Lois didn’t say any of those things, nor did she admit she was now making up excuses for her husband with Frank Shaw and others when Bill was so hungover he couldn’t keep his appointments. She didn’t confess the “white lies” she would tell the family when they were invited for Sunday dinner and didn’t show up. No, because she didn’t want anyone to know she was slowly becoming the kind of person she herself couldn’t stand—a person of low moral character. She had no idea then that alcoholism was a disease, not a moral issue.
Lois simply kissed Barbara goodnight and wished her a very merry Christmas.12
By the spring of 1928, Frank Shaw was growing much more concerned about Bill’s drinking and how it was affecting the firm’s important clients. He had been hearing some wild stories, but he also knew his highly successful research expert wasn’t the only man on Wall Street nor the only one at Rice & Company for that matter to “tie one on” now and then. Still, he simply couldn’t ignore the particularly embarrassing episodes his other partners were bringing to his attention.
Frank and Bill had another talk, this time eyeball to eyeball. Shaw said it had to stop—now. Bill agreed, admitting his drinking had gotten out of control at times and could lead to some serious problems if he didn’t stop. He humbly assured his mentor that his heavy drinking days were over for good. From now on it would be just a few beers once in a while. Deep down in his gut, Bill really meant it.
Shaw was a man with a keen eye for the “long-haul situations” that his researcher was continuing to unearth. Their arrangement had already proven so profitable for both of them he really didn’t want it to change. So once again he accepted Bill at his word. Back then, no one knew anything about the addiction of alcoholism and its downhill progression. Not only did he take Bill’s word, but a few months later when Frank was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and accepted the top spot at Tobey & Kirk, a major stockbrokerage firm on Broad Street, he talked Bill into coming along with him.
So on this particular day when they finished their tête-à-tête, Frank shook Bill’s hand and invited him and Lois to a major fund-raiser that weekend at the palatial Long Island estate of Joseph Hirshhorn, the firm’s biggest and most influential client. Bill swore he’d be on his best behavior.
Elise Shaw knew better. For months she had been listening to Frank complain about the pressure he was feeling from his partners to rein in the husband of his wife’s closest friend. Now he told her the problem was solved. She merely smiled and shook her head.
A few days later, Elise met Lois in Manhattan on the pretense of viewing the latest exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lois was happy to be alone with her best friend for a change. Over a late lunch, Elise casually raised the subject of Frank’s concern about Bill’s drinking and that it seemed to be getting worse. These two women rarely kept secrets from one another or denied the obvious when it had import on their lives. But alcoholism is a disease of denial, and that denial also infects the spouses and families of alcoholics. Lois certainly knew none of this at the time. She only wanted to protect her husband’s reputation and self-respect and, perhaps unconsciously or consciously, her own image and self-respect at the same time.
Lois admitted that Bill had gone off on a few sprees and done some very stupid things, generally when he was in bad company at those speakeasies—with men who had nothing else to do but drink. She had always suggested he stay away from that kind of crowd. However, after the fiasco in Cuba and his recent talk with Frank, all that was behind him now. Bill had finally turned over a new leaf.
When Elise tried to explain how it was with her growing up, how men with serious drinking problems were always promising to swear off but never could, she sensed Lois was turning a deaf ear. Bill wasn’t like those men, her friend insisted. He had a strong will, and with her help and support she just knew he could stop drinking. Elise soon realized she was talking to the wall, and if she cherished their close friendship, she would back off. So she did.13
That Saturday evening Lois and Bill drove into the sprawling estate of Joe Hirshhorn and his wife on Great Neck, Long Island, for the gala garden party they were hosting to raise money for their synagogue. Lois, wearing a long red taffeta dress, was eager to see the well-known art collector’s famous paintings and tapestries said to fill the lavish halls and rooms of their manor.
Joe was one of Bill Wilson’s idols. He had been a poor boy from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who began his extraordinary financial career as a runner on Wall Street. He used every nickel he earned to trade stocks and he gradually amassed a large fortune. As the story goes, he found a calendar lying in the street one day with a picture on it so beautiful that he framed it for his mother. That’s what sparked his interest in art. The financier went on to build one of the world’s largest and finest art collections, which he later donated to the U.S. government. Today that collection is housed in the Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Bill was already acquainted with Hirshhorn, having investigated several companies and a number of substantial real estate holdings at his request. Joe was so pleased with the results that he highly recommended the researcher to other big investors in the city. Bill felt very proud that night to introduce his wife, a painter herself, to one of the country’s important art collectors, who then had an assistant give Lois a private tour of his many fine works. She was thrilled.
Bill was on his very best behavior—for about two-and-a-half hours. After Lois’s tour of the house, they enjoyed the marvelous outdoor buffet with Elise and Frank and other business associates. Then they had several dances together. Spotting a few possible sales prospects in the elite crowd, Bill told Lois he’d be back shortly and began to circulate. That’s when he bumped into Clint Harris, a fellow drinking buddy from Rice & Company, chatting with one of Great Neck’s “gay divorcées” who knew the Hirshhorns quite well. They were both a bit tipsy.
Now, it’s a matter of record that very few drunks consider having a small glass of champagne “drinking.” So when the waiter passed by with a tray filled with champagne glasses and his fellow broker and his friend each took one, so did Bill. And then he took another, and another.
There are several versions of what happened next.14 Bill remembered he and Clint following the charming divorcée down into Joe Hirshhorn’s wine cellar to have their own private party. There were crates and crates of the finest French wine and champagne everywhere. His fellow broker—who wound up joining Bill in Alcoholics Anonymous seventeen years later—remembered unsealing the first crate and popping a cork.
“We sipped a little of the free bubbly in a dignified way,” Clint recalled, “then sipped a little more, and then [got into it] for real.”15
He said that the drunker they got, the more difficult it became to pop the corks. So they simply smashed the bottle necks against some piping and choked the stuff down like crazy. There was broken glass and sparkles all over the place and all over them. He didn’t remember what happened after that.
Back out at the party, Lois became very uncomfortable and ill at ease waiting for Bill to return. More than an hour had passed and she had run out of small talk. She kept staring at the richly dressed couples on the dance floor, trying to avoid Elise’s “I told you so” glances. Finally, she offered the “I have to powder my nose” excuse and set off to find her thoughtless husband. A guest who knew Bill said he had seen him and two companions headed for Joe Hirshhorn’s wine cellar.
On this special night and in this elegant setting, this caring and sensitive lady couldn’t believe the terrible drunken orgy she walked into. There were shards of glass all over the floor, puddles of champagne everywhere and the cellar smelled like soured wine. Bill was so drunk he could hardly stand. Clint had passed out on a bench. No one would say what had happened to the gay divorcée.
Certainly Lois had been angry before at her husband’s shamefu
l antics, but this was more humiliating and shocking than she could possibly stand. As she later shared, “I must admit I became a bit hysterical for a moment. I remember running at Bill and pummeling him on the arms and slapping him in the face. I kept crying ‘Why? Why?’ but it didn’t make any difference. He was so intoxicated he simply staggered backwards and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I wanted to run and hide but there was nowhere I could go. I had never felt so low, so upset, so angry, so terribly humiliated in all my life. We had to sneak off from that lovely affair like thieves in the night.”
Lois lingered until her husband was at least able to walk and until Elise and Frank Shaw had departed. A stranger at the party helped get Bill into the car. Lois didn’t even remember driving home. She often said later how useless it was to yell at her husband when he was drunk. But she admitted she rarely raised her voice even the next morning because he looked so pitiful and hopeless. “He was always turning over a new leaf and I always wanted to believe him until finally he even gave up on himself.”16 What Lois never said about that night at the Hirshhorns—in fact, what she was never willing to talk about then or later—was how she felt about that gay divorcée. How many other women were there like the gay divorcée in those speakeasies her husband frequented? How alluring were their charms once he had had a few highballs? What could he possibly find in them when he had a wife at home who adored him, who was willing to give him all her love, all her understanding, all her support? Why wouldn’t Lois ask herself these questions? Why would she be any different than the spouses of other alcoholics who asked the same questions and always feared the answers?17
Perhaps that’s why when Bill woke from his drunken stupor the next morning, there was a note on his dresser. It merely said:
I am going away for awhile. I will let you know where I am. I will not return until you are sober. Lois.
Lois had packed up and left for Washington, D.C., where she checked into a small hotel. Lois later admitted to a close friend that leaving Bill at that time was simply a ploy to get him to stop drinking. She wanted him to believe she wouldn’t return until he did stop. She even had her mother drop by to check on Bill and reinforce her daughter’s ultimatum. But the real truth was that Lois would rather be unhappy with Bill than unhappy without him and no matter what happened, she knew she would return to him.18
Even though Bill and Dr. Burnham were often at odds, mostly over his carousing, Matilda steadfastly defended her son-in-law, saying it was the devil’s curse that had him in his grips and that prayer and patience were the only answers. She continued to love and pray for Bill and make excuses for him until the day she died.
Perhaps because he was never really close to his own mother or simply because of Matilda’s obvious concern and affection for him, Bill truly loved his mother-in-law. He would try to do almost anything she asked—including not drinking. But at this point, that was impossible except in short, struggling spurts. Now, with Bill under great pressure both at home and on the Street, it was time for another of those spurts.
In Washington, Lois toured the Smithsonian, which always fascinated her, and then the monuments and some government buildings. She stopped by Walter Reed Army Hospital to visit with some old friends she had worked with during the war and lunched a few times with her college alumnae. She talked only about the good times, leaving out the bad—that she was on a brief holiday while her husband’s business kept him tied to Wall Street. Just a few more white lies.
The days dragged on. Matilda reported Bill was staying sober, three days, four days, five days now.
It was while Lois was strolling through a small playground near her hotel that the thought struck her. The idea had always been somewhere deep in her heart but now suddenly it sprang out so clearly she smiled with delight. As she watched some mothers pushing their young children on the park swings and a father waiting at the foot of a slide to catch his excited toddler before she hit the ground, Lois found the answer to their problems. They would adopt a baby.
She called Bill immediately. He was at the office, sober. He seemed elated at the prospect.
The next train heading east from Washington, D.C., carried a lady whose face was now filled with a bright smile instead of sad tears. The guilt she had borne for so long for not being able to give her husband a family he always wanted would soon be assuaged, at least in part, by having a baby’s cries, giggles, and laughter fill their apartment. Lois could hardly wait to get back to New York to begin the adoption process.
She went directly to the Spence-Chapin foundling hospital in Brooklyn. There, a very serious, matronly lady took down all the information and then showed Lois around. She even allowed the excited “mother-to-be” to hold several of the infants that had already been adopted and were simply waiting for the process to be completed so they could go home with their new mothers and fathers.19
Bill was still struggling to stay sober when he sat down with his wife each night to discuss all the intricate details they needed to supply the agency—information about his job, his salary, their family backgrounds, and the necessary recommendations from some close friends concerning their suitability as prospective parents. They also had to decide whether they preferred a boy or a girl, an infant, a toddler, or a young child. They both wanted an infant. It would be like having their very own baby right from the start.
The first person Lois went to see, of course, was Elise. From the moment Lois entered Elise’s lovely home, she couldn’t understand why her closest, dearest friend wasn’t as excited about the adoption as she was.
Elise Valentine Shaw always knew Lois Burnham Wilson would make the greatest mother in the world. She was deeply saddened after her unfortunate surgery ruined all chances of that. But Lois’s friend still carried the scars of her own childhood, growing up in an alcoholic home, being deprived of a father’s love and attention, with a mother living in constant fear and anxiety, and all the shame and embarrassment this kind of life carried with it. That’s why Elise firmly believed no innocent child should have to grow up in such torment.
Lois wondered at the time why her friend’s eyes moistened when she handed her the papers from Spence-Chapin for her to fill out, recommending the Wilsons as suitable parents. She left that day feeling strangely tense and confused over what had just transpired between two women who had always been open and honest with each other. She didn’t know then that the disease of alcoholism can affect even the closest relationships.20
Sadly recalling the adoption process, Lois said, “As weeks went by and we heard nothing, I inquired several times. The agency always replied that the suitable child had not yet been found.”21 She finally went back to Spence-Chapin. She sat down in the matronly woman’s office and asked how much longer it would be before they could adopt their baby. There was a long, ominous pause. Bad news, particularly for a warm, caring, needy woman such as the one seated before her, was always difficult for the matronly lady to convey. It had been decided, she finally responded as tenderly as she could, that under the present circumstances the agency would not be able to approve any adoption by the Wilsons. That was all she had to say.
Lois was devastated. She could not believe what she was hearing. She stumbled past the cribs of smiling infants, out of the hospital, and into the street, not knowing where to go or what to do. It was one of the lowest points in her life. When she talked about it years later, one could still hear the pain in her voice: “Bill was always sure the real reason we were turned down was because of his drinking. It wasn’t until later I learned this was so. I only had some doubts because Bill had been sober at the time.”22
It would be almost two years—the fall of 1929—before Lois would learn that it was Elise who dissuaded the agency from allowing her and Bill to adopt a child. The shock and hurt would wash away all understanding between them, sever what had been a bond almost as strong as that of sisters, and keep them apart for a n
umber of years after that—years when Lois could have used the kind of friendship they once had.23 Bill stayed sober for two months. It was his longest dry period since their motorcycle trip through the South. When he started drinking again, it was worse than before. Lois didn’t know if it was his disappointment again over not having a family, the continued pressure on him to find more and more investment opportunities for his clients, or—and this was always Lois’s deepest fear—that she wasn’t a good enough wife or a good enough lover. Whatever Bill offered as an excuse, Lois could always find some way to feel guilty about it. That’s what makes the spouses of alcoholics such warm and wonderful “enablers.”
Each night, while waiting for her husband to arrive home either for a late, cold dinner or a drunken midnight snack, Lois knelt in her bedroom and, remembering what her mother constantly told her, she would pray, “God help me to help him, my husband, my boy, who is more than life to me. God give me wisdom and strength and patience, for I love him, I love him, I love him.”24
After her mother died only a few years later, these prayers became like ashes in her mouth and fodder for her anger at the Almighty.
7
The Crash
THE RAMPAGING BULL OF THE 1929 STOCK MARKET RAN TOTALLY unabated not only through Wall Street but through the entire country as well.
Stockbrokers like Bill Wilson became revered seers since practically everything they recommended went up. Neighborhood barbershops hawked the latest stock tips, the corner shoeshine man owned at least a thousand shares of the riskiest penny stock available, and every overzealous political contender was promising a “chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”
Prohibition-born bootleggers were getting as rich as Wall Street tycoons and the female “flapper set” were setting the dress styles not only for Broadway but for B-girls and college coeds as well. As history now tells us, this period in America was aptly named the Roaring Twenties.
The Lois Wilson Story Page 13