The Lois Wilson Story

by William G Borchert

  The incident did accomplish one thing, however. It got Bill looking much harder for a job so they could move out of the house on Clinton Street. He found one a few weeks later as a bookkeeper for the New York Central Railroad at $105 a month. It wasn’t much, but between that and Lois’s monthly salary of $150, they were able to rent a small furnished apartment on State Street, only a few blocks from Clinton. They were finally on their own.

  It wasn’t long before Lois realized how much Bill hated that job. There was nothing creative, nothing challenging, nothing rewarding about it. It gave him an excuse to stop at the corner saloon almost every night before coming home. But soon that would end, she thought, because Prohibition was on its way. It was something she now eagerly awaited.

  The temperance movement that had been growing in this country since the late 1800s, driven by social and religious activists well organized by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, finally led to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution on January 16, 1919—only two months before Bill arrived home from Europe. However, it wouldn’t take effect until February of 1920. It was now almost Christmas. Lois had only two more months to wait.

  Prohibition would last fourteen long years, but it stopped almost no one from getting a drink. Instead, it led to speakeasies in every neighborhood, bathtub gin and bad whiskey, and the likes of Al Capone creating an era of crime, murder, and mayhem. And it never once kept Bill Wilson from finding booze whenever he wanted it—and soon, whenever he needed it.

  Lois remained encouraging no matter how depressed Bill became at times. He quit his job at the New York Central Railroad and began bouncing from one dead-end job to another, growing more and more discouraged. It was those depressions that concerned Lois the most; they would be with her husband on and off for years. She would try to lift his spirits by reminding him of the dreams they shared at Emerald Lake and how Grandpa Griffith always said he could do anything he set his mind to. She would nestle him in her arms and tell him she was behind him and always would be, no matter what.

  Then, much to her surprise and delight, Bill came home one evening with that big, silly grin back on his face. He had finally found a terrific new job, one that offered him a great future. He had been hired as an investigator for the U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Bank to look into defaults of stock exchange firms on Wall Street. And, he proudly boasted, his experience as an army officer clinched the position for him.

  Bill had been enamored with the promise of Wall Street ever since he first met Frank Shaw. Suddenly, here was the chance to get his start in the investment community even though it would be through what he considered the rather boring banking industry. The opportunity began to spark those dreams of wealth and position once again and put that old fire back in his belly. Then, almost as an afterthought, Lois recalled, he said, “Since this new job pays a lot more, I decided to enroll in some night courses at Brooklyn Law School . . . if that’s okay with you.”23

  Not only could Bill afford law school, they could now afford that larger apartment they had been eyeing on Amity Street and furnish it the way Lois wanted.

  She was thrilled. They went out to dinner that night and celebrated. Bill didn’t drink. She felt in her heart that this was the turning point in their life together. Now all they needed was a baby to make it complete.

  The pressure Lois felt to have children didn’t necessarily come from Bill—at least not at this point. It came more from watching those around her raise growing families. Bill’s sister, Dorothy, for example, had married a doctor, Leonard Strong, and was now living in Tarrytown, New York. She already had one child and another on the way. And Elise and Frank Shaw were constantly inviting them to visit their lovely home on Long Island and see their growing brood of two girls and a boy. Even with Bill’s prodding, Lois was finding excuses not to go.

  Things only got worse when Lois found herself pregnant again—and less than a month later, having another miscarriage. This time it had been an ectopic pregnancy: the fetus was growing in one of her fallopian tubes. She required hospitalization for a few days before going home.

  “We stayed again with my family at Clinton Street for some days since Bill was working and going to school and I needed someone looking after me,” she recalled. “I remember lying in bed staring at the ceiling. For some silly reason I was afraid to look into Bill’s eyes for fear of seeing his reproach. How foolish. He was nothing but loving and supportive. I was my own worst enemy. I never realized then that it was my pride that was causing me so much pain.”24

  Bill and the specialist Dr. Burnham had recommended kept assuring Lois that everything would be fine, that nature could sometimes be cruel for a while but then could reward one beyond measure. So after a few months, she and Bill started working on forgetting the past and facing the future with hope and optimism.

  Lois began to thrive on the newfound energy and excitement flowing through her husband. He loved his investigative position with the Wall Street bank and was doing very well in his law courses. One weekend while reading the newspapers together, they both noticed a New York Times article concerning a competition Edison Laboratories had initiated to find a few “outstanding young men of all around abilities” to assist and support the activities of Thomas Alva Edison.

  What an opportunity, Lois thought, to work with the famous inventor himself. She challenged Bill to take the test. She teased him so much that “as a lark” he accepted her challenge. He admitted later how awestruck he was that day in New Jersey when, after finishing the exam at the company’s lab, he met the famous man himself and shook his hand.

  A few weeks went by. Then a month or so. They heard nothing. Then late one night, only a short time after Bill had arrived home from law school, their doorbell rang and a reporter and a photographer from the New York Times came charging up the stairs. The results of the competition were to be announced in the morning. William G. Wilson was one of the winners.25

  They snapped his picture with his half-asleep yet glowing wife nestled in his arms. They asked him a million questions about his background, his family, and his plans. He was a hot news story: another young genius inventor in the making.

  Bill enjoyed the inner satisfaction of accomplishing such a feat, the resulting notoriety, and especially the pride in his wife’s eyes. But before he left for work that morning, he had already made up his mind about his future direction. He had talked it over with Lois, and she was behind him all the way.

  It was 1923. A stock market boom was just beginning. Right or wrong, he would build a career for himself on Wall Street—and maybe invest someday in Thomas Alva Edison’s next great invention.

  Bill was twenty-eight now and establishing a reputation for himself as one of the most energetic and innovative investigators at U.S. Fidelity. He was not only uncovering fraud behind some stock defaults but discovering how it began and what it was costing naive investors.

  One morning while working on a case in his office, he received a phone call from his old and dear friend Ebby Thacher. He hadn’t seen his close pal in more than two years, not since the last reunion they attended together at Norwich University shortly after returning from Europe. Ebby had been working for the family’s cast-iron stove business in Albany and said he almost died of boredom. A wealthy cousin hooked him up with Baylis and Company, a small New York stock brokerage firm, and he was now plying his wares on Wall Street. They had lunch the following day and for several days after.

  As they chatted about old times and new times, Bill shared with his boyhood chum the facts he was uncovering while working at the bank and his rationale for all the defaults and fraud in the marketplace. He said his law courses were a great help. People just didn’t know enough about the companies they were investing in, he told Ebby. It was a crapshoot. People conducting business ventures could get away with murder because nobody was looking over their shoulders and demanding t
he factual information behind the financial reports they issued on occasion. There should be regular and specific analytical reports, and perhaps Bill was the one to start the ball rolling.

  The truth is, back in 1923, there was no such animal on Wall Street as a financial research analyst to meet with companies, discuss their operations in detail, walk the production line, “kick the tires,” and then write factual reports for prospective investors to review. Nor was there a Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee corporate financial reporting, auditing methods, and public stock offerings. Bill Wilson was far ahead of his time in recognizing the need for such valuable tools to protect the investing community.

  Ebby was impressed, really impressed. He suggested his friend try out his thoughts on some of the bigwigs at the leading investment firms. He felt confident Bill was onto something. But months went by and Bill still hesitated.

  Strolling together one weekend, Lois became very excited when Bill told her about his ideas and his conversations with Ebby. She immediately suggested he see Frank Shaw, who was now one of the senior partners at J.K. Rice & Company, a substantial Wall Street stockbroker. She even offered to call Elise, but Bill thought it better to keep it strictly business and do it on his own.

  He tried to reach Frank for an appointment the following week, but he was out of town and wouldn’t return until Friday. That’s the day Bill found himself in Shaw’s large, ostentatious office overlooking New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. The young investigator was more than impressed. Frank sat behind his huge oak desk and watched Bill gather moxie as he prattled on in a rather self-serving manner. He talked about the need to clean up the “Street” and open up the corporate information spigot so investors could find out exactly how well companies were doing in terms of current growth and earnings and future prospects.

  The face of the bigwig at Rice & Company began turning slightly pink as the blood moved slowly from his neck to his clenched jaw. When Frank finally spoke, he spoke in a defensive if not belligerent manner.

  He wanted to know how, after only three years at U.S. Fidelity and Guaranty Bank, Bill already had all the answers. He suggested that he first understand the questions. Bill quickly realized that Frank Shaw had taken everything he said as a personal affront and an indictment of the way his company ran its business. As Shaw walked toward his office door and opened it, he suggested Bill think more about his ideas, get more experience under his belt, put more information in his portfolio, and then come back for another chat.26

  It goes without saying that Bill Wilson left Rice & Company with his tail between his legs. He didn’t believe he was wrong, but he knew he had approached Shaw the wrong way. That made him very angry—not so much at Shaw as at himself. He called Ebby. They met at a nearby speakeasy that afternoon to talk things over.

  That same week, Lois had seen her doctor. She thought she might be pregnant again. The tests confirmed it.

  “I was scared to death about telling Bill,” she recalled. “What if it should happen again, was all I could think about. This was my third pregnancy.”27

  She decided to wait until the weekend. She reasoned that Bill worked hard all day and came home too late and too tired from Brooklyn Law School for any serious conversation—except for Friday when he had no school. She would make a nice dinner, tell him the news, and they would have the whole weekend together to assure each other that everything was going to be all right.

  It was around six o’clock when Bill arrived home for dinner. He had Ebby Thacher with him. They were both very drunk.

  5

  The Open Road to Success

  BILL CHOSE THE MOST ELEGANT AND EXPENSIVE RESTAURANT IN midtown Manhattan for the occasion. The salad was crisp, the steak tender, the service excellent, and the baked Alaska a delightful treat. While the evening was to celebrate their expectant parenthood, Lois knew her husband was trying at the same time to make up for his boorish behavior over the past several days.

  He had told her all about his disastrous meeting with Frank Shaw, his resultant anger and depression, and his deep disappointment over royally screwing up a great opportunity. He feared he had lost a strong Wall Street ally and perhaps even Frank Shaw’s friendship. Lois squeezed his hand and assured him that couldn’t be the case, not with Frank. He wasn’t like that.

  Still, as her humbled husband confessed, even this disaster was no reason to come home drunk three nights in a row, spoil the whole weekend for Lois, and rain on the parade of her exciting news. He promised it would never happen again.

  They kissed and toasted with their water glasses. “The third time’s a charm,” he kept saying. “You’ll see, Lo. The third time’s a charm.”

  They made love again that night and Bill fell asleep in her arms. She stroked his hair and touched his cheek, hoping and praying that he was right—that the third time nature, as the doctor had said, would reward them beyond measure. Two nights later, Bill came home unusually late from school. He tiptoed into the bedroom trying not to wake her. When he crawled under the covers, she pretended to be asleep. Her heart sank when she smelled the liquor on his breath.

  A little over a month into her pregnancy, Lois’s doctor strongly suggested she request a leave of absence from her job in order to take every precaution possible. Her father agreed and came by regularly to check on her. The leave may have been good for her physically but perhaps not so good emotionally. Every twinge, every sensation would raise her anxiety. Lois simply had too much time on her hands to sit around and think—not only about the baby but also about what Bill might be doing at the moment.1

  Why was he continuing to drink? she would ask herself. He still loved his job. He told her so whenever she asked. And he was still attending law school although now he was missing some classes, saying he was stuck at the office or at a late business meeting. Bill was a terrible liar. Even he realized Lois knew he was at some speakeasy with Ebby or with another bunch of hard-drinking friends.

  What was happening to him? What was happening to them? Lois would sit by the window and recall the promises they made when they were courting back in Vermont. They would never lose their love of nature, their love of the outdoors, they swore to each other. Those weekends before she became pregnant again, when they hiked in the Palisades or rented a boat and sailed along the Hudson River, filled them with such peace, joy, and contentment. It was so puzzling to her that on those treks, Bill never seemed to think about alcohol.

  Perhaps the combination of the fresh air and strenuous exercise created some special inner potion that took away the need for booze. Because when he returned to the city, trudging those dim chasms of Wall Street, that potion seemed to disappear and he was looking for a drink. And it was no longer just one drink, or even a couple. A couple always led to a couple more. If only they could both be back in the countryside right now, she would sigh.

  Maybe, just maybe, she would then say to herself, hoping and praying she was right, this time they would have a strong, healthy baby, and the excitement of fatherhood would prove to be the most effective potion of all to quench Bill’s desire for alcohol.2

  Little did Lois realize that her husband was struggling himself with the same questions at the very same time—mainly, why couldn’t he simply stop drinking so much? He always started with such good intentions. He would only have a few. This time he meant it, he’d insist. But those few always seemed to turn into a few more and then one too many—and he was off to the races. Even that hurt look on Lois’s face when he staggered in past midnight couldn’t seem to slow him down.

  He had to shake off this Frank Shaw mess, he kept telling himself. He’d sit down and put together a new and more positive spin on his company research idea. That’s what he’d do. Then he would present it to some other heavy hitters on the Street. Once they backed him and things got rolling, those damn speakeasies could take all their damn booze and f
lush it down the damn toilet because he wouldn’t need it anymore. He’d be on top of the world. But in the meantime, maybe he’d have just one more for the road.

  It was now May of 1924. As the weeks passed, Lois grew tired of sitting around reading books or talking on the telephone. One afternoon she decided she had to stop this moping business. She was feeling a lot better, she told herself, and there hadn’t been any twinges or strange sensations in quite a while. Standing in the parlor, she ran her finger across the nearby lamp table. It was covered with dust. So were the lamp shade, the coffee table, and the old rocking chair she inherited from Aunt Emma. Before long she was dusting and cleaning and feeling useful again.

  The pains didn’t start until she reached for some towels in a closet above the kitchen sink. Lois grabbed her side and sank into a chair at the kitchen table. Then she felt another pain, sharp and stabbing like the first. She tried to take a deep breath and couldn’t. Beads of perspiration broke out on her forehead. When the next pain hit, she decided to call Bill. The phone was on the cabinet next to her.

  Bill wasn’t in his office. She was told he was out at a meeting. She called Ebby. He was gone for the day. She glanced at the clock above the stove. It was almost four thirty. She tried to stand. There was a slight twinge, and then nothing. She moved to the sink and filled a glass with water. It cooled her insides going down. The pains seemed to be subsiding.

  Lois decided to wait until after six, when Bill was due at Brooklyn Law School. She switched on the radio, but even the music and occasional news report didn’t help pass the time. It simply dragged on.

  By six fifteen the pains had grown more intense. She called the school but Bill was not in class. As she hung up the phone, she suddenly realized she was bleeding. Trying to control her emotions, Lois immediately called her father. He had just arrived home.