The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  Lois put her arms around Bill and held him tightly for many moments. He looked toward the mountains and remembered the stories of glory, honor, and patriotism his grandfather had etched in his mind and heart as a youngster. Now it was all about to become a reality.

  The U.S. Congress quickly passed a defense bill sanctioning an expeditionary force of 175,000 men and authorizing an Officers Training Corps. Norwich cadets, like their West Point counterparts, were immediately called up for military duty. As a result, Bill became a soldier before he could graduate from the university. He went instead directly to the officers training camp in Plattsburgh, New York, and then for final training at Fort Monroe, Virginia, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

  As an officer, Bill was given a choice of duties. Despite the great and heroic tradition of military service in the Wilson clan and his deep belief in patriotism, he chose to serve in the Coastal Artillery rather than the Army Infantry, as his friend Ebby and other classmates did. He feared being thrown into trench warfare. He had pangs of guilt over that decision for many years and admitted later on to some close friends, “The great upwellings of patriotism would overtake me one day—and the next day I would just be funked and scared to death. And I think that the thing that scared me most was that I might never live my life out with Lois, with whom I was in love.”11

  Bill kept that guilt locked inside, never sharing it with Lois until much later in life, always hoping she would never find out what a real coward he thought he was. It was one more blow to his already low self-esteem.

  Less than a week after he was commissioned, he was transferred to Fort Rodman just outside New Bedford, Massachusetts, a camp filled with seasoned officers and noncoms along with gung-ho volunteers. There was a lot of drinking. Almost immediately, Bill’s life changed. Little did he know it had changed forever. For this was where he discovered alcohol—and the convincing voice inside his head that told him it was really not his enemy and, in fact, it could be his very, very good friend. That’s what the “magic elixir” did for this young second lieutenant right from the start. With a few drinks, he no longer felt inferior.

  Until now Bill had feared drinking, and for very good reasons. There was a long family history: booze had wrought terrible damage and havoc on some of the Wilsons including Bill’s own father, Gilman. But now it was wartime. Despite being in the Coastal Artillery, there was every likelihood he would be sent to France to command an artillery unit there. Would he have the courage to face the enemy, or would he be shamed in front of his own men?

  As a youngster, he had seen how drinking used to fortify Mark Whalon. Now here at Fort Rodman, all the men around him seemed to enjoy a few drinks now and then. It seemed to boost their morale and fill them with camaraderie. Maybe it was just a matter of being careful, very careful.

  There was a wealthy family in New Bedford called the Grinnells. Practically every weekend they threw a party at their estate for the young officers like Bill who were away from their families, friends, and loved ones. His fellow “second looies” dragged him there with them one Saturday evening. At first he was the only wallflower in the whole Grinnell mansion. Then a very pretty young lady approached him with a “Bronx cocktail” in hand—a delightful mixture of gin, dry and sweet vermouth, and orange juice. She stood there holding the glass to his lips. In spite of all the warning signs, all his previous knowledge, all the factual evidence, and his deepest fears about drinking, he drank it. Then he had another—and another.

  Before nine o’clock that evening, Bill Wilson was playing a hoedown on a borrowed violin for a wildly stomping crowd and patting every saucy young lady on the fanny as she passed by. His fellow officers had to carry him back to camp.

  Since Fort Rodman was not too far from New York, Lois visited every few weeks or so—without a chaperone. As she once explained, “My mother and father’s understanding and their trust in Bill and me were very unusual for that conventional era. I would sometimes get strange looks from other parents accompanying their daughters when they realized I was alone. Perhaps they thought I was a ‘camp follower.’ Certainly Bill and I were sometimes tempted to go off alone, but then we would remind each other we had our whole lives ahead of us even in the face of this war.”12

  Lois was totally shocked one night when they went to dinner with his fellow officers—she thought it might have been her second or third visit—and Bill ordered a cocktail. He ordered one for her too. When Bill noticed the dumbfounded look on his fiancée’s face, he grinned that silly grin and said: “This is what soldiers do during wartime I guess. Besides, I only have a few once in awhile.”13

  She wanted to believe him. She almost did until the very next visit when she happened to overhear some of his army buddies talking about how they had to carry Bill home a few nights before and put him to bed. Lois later admitted she didn’t get very upset at the time because she believed in her heart that if it ever got any worse, she would surely be able to persuade him to return to his former abstinence. While Lois had a glass of wine on social occasions at home, it was something she could easily do without.

  “Living with me,” she later shared, partly with tongue in cheek, “would be such an inspiration, I thought, such fun and so exciting that I was sure he would not need alcohol. Talk about being smug and self-centered.”14

  The year 1918 was fast approaching. America was fully engaged on Europe’s Western Front. Bill could be shipped out at almost any time now. Before Christmas, he and Lois went to Clinton Street and sat down with her parents. Bill said there were strong rumors he could be headed for France by the end of February. They wanted to get married before then—so they could at least have a short time together as husband and wife. Clark and Matilda gave them their blessing. The wedding was set for January 24.

  All the young couple really wanted was a small, private affair. Dr. Burnham would not hear of it—certainly not for his first and dearest daughter. Matilda agreed and even had Jewelson’s Printery design special invitations and rush them out to the guest list only two weeks before the wedding.

  “My sister Barbara arranged for the church service, the flowers, and the music,” Lois happily recalled. “Father hired the limousine and the caterer. The most difficult part was getting my wedding gown finished in time. My mother insisted on using the lace from my grandmother’s old wedding dress she still kept in a trunk in the attic. It needed to be cleaned and caused the dressmaker fits. But somehow everything was ready in time.”15

  Elise was her maid of honor and Rogers, who had already joined the army himself at this point and later served in France, was Bill’s best man. Apparently because the Burnhams had organized the entire affair without asking any advice from Emily Griffith, Bill’s mother decided not to come. She called at the last minute saying she and her daughter Dorothy both had very bad colds and would not be able to attend.

  Bill knew it was a lie. So did Lois. When she had first met “Mother Griffith” that day outside of Boston, Lois sensed that this stern, very controlling woman felt her son was too young to be considering marriage, especially to a lady almost four years his senior.

  Lois recalled that when she received word Bill’s mother wasn’t coming, she asked Bill how he felt since he didn’t appear to be very disappointed. He said he’d miss Dorothy but that’s the way his mother was and Lois would just have to live with it. “I must admit I was grateful she moved to San Diego,” Lois added.16

  The only hitch at the wedding came during the reception, when Dr. Burnham saw his new son-in-law guzzling down a full glass of Scotch. The good doctor almost dropped his bifocals in the punch bowl. He said nothing about it then, but the incident remained embedded in his mind. It would one day return to haunt him.

  “Not only was the reception crowded with family, friends, and special guests,” Lois recalled, “but many of the soldiers from Fort Rodman came all the way down from Mas
sachusetts to congratulate Bill and I. My mother remarked that Bill must have been the most popular Second Lieutenant on the post. It was really a wonderful wedding and a wonderful two-day honeymoon afterwards in Manhattan.” Lois later discovered, however, that Bill always tried to “keep a lid on it” when they were together—that is, control his drinking. But that soon changed too.17

  Rogers shipped out in February. Bill did not. It wasn’t until early summer that he was sent to Fort Adams near Newport, Rhode Island, to await embarkation. Lois took a small apartment nearby.

  It was a balmy evening in the beginning of August, just a matter of hours before Bill was to leave for England. They climbed to the top of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and stood with their arms wrapped around each other. Lois would vividly remember that moonlit night. “We gazed out over the ocean. I was filled with so much pride in my husband. Yes, I was fearful too but somehow I just knew Bill was coming back to me and we would have a glorious future together.”18

  Bill boarded a troop train at eight o’clock that morning. As Lois waved farewell, she felt a sudden twinge near her midriff. She touched her stomach and thought she could sense a baby stirring in her womb.

  Marching through the French countryside, Bill saw the devastation of war in stark reality as they passed the empty trenches where thousands of young men like himself had been blown to shreds by German shells or gassed to death by chemical warfare. As he stared at scarred helmets and damaged weapons strewn across the landscape, those pangs of guilt returned. But he hid his feelings well and his men came to respect him.

  His artillery unit was assigned to a small mountain town miles from the front. Still, the constant fierce bombardment in the distance could be heard echoing through the hills and across the open countryside. But the young Vermont doughboy soon discovered that French wine could calm his nerves as well as New Bedford whiskey. The grateful townsfolk supplied him and his men with as much as they desired. So the young second lieutenant would sit at his gun emplacement, drink wine, and wash away his guilt. Before the bottle was empty, he was a heroic soldier once more defending his country against the enemy horde.

  Back home, Lois approached her old friends at the Brooklyn YWCA about their program that sent women overseas to help care for the wounded. She was willing to do almost anything to feel close to Bill during this time of war. But then she had her first miscarriage. She was devastated. She had been planning to write Bill about her pregnancy, but now she would have to keep this terrible news all to herself until he came home. She wouldn’t think of burdening him with it when he was already in such a dire situation and had always told her how much he wanted to have children. It took all of her mental stamina to sound cheerful in her letters to her husband, for inside she kept asking herself the question that many women dread—What if I can never have children?

  When Lois recovered physically, she went directly to the national YWCA board with her request to go overseas, but they turned her down. Lois was deeply upset that Swedenborgians (her religious sect) and Unitarians were not considered Christians by the YWCA according to the letter they sent rejecting her services. She couldn’t understand why a so-called “non-Christian” was allowed to instruct children at the YW yet not allowed to care for wounded soldiers as she wanted to do.19

  So instead of going overseas Lois headed to New York Presbyterian Hospital for training in a new method of helping the seriously war-wounded recover. It was called occupational therapy. Upon graduation from the program, she was assigned to the “shell-shock ward” at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. During her stay in Washington, Lois was reunited with some of her old friends from Packer Collegiate Institute who made her stay there more bearable. Talking later about her work at Walter Reed, she said, “The experience there was often heartbreaking, for I saw at close hand what war does to young men, and I kept wondering what it was doing to Bill.”20 Lois worried constantly even though she knew Bill was safe and far removed from the front. Before he shipped out, Lois had worked out a private code with him that was designed to get past the censors and let her know how he was and how close he was to the fighting. If he signed his letter “Billy” with the Y’s tail going straight down, that meant he was safe and not involved in the action. If it had a curve, he was at the front. The Y’s in his letters always had straight tails.

  While Bill saw no action in France, he did keep his artillery unit constantly prepared with frequent practice firing sessions. His senior officers were very impressed with his attitude and readiness. The truth is, drinking was not interfering with his military career or his personal life at that time. Alcoholism is a progressive disease. The downward spiral leading almost inexorably to an ultimate disaster may take time. But it does lead there eventually and too often, much too soon.

  Bill, in fact, was recommended for promotion and received a special commendation from his own unit just as the war was coming to a close.

  The armistice was signed in November of 1918. Rogers came home before Christmas, but Bill didn’t return from France until March of 1919. When the S.S. Powhatan steamed into New York Harbor that day and the troops disembarked amid a roaring throng there to welcome home their heroes, Bill ran straight into Lois’s arms. They kissed and embraced until their lips and bodies ached from their love. Inside their spirits soared. Bill had returned home safely. The country was alive with promise. A whole new world awaited them.

  Much to her chagrin, the first stop for Bill and his army buddies was a Manhattan saloon to celebrate. Lois wanted him all to herself at that moment, but, after all, they did have the whole rest of their lives ahead of them.

  For Lois, the next few weeks Bill was home was like a second honeymoon. Although now working as a physical therapist at the Brooklyn Naval Hospital, she was given two weeks off with pay to be with her returning hero. Bill didn’t want to talk about the war, so she didn’t force him. In fact, they didn’t talk very much at all. She only wanted to be with him. That was what made her happy—with one exception, the new habit he had picked up while overseas: smoking cigarettes. It was something she never got used to.

  Bill, on the other hand, while glad to be back, was rather uncomfortable living with Lois at Clinton Street. He was eager to find some kind of job so they could have their own place. He was treated well by the family but felt rubbed the wrong way whenever his father-in-law made what Bill took as patronizing remarks such as: “You’ve got to get on with your life” or “It’s about time to start thinking about a career.”

  Lois had been waiting for the right moment to tell Bill about her miscarriage. She was filled with anxiety. But it was difficult for them to find time alone at the house except in their bedroom where, of course, they had other things in mind. She finally drummed up the courage to tell him one evening as they walked together along a pathway near the Brooklyn Bridge.

  “When you were overseas, I never wanted to write you about any bad news,” she recalled saying as her heart beat so fast she had to stop walking in order to continue speaking. Bill just looked at her knowing she had something serious to tell him.

  “I had a miscarriage while you were gone. Oh, Bill, I’m so sorry.”

  He took her into his arms as she began to weep very softly. She remembered him saying with that disarming smile: “Don’t worry, Lo. We’ll keep trying. That’s the fun part. We’ll have a dozen kids, you’ll see.”

  Then, not wanting to say it, she let the words out. “But what if I can never have a baby?” she murmured.

  Bill looked into her eyes. His voice was filled with emotion. “Lois, all I need is you. You’re all I ever wanted. All I’ll ever need.”21

  They embraced for a long time. Then they continued walking arm in arm along the pathway by the river. Lois remembered how relieved she was after telling him and how deeply loved she felt at that special moment. If only it could have lasted longer.

  Only a f
ew days after Lois had resumed her job at the naval hospital, she came home early one afternoon to find her mother beside herself. Barbara was there in the kitchen trying to calm her down.

  “They’re in the basement and I can’t get them out,” Matilda kept saying. “Someone has to get them out. They’re smashing everything to pieces.”22 Lois rushed down into the dusty cellar where her father stored all the wine and liquor he was given by his “GP’s”—grateful patients. Bill and her brother Rogers, now also home from the war, had raided the stash. They were both uproariously drunk and were making a shambles of the place. Broken bottles were scattered everywhere. Lois had never seen her brother so intoxicated before and never saw him that way afterward. With Bill, it was no longer a surprise.

  She managed somehow to coax her husband upstairs and into a cold shower. It took both Barbara and Katherine to get their brother into the bathroom and into a tub of cold water—fully clothed. The conquering heroes became so deathly sick from mixing bourbon with wine, and Scotch with gin, that Lois and her siblings worked for more than an hour to clean up the mess. Matilda blamed it on their war experiences and quickly forgave them, as did the rest of the family.

  Fortunately, Clark was busy at the hospital at the time. While no one told him of the incident, Lois suspected her father knew something had gone on the next time he checked his liquor supply. But he never said a word.

  Lois was fearful Bill’s spree had something to do with her losing their baby. He swore it didn’t—he and Rog had simply started swapping war stories over a few drinks, got steamed at the “Krauts,” and began throwing the empties against the basement walls as if they were hand grenades. He appeared so humbled that she simply let it pass.