears to be something that he worked on intermittently and unfortunately never completed. The pages are not all numbered and some pages that have consecutive numbers have a few pages missing. Thus, some information gleaned from his writings cannot be assigned page numbers in these notes. Whenever page numbers are available, I have given them. For the sake of clarity, I have also referred to this piece of writing as his “Memoir” throughout my notes, though he did not give it that title.
22. A magnificent bulk of it—well over fifty thousand items, ten thousand carbon copies of her letters alone and several hundreds of his—is in UGa.
23. Many ridiculous rumors were bandied about. Because of the novel’s historical background, some said her father, an attorney who had a passion for Georgia genealogy and Atlanta history, or her brother, who was also a history enthusiast, had written it. A few said she took the novel from her Grandmother Stephens’s journal.
24. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 6. Also, Stephens wrote several pages explaining exactly what his sister and JRM wanted. SM’s Accession No. 303, Box No. 114, Folder Heading 14:9—seven typed pages about rumors, MM and JRM’s wills.
25. MMD. JRM to his family, 3 April 1937.
26. Interview with MS. Also, JK’s letter to the author, 16 Sept. 1991.
27. Interview with MS. Also, JK’s letter to the author, 16 Sept. 1991.
28. UGa. MM to HB, 8 Dec. 1936.
29. Harwell, “Gone With the Wind” as Book and Film, 76.
30. MMD. JRM to his mother, November the Last, 1921. Also, from an Atlanta Journal Magazine article about Margaret Mitchell; date is missing from this newsclipping. Also, a letter dated May 28, 1993, to the author from Thomas Weesner. Weesner gives the Rabbit Hole’s formal name, its exact location, and the names of its owners—Florence Merritt and Gaby Bridewell.
31. Interview with FM. Francesca was married to John Marsh’s brother Ben Gordon Marsh, who was only two years younger than John. Ben Gordon and Francesca married two years after John and Peggy married, and they often visited the Atlanta Marshes. The couples were friends as well as relatives. John, in his customary reportorial manner, told both his brothers about his first meeting with Peggy. Shortly after their marriage in 1927, Ben Gordon and Francesca visited the Atlanta Marshes who, at that time, were happily talking about their work on Peggy’s book; later they would clam up about the book. A long-time friend of John’s, sports editor O. B. Keeler wrote the biography of Bobby Jones.
32. MMD. JRM to his mother, 19 Dec. 1921.
33. Interview with MMD. John reported this evening to HM.
34. Interview with FM. MM’s contemporaries spoke of her storytelling talent and her ability to make others laugh.
35. UGa. MB’s Notes, 3.
36. Interview with MS. Also, FM pointed out how much MM resembled Scarlett in appearance.
37. Interview with FM.
38. MM to Allen Edee, 13 Sept. 1919. Jane Bonner Peacock, Dynamo Going to Waste: Letters to Allen Edee, 1919-1921 (Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1985), 31.
39. Peacock, 81. MM to Allen Edee, 26 March 1920.
40. John wrote about his courtship with Ruth Gimbel in his letters to his mother.
41. FMZ. JRM to FMZ, 20 Jan. 1922.
42. MMD. JRM to his mother, 29 Aug. 1921.
43. Interview with MMD.
44. Richard Harwell, ed., Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” Letters, 1936-1949 (New York: Collier, 1976), xxxii.
45. FMZ’s Papers.
46. UGa. MFP’s Narrative. 2.
47. Interview with FM.
48. Interview with MS. Also found in UGa., MFP’s Narrative. 2.
49. MMD. JRM to his mother, 26 Sept. 1921.
50. Interview with JK.
51. MMD. JRM to his mother, November the Last, 1921.
52. MMD. JRM to his mother, November the Last, 1921.
53. MMD. JRM to HM, 28 Dec. 1921.
54. MMD. JRM to HM, 28 Dec. 1921.
55. MMD. The first mention of this job offer is in JRM’s letter to his mother of 22 June 1921, and the last in his letter of November the Last, 1921.
Chapter 2
Opposites Attract
1. Interview with MS.
2. JK’s letter to the author, 15 Aug. 1990.
3. Interview with JK.
4. Edmund Davis’s letter to the author, 3 Oct. 1991.
5. Interview with MS. Also UGa., MM’s letters.
6. Interview with JK.
7. Interview with JK.
8. Joe Kling remembered the time John fir
ed an employee for alcoholism and absenteeism, and then rehired him before the man had a chance to clean out his desk. Joe said John felt sorry for the fellow and his family and tried to get him help.
9. Interviews with JK, FM, and MS.
10. Interview with FM.
11. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 65.
12. EU. Harvey Smith’s note attached to MM’s letter. 24 May 1933.
13. MMD. JRM to his mother, 18 Sept. 1921.
14. UGa. Cukor’s comment is taken from a letter Susan Myrick wrote the Marshes shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in January 1939 to serve as an arbiter of southern dialect, manners, and dress. This letter and other of Myrick’s letters to the Marshes are on file in the Hargrett Library.
15. AHC. Stephens Mitchell, “Margaret Mitchell and Her People,” AHB 9, no. 34. 6.
16. UGa. SM’s “History of the Fitzgerald Family.” 5.
17. UGa. SM’s “History of the Mitchell Family.” 36-37.
18. UGA. Eugene Mitchell’s obituary in 1944, in all the Atlanta newspapers, mentions his earning the highest marks ever made at the time he graduated.
19. UGa. SM’s “History of the Mitchell Family.” 37.
20. UGa. SM’s “History of the Mitchell Family.” 37.
21. AHC. Stephens Mitchell, “Margaret Mitchell and Her People.” 13.
22. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 19.
23. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 15.
24. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 15.
25. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 15-16.
26. UGa. MM to Joseph Henry Jackson, 1 June 1936.
27. Finis Farr, Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta (New York: Morrow, 1965), 18.
28. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 39-40.
29. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 39.
30. UGa. SM’s Memoir. 45-46.
31. UGa. SM’s “History of the Mitchell Family.” 39. Russell Mitchell’s second wife was Clara Neal Robinson, by whom he had two daughters—Clara Neal and Lillian.
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